On Sat, 2007-04-07 at 14:26 +0200, Kassen wrote:
>
>
> On 4/7/07, dave <dave_at_pawfal.org> wrote:
>
> It seems to me, from doing performances with various things
> (including
> al-jazari) that the clearer the code (in whatever form) the
> better the
> audience reaction.
>
> I think that's true. I think I wrote a brief note some time back about
> obfuscated code. Would obfuscated live-coding be Toplap compliant? To
> me the comunicative side to livecoding is a very important aspect and
> obfuscation harms that.
>
>
> Also, maybe, livecoding with a visually over complex language
> is not too
> far away from not livecoding at all - i.e. it's just hiding
> behind
> something else, and somehow saying something worse - "you're
> not clever
> enough to understand this, but I am!".
>
> I worry a bit that that is how livecoding is percieved
> sometimes.
>
> That's certainly a risk but it's a thin line. I'd also say that
> expressing original and new musical ideas can be a important part and
> those will need some time to settle in anyway, likely more time if
> they are linked to the specifics of some language. I know that for me
> coding in ChucK influenced some of my ideas about music so now there
> are some ideas that can be expressed quite naturally there but that
> might be hard to understand if confronted with that syntax for the
> first time. Still; I don't think coding is that interesting if you
> don't make something new so that may result in hard to understand
> code. Good video could help there. Clearly the video isn't the
> preformance but it might help in the communicative process by giving
> more time to digest the performance.
>
> Maybe presentation is most important there. You can come across as
> elitist with a 808 just as easily so perhaps coming across as if you
> are trying to explain and stimulate rather then demonstrate would be
> enough.
>
> I think your own al-jazari is doing great there. It's very striking
> visually and it has that "can I try next after you are game over?"
> feel that good games have. My girlfriend (who is just starting out in
> Java amd likes experimental music and games) thought the ones where
> you generated shapes and sounds were nice for a brief look but the
> coding context wasn't imediately clear to her (I blame the
> resolution). On the other hand al-jazari was imediately captivating
> and that one did make her drop what she was doing. Admittedly a small
> data-set but it was a very strong responce.
That's great to hear - I'm much happier with betablocker/al-jazari than
the approach I used in noisepattern - partly that's due to the fact that
it involved manipulating lsystems, which although allow you to describe
very complex patterns, still feel static compared to the dynamic nature
of the much simpler processes involved in the other programs.
> To me beta-blocker comes across like those you-tube vids of expert
> players in shooting games ("ikaruga" is a good example). It's beyond
> my level but it looks realy cool and I'd like to practice and be able
> to play like that. Most defiantely "you're not clever enough to
> understand this, but I am!" but the cheerfull interface seems to imply
> we could all be that clever if we'd just practice and that that
> practice would be fun. I think that's a nice message to send.
Interesting - I think this is actually the best message to send from my
point of view,, ideally i'd like to use live coding to undermine the
idea that programming is hard - that notion is mainly maintained by
programmers in order to justify their existence :)
cheers,
dave
Received on Mon Apr 09 2007 - 22:06:57 BST