Jim Andrews
Since the beginning
Works in Victoria Canada

ARTBASE (2)
BIO
Jim Andrews does http://vispo.com . He is a poet-programmer and audio guy. His work explores the new media possibilities of poetry, and seeks to synthesize the poetical with other arts and media.
Discussions (847) Opportunities (2) Events (14) Jobs (0)
DISCUSSION

unmapped


the earth is specked
with maps of the earth.

there is no map
of these specks.

ja

DISCUSSION

Re: Mods


> velvet strike.
> give peace a chance ;)
> yrs,
> gb

thanks, giselle. i checked it out. i've played counter strike a bit. if i
understand correctly, the mod is a supply of anti-war spray paint graphics?

do you think that upsets the counter strike apple cart sufficiently much?

i forgot to mention that the computers the kids will have access to will
almost certainly be macs; i think counter strike is pc only, isn't it?

ja

DISCUSSION

Mods


I need to do a presentation to kids (two groups, one is 7-11 and one is
12-15) on game mods.

The point of the exercise being to give them more or less what they need to
try doing a mod themselves.

I have never made a mod.

Think I'll concentrate on mods on one game in particular. Suggestions as to
what game I should use?

ja?
http://vispo.com

DISCUSSION

Re: Naked Code


when people want to make at least some of the code of an art project public,
they might do so out of various motives.

one of the more interesting possible motives would be out of curiosity about
how the code (or part of the code) of a project could contribute to the
piece as a work of art.

there are various ways how this might happen.

i suspect that we might be able to divide these ways into two groups (not
mutually exclusive).

the first way concerns the poetry of natural language, the poemy poetry of
natural language, however un-poemy or tortured it might be as natural
language. for the most part, this would be in comments and perhaps in the
naming of the variables.

the second way concerns the poetry of mathematics, engineering, and code
ideas. for instance, the code idea in 'oeil complex,' discussed in
http://turbulence.org/curators/Paris/durieuenglish.htm , is crucial to the
poetry of the piece at all levels, but the beauty of the code idea is not
expressed or expressable in the poetry of natural language.

to appreciate the code idea, you do not have to understand the mathematics
of the geometry, but if you do, there is considerably more to appreciate.

i think it would be unfortunate were it *necessary* to expose *all* the code
of a project, but to need to expose *some* of it may further inquiry into
the question of how the public portion of the code of an art project might
contribute to it as a work of art.

ja
http://vispo.com

DISCUSSION

Re: Naked Code


Does anyone else get a bit creeped out by being required to expose their =
code in order to receive financial support?

I recently decided against applying for a few new media grants because of=
they required that the code/technology be open sourced. Please don't assu=
me that I am suggesting that open source is a bad thing. Its the requireme=
nt that I find a strange and upsetting trend.

Jason Van Anden
http://www.smileproject.com

Hi Jason,

There are various reasons why one might not want to make ALL of a project=
open source. One might want to use code that's proprietary. Or one might f=
eel that some of the code is neither of any use to anyone and/or it's spag=
etti or not readable or whatever.

But to make some part of a project open source, perhaps even a relatively=
small part, seems like it could be interesting and hopefully useful also.

I'm not interested in perusing a 300 page code project that's unreadable =
(or even one that *is* readable), but reading something short, sweet, and u=
seful, I'd like that. Something I wouldn't mind stealing. Something with in=
teresting code ideas.

An insistence that the whole thing be open source, erm, that'd be kind of=
constrictive.

ja
http://vispo.com