>
> On Mon, 2008-02-25 at 11:50 +0000, Dave Griffiths wrote:
>> I think a livecoding performance _is_ boring if people can't read the
>> code, or at least - if it's indistinguishable by the audience from a
>> normal laptop performance, it loses most of it's significance (for me).
>
>>>From this I think it follows that normal laptop performance is boring,
> which I'd agree with. In that case it's better not to pretend that it's
> a performance and instead (for example) stand behind the 'audience', and
> let them instead look at each other, hopefully dancing and smiling at
> each other, rather than the music maker frowning and tutting at syntax
> errors.
I suppose my feeling is that livecoding is more than about music - and
this forces it into a music maker's shaped box, i.e. an instrumental
technique purely for generating audio. I see it more as some kind of
performance art of it's own right.
>> It's even worse if the code is hard to read - obviously in cases like
>> this
>> it is often due to circumstances, but it can give audiences a bad
>> impression. I feel that only making it vaguely readable can been seen as
>> saying "there is no point, as you lesser people wouldn't understand it
>> anyway". I think it's a very quick way of making people much less
>> interested in what you are doing.
>
> I think this really depends. If you don't think about things and end up
> with a tiny font on a crappy projection then that is frustrating. If
> you obscure your code in an interesting way, such as by superimposing
> multiple performers' screens, then that is funny. To me this is the
> best of both worlds -- the musician's movements are visible, but the
> audience doesn't feel like they're expected to read or understand any of
> the symbolic representations of whatever musical model the musician is
> using. So hopefully they will feel that something interesting is going
> on, and be motivated to listen for it in the music.
>
>> So just restating what I always say I suppose, but making things clear
>> is
>> key to increasing interest in livecoding imho.
>
> But I think you have been in favour of superimposing screens in the
> past?
I feel less strongly about this - but the context of the performance is
really important. When performing to the 'in crowd', overprojecting is
funny, but I'd be much less happy doing this to people who are less
interested in computer performance for it's own right. Maybe I am wrong,
but I don't think deliberately obscured text captures peoples attention as
much as something they can follow, even slightly.
I must make it clear that I'm talking about performance in terms of
broadening appeal - I'm not saying all livecoding should be about that.
cheers,
dave
Received on Mon Feb 25 2008 - 15:05:20 GMT