On 03/04/2008, Marcel Wierckx <Marcel_at_lownorth.nl> wrote:
>
> the whole idea of hijacking the developments which arise from corporate
> culture is the essence of hacking, no? Probably an oversimplification,
> obviously.
I respectfully disagree. I would maybe call this "culture jamming",
depending on the context.
I realise we are opening a can of worms here but by perspective on "hacking"
is a almost Gnostic one. I think hacking is about knowledge of how the
system works, and using this, particularly where the system works in a
different way then how it looks like it works or how it's designer intended
it to work or it's general users think it works.
Of course; what you mention can and often is a part of that but for me the
focus is on knowledge. For example; if your school buys a thousand iPod's to
distribute recordings of lectures you are "hijacking" a commercial product
but I wouldn't say you "hacked" it.
But without the ugly consumerism which brought rise to the Apple Mac I might
> never have discovered MaxMSP and might never have found an outlet for
> creativity. I hate the idea of being a slave to the consumerist machine, but
> my awareness of its existence surely helps me gain perspective on my craft.
Oh, yes, and I wouldn't be typing this on Ubuntu if it hadn't been for the
corporate adoption of Linux on servers and I could never have bought the
laptop I have at the price it cost without the general popularity of
Windows, largely in the corporate world.
To make a hairpin-curve back to the topic; according to one text I read
years ago (sadly I forgot which one) one of the core aspects that keeps
music interesting is the balance between repeated/predictable elements and
unpredictable ones. To put it very bluntly a balance between ordered
elements and chaotic ones. It makes perfect sense to me that livecoding
systems and methods would mimic this.
There are other, less philosophical reasons why a micro development process
on stage (or for friends or just one's own ears) needn't be that formal, the
results not that stable. If I just play some music for a hour and it crashes
I srug and maybe start a new song. It just doesn't matter that much. If I
were contracted to write a application to manage a bank's system for the
next ten years a crash would be a very different matter and nobody would
think it was nice if daring techniques led to unexpected results. Of course
it's different.
What would be interesting is consider if there's a need to clarify the
difference more towards a lay audience. Commands like "bigify"(sp?) and
parameters like "maybe" are quite interesting there, but I also wonder if
too much of that attitude would "spoil the soup" (or fudge). Could be a
personal question, just like a preference for a lot of surprises or a lot of
predictability in music is.
Yours,
Kas.
Received on Fri Apr 04 2008 - 13:05:10 BST