Re: [livecode] more new members

From: Rohit Gupta <fadereu_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 13:29:13 +0400

Hey there -

It is providence indeed, Doug- because I have not met many people
busying themselves almost exclusively with the study and
description, in whatever abstract form, of abstract machines.

It began as a book of theory, but now has become a fusion of traditional
storytelling from Rajasthan with whatever a laptop can do better than a
morchang. What I do
is this - I narrate a story in 9 parts of 45 minutes each over several days.
It's about
4000 lines of verse, like a hip hop hopera. Each part corresponds to one
abstract
machine that I tried to detail via fantasy and rhythm, with the help of some
friends who are artists. It's called The Jantar Mantar Projekt. I've pasted
a small excerpt from the progue below.

It would be fun to exchange thoughts with you on the subject and learn from
it. Your thesis is going to be very exciting to read!

warm regards,

--
Rohit Gupta
Bombay
An online archive of my work:
http://rohitgupta.xwiki.com
Excerpt from Prologue
*"What on earth is a Heuronymous machine?!" I asked him.*
*"You tantric simpleton! It is a machine whose blueprint is the machine
itself. Not that it need be on earth, per se. Come, let me show you…you see,
the whole thing is that - the idea is - you see, and that is the whole
problem."*
*"What's the problem with that? I mean, with seeing..."I said, perplexed.
*
*"You see – we mean, your eyes run over everything in a manner that has a
pattern. Like a telescope, like a broom, like a ray of sunlight burning
through the paper…we change that which we observe, and we are changed in the
process. So if someone knew how that circuit between a diagram and the eyes
worked, and designed a machine so that your very gaze – it ran around this
circuit diagram like an electron, do you have any idea what would happen to
your mind?"*
On 4/18/06, douglas edric stanley <destanley_at_mac.com> wrote:
>
> Howdy y'all!
>
> I don't remember signing up on this list but I
> suppose it's providence for two reasons:
>
> 1) I'm currently writing a doctoral thesis on
> "abstract machines" which is more or less a
> shortcut for algorithmic-based artwork, which is
> another way of saying that everything Toplap is
> doing is very cool and interrests me. I also met
> Craig Latta last summer who went through the
> whole process for me. And I'm a big fan of slub,
> slab, whatever...
>
> 2) I've been doing what you call "livecoding" for
> a little while now, not as long as most of you,
> but for about two years or so. I didn't really
> identify any of this practice with that term.
>
> It actually first began as an accident. I was
> VJ'ing with prepared algorithms for a DJ-soirée
> with a student of mine: we had about six
> computers with as many videoprojectors covering
> most of the walls. Bascially we were wallpaper,
> as is often the case in these sort of settings.
> About five minutes into the evening, a virus got
> into the network and started fucking with the
> machines. So we did as anyone would do, paniced,
> ran around with-our-hair-on-fire(r), and finally
> gave up. So we decided to play with it, and
> eventually began rebuilding the programs from
> scratch as the night went on. At the time we were
> using Director, so we would start with an asFFT
> skeleton and program from there. Since we didn't
> really care anymore at that point, we just left
> the code up on the screen, and people got into
> it. That gave us the idea to turn one of the text
> actors into a programming console, stick it on
> the stage, and with a key combination run it with
> the "do" function in Lingo.
>
> My stuents also mentioned last year how some of
> my classes are a bit like a performance, so we
> went with that idea and did a few semi-public
> livecoding sessions at the end of one of our
> workshops.
>
> Nowadays, I usually do this as a part of a
> presentation, where I begin or end it with a
> performance. But come this december I'll be doing
> a livecoding workshop in Mulhouse -- again as a
> VJ'ing mechanism. Thanks to a recent post on the
> Processing forum by Flo, I'll be using
> Processing. We haven't figured out yet what to
> use for the sound. I don't have the years of
> experience coding Processing as I do with other
> environments, so it'll probably be a learning
> experience for myself as much as for the
> participants.
> --
> /*
>
> // Douglas Edric Stanley
> <douglas_at_abstractmachine.net>
>
> // Artiste
> http://www.abstractmachine.net
>
> // Professeur d'Arts numeriques, L'école supérieure d'art
> d'Aix-en-provence
> http://www.ecole-art-aix.fr/
>
> // Chercheur, Laboratoire Esthétique de l'interactivité, Université de
> Paris 8
> http://www.ciren.org
>
> */
>

Received on Tue Apr 18 2006 - 09:29:31 BST