On Tue, 9 Nov 2004, alex wrote:
a> On Mon, 2004-11-08 at 16:52 +0000, Dave Griffiths wrote:
a> > I think part of what those guys are interested in is algorithms that
a> > respond to human input, which is fine in my book - as they are searching
a> > for better ways of controlling complex things in more gestural ways - I
a> > quite like that way of working. It's not strictly autonomous though.
a>
a> Agreed, but that approach puts great distance between the creator of a
a> process and the process itself. Would it be fair to say that TOPLAP are
a> for the humanisation of the process?
a>
i think it illustrates two ways of looking at the idea of an "algorithm."
their idea is the more traditional research-oriented idea: can an
algorithm resemble/replace a thinking human? toplap's idea is that we're the
humans and algorithms are something that humans "do", like making
music or making images.
they: algorithms =~ humans ... we: algorithms =~ musical instruments.
and/or
they: composition-related interest in algorithms
we: performance-related interest in algorithms
as to dave's question about AARON: that was the idea... how much like an
independently painting human could AARON become? the interest was in how,
over the years, cohen could give it increasingly less information about
what or how to paint, and it could make increasingly independent
"subjective" decisions. but what i think is most interesting was that of
course AARON's paintings exhibited cohen's aesthetics... so the
independence with which it could paint was juxtaposed by its strong
dependence on obviously very subjective algorithms written by its
author. AARON's success was that cohen didn't just program it - he
brainwashed it, which i like very much as it brought out that very
important subjective aspect to AI...
a> > We shouldn't be too extremist. I use lots of different mechansims for
a> > live music generation, including live coding, genetic programming and
a> > good old slider tweaking. Is this wrong?
a>
a> No I don't think so. It should be possible for TOPLAP to have an well
a> defined position while comfortably sharing a world with generative
a> artists.
agreed... will be interesting though to see if people start to confuse the
two approaches...
a> What I think is a shame is that artificial intelligence and generative
a> autonomous art gets an awful lot of 'airplay' in the cultural and
a> research institutions. To me, TOPLAP's position is actually less
a> extreme, trying to promote the use of computers more comparable to the
a> use of traditional musical instruments, for making immediate, hands-on
a> sound.
a>
i agree, it's just that other position is of more interest in academia as
it's more readily understood as research. toplap's position might seem
more generally accessible, but it's a bit less accessible as an academic
pursuit. on the other hand, research-oriented people do seem interested in
the toplap approach as well, as it represents research into new modes of
performance.
a> And in fact this position allows us to be far more open to the rest of
a> the world than the autonomous generative art position. A generative
a> musician can't go down the pub and jam with another musician, but a
a> toplap live coding musician can, because they have the same immediate
a> control.
a>
true, and i think this is why it appeals more to us, or at least some of
us - because we're focused on performance. although they perform live, i
think the livealgorithms' group's interest is really more in the
compositional aspects of the system... i.e., *what* the computer will play
when another performer plays X, rather than *how* it will play it live.
although the human performers are improvising with the computer, the
computer doesn't really "know" it's improvising live... it knows that
it's accepting input in real-time, but it doesn't care about the
"liveness" of its output. unless it's a very complex algorithm, a computer
will output the same thing whether you give it 5 seconds or a week to
think about it - i'm not sure the word "improvise" can really be applied
to a computer... this is where the toplap "human" approach is much different
- it sure as heck makes a difference that we're "outputting" live...
(nick please correct me if i've misunderstood either the interests of
the group or how the systems work.)
TopLap: Algorithms that Sweat
-_at_
Received on Wed Nov 10 2004 - 06:23:47 GMT