throw out your keyboards, the future is the gamepad!
re: dance (symbol) mats - I tried this, but 9 keys was too little for me,
and I'm rubbish at using them anyway.
> one thing I always held for absolutely necessary for live coding is that
> you
> should turn on the internal mic of the laptop, so that at least you can
> hear
> the typing of the live coder.
> (that, and I would oblige every live coder to acquire some proper typing
> skills. Nothing so frustrating as being a fast thinker, but not a fast
> enough
> typer).
>
> sincerely,
> Marije
>
> On Tuesday 26 September 2006 17:53, Nick Collins wrote:
>> [warning- one thing below in particular is ethically dubious but
>> interesting to suggest...]
>>
>> I thought I might set down a few ideas I had the other day concerning
>> this
>> reoccurring issue of the physical.
>>
>> Not to anticipate too much I hope, but my current conclusion remains
>> that
>> live coding and conventional instrumental control are simply different,
>> and
>> should be celebrated for that.
>>
>> But as with all such sweeping categorisations, there is murky artistic
>> fun
>> to be had in the middle?
>>
>> Physical results after coding
>> Errors-> physical punishment.
>> Beethoven's father would strike his hands with a ruler if he made
>> mistakes
>> while practising. I suggest electric shocks applied to the programmer
>> linked to syntax errors or bugs of certain graded seriousness (obviously
>> linked to pain). A full system crash would be matched with death for the
>> programmer from a loaded pistol, or drop them from a great height as a
>> trapdoor opens, thus incorporating a real concert tightrope.
>>
>> Physical coding
>> Tangible computing and sign languages, jumping
>> The performer dictates a program in sign language. The performer plays
>> with
>> some tangible computing interface. The performer jumps around a symbol
>> mat,
>> etc
>>
>> Physical data as an input
>> Posture->sonification
>> The data to be sonified is the position of the live coder at their desk,
>> as
>> they unconsciously slump, fidget, fail to move an eyelid etc.
>>
>> Direct physical control
>> Typing notes is trivial, but uninteresting for a live coder (it is very
>> interesting for a pianist, I'm not against note control!). This is the
>> only
>> exemplar of note-level control with live coding, the rest is
>> score-level,
>> as described in many sources on interactive music systems (see David
>> Wessel's work for instance). We can argue about the score-code
>> analogies,
>> but I don't see any way around the failure to specify note by note with
>> direct feedback control.
>>
>> There are levels of abstraction that don't have a physical analogue, and
>> this is a fundamental brickwall we shouldn't beat ourselves up against.
>> It
>> is an inherent 'price' of live coding that directness is exchanged for
>> greater abstract power.
>>
>> One remaining speculation:
>> However, I think we can deal with automaticity, just not note-level
>> control. Musicians learn to automate many physical actions because they
>> otherwise could not control everything at once (this is why they have
>> very
>> developed cerebellums in neuro-imaging studies!). There is no reason
>> that a
>> machine assistant could not help us to automate coding tasks. Think of
>> going beyond auto-completion into auto-prediction. I might train up a
>> system on my August live coding exercises, then let it try to anticipate
>> what I will type far ahead. Of course, this is a blue-sky scheme which
>> will
>> be semantically lacking for the usual reasons of advanced AI etc. But it
>> is
>> one avenue of investigation for interesting live coding work- and could
>> remain an optional component of a performance system, to be grabbed if
>> necessary if you need to speed up your responses. You could train up
>> over
>> many rehearsals with acoustic musicians, linking automated audio
>> analysis
>> to code snippets...getting gradually faster?
>>
>> [the last paragraph is very speculative, and I'd also suspect such
>> artificial automaticity might undermine the interesting side of live
>> coding
>> where your conscious algorithmic thought is the focus. Nothing wrong
>> with
>> practicing fast thinking however, and there are some mathematical
>> automations surely possible- back to practice again!)
>
Received on Tue Sep 26 2006 - 16:59:24 BST