On 9/21/06, alex <alex_at_slab.org> wrote:
I apologise for shoehorning that rant about generative music into this
> discussion. It just happens to be a rant I'm brewing at the moment...
Yeah, but I understand completely. I was quite surprised with this little
book myself for similar reasons.
> Agreed although I think for two things to properly interact they have to
> have something approaching equal intelligence.
Absolutely. "interactive" is a terrible word, I fully agree there and Eno
seems to agree with both of us. "unfinished" doesn't quite seem to cover
what is generally meant either. More often "adaptable" might be meant? For
digital instruments the best you can hope for is perhaps "expressive". The
aim as I see it often isn't "interaction" at all and instead it's
"expression". The instrument isn't supposed to stand opposite to or beside
the musician but ideally extend him.
It's not at all clear to to me why that word gets used. It's not like there
is a great abundance of non-configurable digital applications that would be
considered for musical expression.
I have been considering making or adapting a sequencer that would "get
bored" if some element was left static for too long and that would start
changing such elements on it's own. That's still extremely low level and not
"interactive" according to your suggested definition by a long stretch but
on the other hand I imagine it would make many musicians quite nervous and
annoyed.
I don't think the general market for musical programs wants "interaction" at
all in that sense but I might be wrong.
>
> This sounds very negative but aimless drifting might be what you want,
> for example it suits the purpose of ambient music very well. The
> problem I have is when generative artists equate aimless drifting within
> fixed bounds with unbounded creativity.
I agree very much, especially if it's a performance context.
One of the tricky bits if of course that Livecoding results in "generative
music" in that musical elements literally follow from rules; defining the
rules is the performance.
Hopefully we would have specific aims but even then; writing rules that
results in us accomplishing our aims is quite hard.
It's quite often that I see laws result in behaviour quite different from
what the aims were.
....But now I'm drifting myself and getting off-topic, I suppose.
Kas.
Received on Thu Sep 21 2006 - 19:32:03 BST