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Utilizing computers' strengths for computer music
The most thought-provoking part of Chapter 4 of Artful Design: Technology in Search of the Sublime256A Reading Response #4
“Now” and time in the computer music programming language Chuck: a response to chapter 4 of Ge Wang’s Artful Design. Chuck navigates time in a very interesting way. Unlike other languages which might be event-based, like the bang system of Max/MSP, or durational, like Csound and many others, Chuck asks you to contemplate the trickiness of “now” and encourages a different way to think about time. The big “woah” moment for me came when I realized that sound and time are one and the same in Chuck. Since it is strongly-timed, digital audio samples are the basis of time, which is kind of trippy to think about. Let’s say there is a glitch and the audio stops, you’ll lose time outside of Chuck and maybe get some silence, but Chuck never lost time because it’s audio wasn’t being calculated.256A Reading Response #3
This is a response to a line in Ge Wang’s book Artful Design: “Comics are a kind of animation, happening sequentially but at less uniform timesteps. Our mind fills in the gaps between frames.” (pg. 129, below “Ka—Boom! Whoa.”) The “filling in the gaps” is something that really resonated with me. In comics, we’re invited to not only fill in the content gaps, but also decide how long those gaps should be. Comics seem to provide a lens with sufficient context and expectation so that the readers are not only allowed but invited to fill in the gaps. This reminded me of games that use pixel art and how some of my experiences of those games are more immersive and visceral than other AAA games, that is videogames from large studios with enormous budgets, with cutting-edge graphics.256A Reading Response #2
Design principle 2.7: Design to lower inhibitions
This principle resonated so strongly with me I nearly exploded! How do I go from making it possible for someone to do something, to making it inviting? I feel like in pragmatic-focused design, especially in accessibility conversations, the emphasis is generally on possibility. In the I am T-Pain example, we can see certain forms of social inhibitions being calmed by placing an additional instrument into the performance equation, adding plausible deniability to the seriousness of the endeavor. Like a socially-accepted ejection seat.
Music 256A, Week 8
The eighth and final chapter of Artful Design (along with its Coda) dive deep in to the philosophical ideas underlying the books essential message: to inspire the union of aesthetics and practical design as a moral obligation on the part of the designer. To design artfully is to understand and attempt to balance the end-user's experience of engaging with a thing as a means to an end versus as and end in itself. Advancements in technology have the tendency to supply us with tools that perform tasks well and serve as a means to an end. This is great when we want to solve problems, but the more we use these tools and build careers and lifestyles around them, the more our own thinking becomes means-to-ends driven... the more our own thinking becomes task-oriented and calculated.Music 256A: Week 7 Reading
Derek Chung
Music 256a
Week 7 Reading
Chapter 7: Social Design
Principle 7.1: Design for human connection (not as a means-to-an-end, but as an end-in-itself).
I'd like to start by taking the concept of means and ends and argue that we need other people to live.
Music 256A, Week 7
Chapter 7 of Artful Design discusses social design, how we design interfaces and experiences for our selves, our loved ones, our friends, acquaintances, people we kind of know, and total strangers alike. Moreover, it discusses how we can embed sociality in games, instruments, and interfaces. Apps/instruments/games like Ocarina (Globe), Leaf Trombone World Stage, Smule Sing!, Smule Glee, and Magic Piano (One-on-one) are all examples presented in the chapter that integrate social-media-esque interactive components to enhance the game experience and connect users across the globe. Unlike the mainstream social medias of the day (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter), these apps provide an anonymous social environment focused on group art-making. Anonymity affords comfort of expression...
