As for the idea of skipping the machine,
obviously (cf. my website) I just can't follow
you on that one. Although, sure, we could clearly
hide all sorts of processes in any phenomenon,
and treat all sorts of things like black boxes,
but do we want to, and can anything become an
abstraction but merely ignoring/avoiding it? I
would suggest not, and would even suggest that it
can lead us down a path of denial (Verdrängung).
Again, to a certain extent, I could follow you on
that path, because indeed, part of looking at
things algorithmically is looking beyond the
machine as mere mechanics. But I honestly think
you need to redefine the machine and it's role as
an ensemble, rather than as a pure means to and
end. No machine is mere means. It's a thought
process, and is indistinguishable with the
thinking it provokes. I figure that on a
livecoding list what I've just said is obvious.
But maybe I've misunderstood.
Anyway, music without instruments and musicians
is just as absurd as music without music. That's
probably why Wittgenstein was the only
appropriate response.
>In a real-world sense we can think about this
>occurring when an experienced
>composer/conductor/performer reads and "hears" a
>musical score purely cerebrally. This process
>completely skips the "machine" (i.e. the
>instruments and players) and moves directly from
>the symbol system to a mental reification of the
>abstractions defined by the score. In short,
>the composer becomes able to fluently translate
>between the symbol system (the score) and the
>task domain (the sounds of the orchestra)
>thereby avoiding the machine (the players and
>instruments of the orchestra) altogether.
--
/*
// Douglas Edric Stanley
<douglas_at_abstractmachine.net>
// Artiste
http://www.abstractmachine.net
// Professeur d'Arts numeriques, L'école supérieure d'art d'Aix-en-provence
http://www.ecole-art-aix.fr/
// Chercheur, Laboratoire Esthétique de l'interactivité, Université de Paris 8
http://www.ciren.org
*/
Received on Mon Jan 07 2008 - 20:25:04 GMT