readings

Educated with minimalist figures and text, computer scientists may be shocked to realize our representations for formal objects are not as constrained as originally thought. Until the era of computer graphics and fast computers, we had little need to inquire about what initially appeared to be exotic ways to encode formal knowledge. This is a challenge not only for computer scientists, however, but also for artists, who should be encouraged to consider the computer, and computing practices, as subject material as well as raw material. This suggestion may strike some artists as a modernist era agenda; however, as a tool or subject, the computer with its mathematical foundation creates significantly higher complexity than paint, palette knife, or chisel ever could.

— Fishwick, Paul A. “An Introduction to Aesthetic Computing.” Aesthetic Computing. Ed. Fishwick, Paul A. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2006. 3-27.

Licklider again described what computers could do for intellectual work: i“n due course it will be part of the formulation of problems; part of real-time thinking, problem solving, doing of research, conducting of experiments, getting into the literature and finding references and it will mediate and facilitate communication among human beings.

— Flichy, Patrice. The Internet Imaginaire. 2001. Trans. Carey-Libbrecht, Liz. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2007.

(…) the use of digital media is essential to the survival of craft practice. The key to achieving a viable curriculum in computing is in recognizing that programming — despite it’s abstract nature — has the properties of a concrete craft practice. I suspect that when the curriculum is designed by educators who have grown up with coding, the computer will become more transparent in our art and design schools. What makes for good virtual craft is not the quality of the technology but the application of our perceptive ability to generate surprises — combining motivation, visual thinking, knowledge of tools and our experience of media.

— Crow, David. “Magic Box, Craft and the Computer.” Eye Winter 2008: 20-25.

By calling digital art “[new] media art,’’ public perception has focused the zeros and ones as formatted into particular visual, acoustic and tactile media, rather than structures of programming. This view is reinforced by the fact that the algorithms employed to generate and manipulate computer music, computer graphics, digital text are frequently if not in most cases invisible, unknown to the audience and the artist alike.

— Cramer, Florian, and Ulrike Gabriel. “Software Art”. 2001.

By means of the use of sound, the computer is given a voice and thereby the ability to contact and communicate with its user and the world around it. In short, it comes alive. Three interesting aspects can be drawn from this Tamagotchi-like nature of the computer. First, the computer uses sound to draw our attention the same way that the sound of a telephone or an alarm does. Our responses to these sounds are part of our social behavior (…) Second, the computer is able to communicate the nature of its own state, for example: “I am running out of power” (…) The ability to communicate the possibility of its own ruin, thereby commanding us to act, is remarkable and unique for a tool; not many tools interfere with our social behavior in this way. Third, by the use of sound the computer not only communicates with the user, it announces its presence within a larger context and exposes the actions of its user.

— Breinbjerg, Morten. “System Event Sounds.” Software Studies: A Lexicon. Ed. Fuller, Matthew. Leonardo. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2008. 243-50.

The development of contemporary music shows an increasing dependence on concepts that are inherently variable, and obey evolving hierarchies. That is why we have already seen the series of twelve equal notes replaced by series of sound blocks of unequal density; metre replaced by series of durations and rhythmic blocks (whether dynamic cells or a number of superimposed durations); and finally dynamics and timbre no longer content with their decorative or expressive role, but, while preserving these qualities, seeking also a functional importance, which increases their power and importance.

— Boulez, Pierre. “Alea.” Stocktakings from an Apprenticeship. 1966. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. 26-38.

The complexity of the neural network process, and particularly the fact that neural networks appear to “learn” without revealing their methods, can give the impression that these networks have intelligence and are capable of creativity. As with genetic algorithms, however, we should not overestimate the abilities of neural networks or let comtivity mask a lack of true creativity. As we have seen, and will yet see, creativity need not be complex — in fact, creativity often produces the simplest, rather than the most complex, results.

— Cope, David. Computer Models of Musical Creativity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2005.

No one has trouble with the idea that “the same novel” can exist in two different languages, in two different cultures. But what is a novel? A novel is not a specific sequence of words, because if it were, it could only be written in one language, in one culture. No, a novel is a pattern — a particular collection of characters, events, moods, tones, jokes, allusions, and much more. And so a novel is an abstraction, and thus “the very same novel”.

— Hofstadter, Douglas R. I Am a Strange Loop. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basic Books, 2007.

Through language, other people’s bodies can become flexible extensions of our own bodies. In that sense , then, my brain is attached to your body in somewhat the same way as it is to my body — it’s just that, once again, the connection is not hard-wired. My brain is attached to your body via channels of communication that are much slower and more indirect than those linking it to my body, so the control is much less efficient.

— Hofstadter, Douglas R. I Am a Strange Loop. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basic Books, 2007.

Whistles signal. People communicate. The difference is profound. Designers may think their designs communicate, but, in fact, they only signal, for the communication only goes in one direction.

— Norman, Donald A. The Design of Future Things. Philadelphia: Basic Books, 2007.