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: literate programming


A good idea for many projects, no doubt. But I wonder if the dislocations of
the document and of reading that inhere in the code-centered program have
been important in new approaches to art associated with coding? In other
words, attempts to create 'literate programming' unlike the definition of
'literate programming' below have been fruitful.

But this has been at the cost of intelligability (which is often true in
poetry anyway). Not so bad a cost for projects in art, but costly in
engineering, definitely.

In a certain sense, much digital poetry seeks to unite document and
programming. Usually on the level of interface, though if the source is
available and there's writing about the source, that's deeper. It would be
great to be able to further unite document and programming in the ways
enabled by 'literate programming'. The document would be readable in the
programming environment. And of course also executable in or from that
environment.

The documentation should be amenable to not just text but multimedia.

ja

> "A traditional computer program consists of a text file containing program
> code. Scattered in amongst the program code are comments which
> describe the
> various parts of the code.
>
> In literate programming the emphasis is reversed. Instead of writing code
> containing documentation, the literate programmer writes documentation
> containing code. No longer does the English commentary injected into a
> program have to be hidden in comment delimiters at the top of the file, or
> under procedure headings, or at the end of lines. Instead, it is wrenched
> into the daylight and made the main focus. The "program" then becomes
> primarily a document directed at humans, with the code being
> herded between
> "code delimiters" from where it can be extracted and shuffled out sideways
> to the language system by literate programming tools.
>
> The effect of this simple shift of emphasis can be so profound as
> to change
> one's whole approach to programming. Under the literate programming
> paradigm, the central activity of programming becomes that of conveying
> meaning to other intelligent beings rather than merely convincing the
> computer to behave in a particular way. It is the difference between
> performing and exposing a magic trick."
>
> from http://www.literateprogramming.com/

DISCUSSION

literate programming


A traditional computer program consists of a text file containing program
code. Scattered in amongst the program code are comments which describe the
various parts of the code.

In literate programming the emphasis is reversed. Instead of writing code
containing documentation, the literate programmer writes documentation
containing code. No longer does the English commentary injected into a
program have to be hidden in comment delimiters at the top of the file, or
under procedure headings, or at the end of lines. Instead, it is wrenched
into the daylight and made the main focus. The "program" then becomes
primarily a document directed at humans, with the code being herded between
"code delimiters" from where it can be extracted and shuffled out sideways
to the language system by literate programming tools.

The effect of this simple shift of emphasis can be so profound as to change
one's whole approach to programming. Under the literate programming
paradigm, the central activity of programming becomes that of conveying
meaning to other intelligent beings rather than merely convincing the
computer to behave in a particular way. It is the difference between
performing and exposing a magic trick."

from http://www.literateprogramming.com/

DISCUSSION

the art of memory


http://www.gothitica.com/memory

'The art of memory' refers primarily to ancient methodologies concerned with
how to remember stuff. Before there was writing there was need to remember
lots of stuff. There's still need to remember lots of stuff, but in our
multi-mediated spaces we tend not to have to memorize anything we can look
up and instead memorize ways of looking stuff up/writing stuff down. Basic
computer skills are basically concerned with how to get the computer to
recall and memorize information.

It's interesting to look at http://www.gothitica.com/memory as portal into
ancient technologies of memory and their structures. You could look at it as
a very human technology, ie, the art of memory is concerned to utilize the
brain's natural capacity for memorizing and memory retrieval. And it'd be
that, but also it is kind of trans-human in that the ancient art of memory
is a kind of field of data structures, ie, sort of like you study data
structures in computer science.

What is memorable?

ja

DISCUSSION

page_space in L.A. Saturday opening


Machine Project and Superbunker present the page_space show
from February 28 to March 14. Join us for an opening from
5 to 8 pm on Saturday the 28th at Machine Project, 1200 D
North Alvarado, Los Angeles.

The page_space show at Machine Project includes Arteroids
by Jim Andrews with text from Christina McPhee and Helen
Thorington, sculptural work by Alexandra Grant based on
text by Michael Joyce, "Untitled Game" by Sara Roberts,
and interactive video by Karolina Sobecka.

The page_space show also offers a physical
installation of the page_space project
http://www.superbunker.com/machinepoetics/page_space.html
project -- an experiment which reverses the usual
collaboration between writing and design. The
page_space programmer/writers are: Simon Biggs,
Lluis Calvo, geniwate, Loss Pequeno Glazier,
Deena Larsen, Jason Nelson, Brian Kim Stefans,
Pedro Valdeolmillos and Jody Zellen.

DISCUSSION

Re: Re: The Myth of Meritocracy in Fine Arts


There is no absolute up or down, as Aristotle taught; no absolute position
in space; but the position of a body is relative to that of other bodies.
Everywhere there is incessant relative change in position throughout the
universe, and the observer is always at the center of things."

Giordano Bruno, 1548-1600