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

Re: Re: RHIZOME_RARE: A few words concerning open-source and art


don't get me wrong, i am all for artist-programmers distributing their code,
if it is useful, interesting, and well-documented. that has been a task i
have spent quite a bit of time on in some of my work (such as
http://vispo.com/nio ). the technotes essay I wrote discussing the code
ideas is now part of the Director documentation on audio programming. and
wfs is code for director i release for a price ( http://vispo.com/wfs4 ).
and there's other code at http://vispo.com/writings/index.htm#lingo

you may have missed my point, though, pall. the main point was that the
durieu code idea was revealed in the interview. if one understands the code
idea, one does not need the code. also, the code itself is not enough to
understand the code idea because the code idea involves knowledge of
mappings of the complex plane. i suspect durieu mostly wanted me to
understand the code idea because it's beautiful. a most elegant use of
complex number theory in the service of art. there's the 'who done it'. then
there's the 'how'd e do it'. riddles should add to mystery, more than the
sum of their parts. i thought that's how it went down.

i agree with your notion that "Art has never been solely about what is
seen/heard/experienced, etc.." and that source code can be an important part
of a piece of programmed art. additionally, one can help other
artist-programmers to advance programmed art by releasing one's source code.

but there is no moral imperative to operate this way. there is much unseen
even in the seen. i know you understand this. not sure rob does though.

ja

DISCUSSION

Re: Re: RHIZOME_RARE: A few words concerningopen-source and art


When there is both some point in making the code public (there isn't always)
and the artist-programmer does not thereby forfeit potential earnings, then
they should consider making the code public.

But consider the code discussed at
http://turbulence.org/curators/Paris/durieuenglish.htm . The code was not
made public, but the code idea *was*. And it was made public in a much more
interesting way than by making the code itself public. Whoever wishes to use
it may, obviously, but they first have to understand it. They don't need the
code itself if they understand the idea. And the code itself is not enough
to understand the idea.

The notion that "we need a Free Software-style moral imperative to show
code" gives me the willies.

ja
http://vispo.com

DISCUSSION

Re: Re: RHIZOME_RARE: A few words concerning open-source and art


when there is some point to it, i like to make the source code available.

i would like to make the code of http://vispo.com/kearns available. why?
well, with the exception of one part of it, the logic is not circuitous; it
is readable to a relatively casual reader-programmer. also, parts of the
code do interesting things fairly simply. and it is a literary work; if
possible and the code is conceivably of interest--and use--to some people,
it would be nice to make the source code available. and there are some code
ideas in it. and some code themes and techniques that run through it.

there's one part of the code, though, that presents several problems in
making it public. it contains behaviors that i wrote and sell. it also
contains programming work of other people. and it is client-server oriented;
there's PHP involved also, besides the Lingo. so i can't really make that
particular little part of the code public. it won't be difficult to take
that part out. the code written by other people is code that was publicly
available, but if i release it as part of a work by me, then they need to be
properly credited (as they have been in the credits) and i would need their
permission to release it publicly.

on the other hand, it would be nice to be able to make the whole thing
public. because it will stand a better chance of survival that way. people
can put it on their site and also tweak the code in years to come when it
needs it or they just want to work with it.

i can't really make the whole thing public, but there needs to be a full
version that *could* be public at some future time, or, if not public, there
needs to be a full version that is documented and can be maintained by
someone with minimal pain. really minimal pain. or the thing doesn't even
stand a chance of surviving. if that's ok with you, fine. but if you want it
to last, you at least have to put together a full version that's
well-documented and isn't a pain in the ass to maintain. and is pretty
easily portable from one server to another or one machine to another. and
and and.

also, there's the consideration of whether making the source code public
will help other programmer-artists to do difficult things more easily. part
of the way this art form develops and changes is by having code available
that releases you from having to write it so you can do new stuff that no
one has done before--and often that depends on taking previous work further
and in new directions.

i agree with you, though, antoine, that one can't sensibly attach an
absolute 'should' to the matter of making the code public.

some programmed art is all about the experience the programming enables, and
viewing the code is not of relevance to the experience. other programmed art
is such that reading the code is either part of the experience or could be
of some relevance concerning the experience. neither is inherantly superior
to the other.

the code has to be pretty special for me to want to read it. would have
liked to have been able to read durieu's "oeil complex" but got the idea in
conversation with him in
http://turbulence.org/curators/Paris/durieuenglish.htm . and apparently the
code is quite short. definitely better to read code poems rather than code
novels. "oeil complex" has a wonderful code idea in it.

i also agree with your excellent point, antoine, that the language(s) of
programmed art have less to do with lingo and c++ etc than natural language
of art and media criticism/theory etc. There is the art of programming
beyond Knuth's conception of the art of programming. I think that's an
important point.

ja
http://vispo.com

DISCUSSION

DISCUSSION

Not My Type


Not My Type
http://www.lycettebros.com/notmytype

You know, of course, that writing is a broader thing than it used to be. And
occassionally a different thing than it used to be.

ja