On 9/21/06, alex <alex_at_slab.org> wrote:
>
> Agreed although I guess that was in the context of generative music, and
> to me livecoding is a bit more interesting than generative music.
Actually, it was in reference to the line between the "producer" and the
"consumer" blurring.
Eno observed that people were releasing up to 20 mixes and versions of songs
and predicted (this is in 95) that soon people would release "construction
kits" instead. He was also referring to consumers having more playback
options on modern hi-fi systems ("jazz club" presets and so on).
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".
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.
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.
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.
IMHO, of course....
:¬)
Kas.
Received on Thu Sep 21 2006 - 15:00:20 BST