> Hi Kassen
Hi, Marcel!
It's good to see you become active on the list.
> going into the Barcelona event into too much detail is beyond the scope of
> what I am trying to say in the paper. I could have written an entire paper
> on only that (and in fact it looks like Nick has) and that's not my goal.
> All I wanted to say is that it was that performance which inspired me to
> develop a different angle on live coding performance practice. I'm afraid
> that by opening my paper with a description of that event people are putting
> too much weight on my observations, and therby thinking that I am boldly
> criticizing the performance. That is not at all my intent! Obviously I am
> going to have to try to tone down what I write so that my point comes across
> better.
>
I don't think there is anything wrong with opening with that scene; I think
I do realise what you are trying to achieve which is to illustrate how you
originally arrived at the concept and what origin you started from in
developing your own contests. It might be preferable to place more emphasis
on this being your own experience which led to your own concept. There's
nothing wrong with starting from a hunch, then relating that back to
objective fact only later. You have plenty of opportunity for that because
you did book results. In a way this paper is about a personal search of
yours and I think I'd recommend placing more emphasis on that.
I think we all agree that it would benefit from some more work but I'd also
like to add that I think this is very worthwhile. Yours may well be the
first experiment with competitive livecoding on this scale so chronicling
how you arrived at it and what you found so far could benefit others.
Your note on this Jazz drummer and his influence on other performers was
> > quite interesting but I think this supports the suggestion I made earlier
> > about duets at least as much as your own stance on competition so perhaps
> > including a note in that vein would be relevant.
>
>
> not exactly sure what you mean here, which suggestion do you refer to?
>
The section linked to note [6], sorry, I can't easily copy-paste from the
PDF. You talk about Owen Hart jr. That quote could be used to illustrate the
benefits of both competition and duets, depending on how you see it.
> these kinds of references are meant to keep the tone of the paper light,
> with the goal of making it more interesting for a wider audience. These
> kinds of things are always dangerous, I know, so I am grateful for the
> feedback.
>
I did laugh about those :¬). Still, I don't think the link between your
writing and the examples is that clear yet. It could also be read as you
trying to actually use those snails as saying something about people. If
we'd take that line of reasoning seriously we may need a ban on salty food
(if I can exaggerate for a second).
> > I hope this was of some use to you, I intended this criticism as trying
> > to be helpful, not as competing. Apologies for that. ;¬)
>
>
> no apologies necessary! this kind of discourse is stimulating and fun!
>
Sorry, joke. I imagined the funny situation where I was so swayed by your
text I'd try to help you improve it by announcing I'd write a better paper
on this topic. :¬p
Perhaps I should add, for my fellow list members who haven't had the chance
to attend, that I listened and played in your contests and that it does work
nicely. People do listen and watch and are indeed quite engaged ("you missed
a semi-colon!"). It's only fair to mention that, if we only dwell on your
subjective experience of the Ge-Nick battle and your draft being -well- a
draft we wouldn't get the whole picture.
It *does* work nicely. While we're at it, the one real downside of your
format as I see it is that the pressure in combination with the short bouts
seems to encourage presenting pre-cooked ideas and "quick tricks". This may
have good aspects; part of the game could be considering how daring you are
willing to make it and still be sure you can pull it off under pressure (and
not -say- panic then being unable to adapt to small mistakes early on) but
I wonder if this might be cause for considering assignments or other
constraints that would be unknown in advance to force people into adapting
and improvising.
Yours,
Kas.
Received on Mon Feb 25 2008 - 11:13:41 GMT