On Thu, 2006-09-21 at 16:06 +0200, Kassen wrote:
> Actually, it was in reference to the line between the "producer" and
> the "consumer" blurring.
*lots of interesting stuff snipped here*
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...
> I think this can be extended to Livecoding quite well. Ableton Live or
> a groovebox (or a guitar for that matter) are "unfinished" as a
> performance and need the addition of musical elements/settings/etc.
> Supplying those and thus finishing it is the performance.
>
> As tools themselves they are are finished though (or can be seen as
> such, one is still free to add different strings or plugins).
>
> Programing languages are "unfinished" on a different level.
>
> This is nothing new, just a perspective that struck me as interesting.
> You could debate wether Live or Lisp are more or less interactive. We
> clearly have our opinion but I also think millions of performers will
> experience Live as more interactive. It's more immediately clear that
> Lisp is far more "unfinished".
Agreed although I think for two things to properly interact they have to
have something approaching equal intelligence.
> Speaking generally, generative music is aimless drifting
> within fixed
> boundaries defined by rules, whereas livecoding allows the
> both the
> rules defining the boundaries and the rules defining movement
> within
> those boundaries to be changed, on-line.
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 can see completely where you are coming from but the book-dump in
> The Hague had this little book called "A year with swollen appendices"
> by Eno for the price of a burger. At a quick leaf-through it looked
> interesting and I have to admit that despite my reservations about
> some of Eno's work it's a treasure trove of interesting ideas and
> angles.
I'll search it out, thanks.
> Even if he *had* been referring to generative music; that's no reason
> not to borrow a interesting angle. After all; we need to borrow from
> somewhere and many of the more traditional ideas on programing (I'm
> thinking about business environments here) are downright boring.
Agreed!
alex
Received on Thu Sep 21 2006 - 17:20:52 BST