Alex;
> I've not seen nearly enough anger, maybe we haven't been provocative
> enough. When Nick and I did a talk at a 'blip' night in Brighton
> there was some angry questioning but nothing substantial. In my
> experience people either like the music and therefore think livecoding
> is good, or hate it in which case people think it is a stupid
> diversion and ignore it.
>
Maybe we have been directing our performances at the wrong audiences. While
seminars on computational creativity are very interesting it's hardly
surprising that they will be happy with texts on Livecoding. Wired's
techno-fetishists will like Slub better than "Me and my Guitar monthly"
will. The very best we may be able to hope for is complaints about a lack of
unit-tests, maybe a Dijkstra quote delivered with a frown. Perhaps we should
try entering "battle of the bands" style evenings or show up at nights of
open poetry? Maybe that strategy should be combined with a Panasonic
Toughbook sponsorship.
>
> I think Perl 5 doesn't have a spec, just one very wacky interpreter...
>
I always had my doubts about Perl as a "formal language" :-p
> I understand that the throat has evolved to support speech but
> research into sign languages and their users can readily discount any
> such strong claims. In particular I think the idea of a speech
> 'module' tied to articulations of the vocal tract is nonsense.
>
I would like to point out that I never made that last claim or any claim
about the actual exact functioning of the brain. Do you have a link to a
article "readily discounting" that the development of language led to (more
advanced) symbol manipulation in human behaviour/thinking and that bonobos
may be affected in similar ways by teaching them language? I'm not drawing
your expertise into question but that's how I always understood these things
were held to work.
>
> > Perhaps somebody will reply to this debate solely using abstract images?
>
> Are letters of the alphabet abstract images?
>
Not in the sense that I meant here. I'd say they are symbols. I would say
that the term [SinOsc] (including the letters used in it) conveys meaning in
a very different way than a Mondriaan painting (I'm excluding his early work
here).
>
>
> So if you have two descriptions for the same thing, the shorter
> description is the most conceptual? That is, the 'more generative'
> description is more conceptual?
>
No, the description of that structure may be shorter than a specific
implementation (it might be longer as well). I meant the more conceptual one
is a more generalised one, indicating a (infinitely large) set of melodic
structures. I might be interested in the effect of that type of structure
itself more than I am in the actual notes contained in any one specific
example of it. Livecoding, unlike typical sequencers, allows me to describe
that type of structure directly instead of indicate it by example. I'd have
to add additional constructs to end up with actual music, maybe a random
number generator or analysis of my typing speed but I have no issue with
that.
For example; Wolfgang Voight released a series of records exploring the
edges of techno (this is a bit of a central theme to his work). One of his
aliasses is "m:1:5" meaning Maßstab (or ratio) one to five. These records
hold techno tracks where one rhythm is overlaid with itself at a fifth of
the speed. I hold that while the actual pieces (as are people dancing to
them) are fundamental to his questioning of what is and isn't still "techno"
the title and description point more directly to the exact method of
questioning used.
It could be argued that what I mean by "more conceptual" actually seems to
be "closer to the the concept as Kassen experiences it". This seems
incredibly vain on one level but may well be unavoidable.
>
> I think concepts are informing the writing of code, so the code adds
> extra evidence of concepts rather than representing or being concepts.
I might agree with that. For safety's sake I should because it's becoming
increasingly clear that I'm not completely sure what the word "concept"
means. Can -for example and your opinion- the meaning of the word "concept"
be expressed in natural language? In a formal one? I am still maintaining
that I hold that descriptions of musical phenomena in code are often "more
conceptual" than any particular example of them in played or recorded music
though.
As a side note; English has the expression "arguing semantics" which is
generally used to mean arguing about trivial matters. I still find that very
odd as I feel attempting to agree on semantics is quite fundamental to
agreeing in any spoken or written conversation.
>
> I agree that the code adds to the performance whether or not the
> audience can understand it though.
>
Phew. ;-)
>
> I put my position paper on computational creativity here, which might
> be relevant to this discussion:
> http://yaxu.org/questions-of-creativity/
>
Yes, quite relevant indeed. Thanks.
Yours,
Kas.
Received on Tue Jul 21 2009 - 11:40:58 BST