Some feedback from one who was there.
As a show it was nice. The concept of a battle, the
funny presentation from the referee, ge's hat and
nick's gloves, both daring each other through your
comments... It was nice to see some humor in what
otherwise could have been a cold academic event. I
agree with what you say of a "true alternation of
gestures". I guess that if you present it so
spectacularly as a fight, people expect some fighting
in turns. Something like some rounds with five minutes
for each player or so could enhance the feeling of a
battle.
Visually speaking, I was impressed by ge's projection.
I'm not sure if that was the audicle or the sndtools
or whatever, but i hope that they release it soon to
get my hands dirty.
On the other hand, I think I prefer to see more code.
But on a side note I must confess that, never having
programmed supercollider myself(although I code other
languages), I didn't understand a word of nick's code
(I'm thinking of the amount of the process that the
non-coder casual listener can get).
Then music-wise, I really liked it. Both approaches
were different (despite the presets vs from scratch
thing) ge being more rithmic and nick more deep
sounding, but both enjoyable by themselves,
independently from the show (aren't any of you
thinking of releasing an album or whatever). I
particularly loved nick's bass sounds. Deeeeeep.
And last... it was so short for me, but I know that's
not your fault.
Some guys from galicia recorded two videos of the
show, one with the presentation and one of the concert
(but just the first part, no click nilson there. You
can see them at
http://tinyurl.com/bytk9
That's all. Greetings from spain.
--- Nick Collins <nc272_at_cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> (original script by Nick, some improvisational
> flourishes by Gregory
> Taylor, our kind referee, and some real
> improvisation once we fought)
>
> scene: a sweaty and humid gallery in downtown
> Barcelona, 7th Sept 2005.
>
> Ref: Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm Max MSP.
>
> Welcome to the 2005 Live Coding Championship Final
> for the disputed World
> Programming Federation Fingerweight Belt (hosted
> under the kind auspices of
> off-ICMC and Metronom).
>
> Plato vs Aristotle, Mozart vs Clementi, Kasparov vs
> Deep Blue, Cause vs
> Effect...all of these are nothing compared to what
> you will witness
> tonight.
>
> Pure, raw, unadulterated algorithm!
>
> Two laptops, two screens, a fierce rivalry of
> programming communities...
>
> They said we fixed fights, they said we are often
> silent for a long time
> before we make any noise, they said all this and
> more, but I'm here to tell
> you: it doesn't get any more algorithmic than this.
>
> (rabble rouse etc, are you ready to rumble...)
>
> In the ChucK corner, the ceaseless programmer, the
> man who doesn't sleep,
> the prince of Princeton, the Chef, We Gang!
>
> (Ge enters stage right, towel around neck, chef's
> hat, ChucK partisans
> cheer)
>
> In the SuperCollider corner, a controversial dualist
> from the previous
> WPFFB fight, he floats like a butterfly, stings like
> a b..b..cut... all the
> way from glorious Sweden, I give you...Click Nilson!
>
> (Nick enters stage left wearing boxing gloves,
> SuperCollider partisans
> cheer)
>
> Ge and Nick lock heads, separated by Greg, growl at
> each other.
>
> Go to laptops.
>
> Contest starts...
>
>
>
> Some feedback from the bout (additional comments
> welcomed from those who
> were there, especially Ge- sorry if any of this
> sounds one sided):
>
> David Wessel accurately observed that there was a
> lot of extra musical
> content, and was skeptical (like many of us) about
> the depth of programming
> possible under those pesky realtime constraints.
>
> Ge had had 2 hours sleep in the previous 48 so
> wasn't at peak form, but
> still attempted to recompile ChucK during the
> concert, and led at the
> beginning via presets.
>
> Nick was quiet at the beginning for about 7 minutes
> while he coded from
> scratch based on the Babylonian square root
> algorithm. Later on he used
> more preset material when Ge became quiet.
>
> Inevitably there was much we could have done but
> forgot to because of the
> stresses of the audience. Personally I regret not
> doing a code out ending
> via infinite spawn loop or similar.
>
> It was interesting that the audience actually
> expected a true alternation
> of gestures at the beginning. We could perhaps work
> more on this, with one
> coding while another plays. This would probably be
> v.difficult to do well,
> however, without resorting to presets and some
> slight adaptation of those
> to circumstances.
>
> We need to keep practising and force ourselves to
> get used to audience
> scrutiny. I'd practised every day for the week
> leading up but still
> performed somewhat worse than I'd hoped on the
> night. And it might be worth
> formalising some bout rules... for the moment, the
> bouts remain draws...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Received on Sat Sep 17 2005 - 09:38:12 BST