On Wed, 2008-04-02 at 17:33 +0200, Marcel Wierckx wrote:
> how is this different from going to an orchestra performance? I could
> also close my eyes and pretend I'm listening to a cd.
You may close your eyes in an orchestral performance but if something
unusual happens which piques your curiosity, you may open them again.
> The difference
> has nothing to do with the laptop, but everything to do with
> authenticity.
I don't think it is much to do with feeling you are being made a fool of
or lied to, if that's what you mean. I think it's more that you don't
know what is going on. Something is happening to make this sound, but
you can't see what it is.
This would be fine if it wasn't for the peculiar arrangement of chairs
and social conventions that lead to you facing the back of someone's
laptop, wondering what you're doing there. I have no problem with
people hiding their screens if I'm not somehow expected to watch them
doing so.
> Today, one goes to a live performance more for the
> event than for the music.
When has that ever not been so?
> An orchestra performance is authentic because it is impossible that it's
> not.
I disagree, but perhaps I don't understand what you mean by 'authentic'.
To me an orchestral performance is about as artificial a musical
situation as you can get, although this need not affect your ability to
enjoy it.
> That cannot be said of a laptop performance.
Even if the screen is shown?
Perhaps my request for evidence of human movement and your request for
authenticity aren't so different, in any case.
> "The practice of programming is informed by the corporate world of
> business software, with its talk
> of formal design, unit testing and ISO quality assurance. This all
> attempts to drive the creativity
> out of programming so that software may be as predictable as possible."
>
> I find this to be an unnecessarily pessimistic statement.
Yes I admit this section is overblown and perhaps a little outdated. I
decided to leave it in, because there is plenty of truth in it. Despite
the readiness of counter-examples this side of the software industry
does exist, lures many talented young programmers in with highly paid
jobs, and has a heavy bearing on computer science in many universities
(certainly on the course I went through). I certainly didn't have
students like yours in mind!
I guess I am to some extent projecting my experiences on to the world in
this section, Paul Graham style. I went through a rather vocational
undergraduate computing degree (although I didn't attend very much),
then got a job in the banking industry for a short while afterwards.
Maybe I just made the wrong choices and things are very different now
anyway.
Ah well, too late, the article is in now.
> In general, your article touches on a theme which is very important
> to me - the use of technology as a means for personal,
> individualistic expression. However any technology which has
> developed beyond the limits of what is immediately understandable to
> an individual brings with it problems of what can be considered
> individualistic expression. To use the Picasso analogy: I could watch
> him smear paint across a canvas and immediately afterwards run out to
> the forest, find a branch, pluck some hair off the back of a squirrel
> to make a brush, and perhaps use my own blood to make a painting. Not
> so when seeing a live coder: I would be dependent upon the
> generations of designers which put their intellects to the task of
> developing a machine which I might never in my lifetime fully
> understand. Because after all, living coding is ultimately the
> control of a machine which is the product of another human's
> creativity. I don't say this as a criticism of technology-driven art,
> but as an observation, and I am constantly asking myself how I should
> feel about its implications. As you quote Cage saying: "We’re getting
> music made by man himself: not just one man." What then can I create
> which I can truly call my own?
Well said, now I'm dizzy...
alex
Received on Wed Apr 02 2008 - 20:47:01 BST