Creative Programming 2010

Limitation vs. Control

This was originally a bit longer, but I've cut it down to stick closer to the 600-800 word request. To sum up what was cut, I'll just say that it was mostly discussing the slight differences between art and design and how art can be a little bit more free-form whereas there is often more of a science to design.

The abstraction of the inner workings of a program from the user interface is usually considered a good idea when writing a program. A real-world example is giving the driver of a car control of the steering wheel, accelerator, and brakes but not control of when the individual pistons in the engine are firing. But, the important point here is where do you put that abstraction barrier? How much control do you allow, and at what point does either simplicity or freedom of control begin to hinder the work-flow?

It's obvious that making a program simple to use is usually a good idea. As it was stated in the CEDS paper: “Our CEDS must keep designers doing what they are best at: designing. We must not turn them into computer scientists.” One way to do that is by adding well planned limitations.

And, limitations can also be a critical part of a design. If you wanted to line up certain elements of a design along a particular line on an axis, it may be tedious to do this by hand without some limits of where you can move elements to. You might use a "snap" feature that only allows you to move elements along a grid or guides that you set up. So, these kind of limits can help automate tasks when needed. Musicians also use this concept to restrict them from playing outside of predefined note divisions (every 16th note or every 32nd note, etc) and call it quantization. A producer of a commercial dance track would probably find quantization to be essential.

The downside to this is that the user may hit a brick wall (the abstraction barrier) when they've exhausted all possibilities that the imposed limitations allow. "What if I could rotate this rectangle to a degree of 91.5 degrees instead of only 90 degrees?" might be the flip side to "snapping". And, a creatively oriented musician might think such quantization makes their music too machine-like. The slight variations and mistakes in the timing could be what makes their song interesting.

So, this ultimately limits the creative permutations available to the artist. If they are no longer creating something that is new and different, is it still art? This is where allowing finer and finer control can be a major benefit to creativity. A designer, on the other hand, may specifically want to re-use elements and patterns because they have been proven to work or for consistency in a design.

Besides being able to finely tweak controls themselves, computer generated permutations may be beneficial to both artists and designers. Limits may be needed in both cases to help prevent the choice paralysis that can occur from having too many possible permutations. But, the preferred limits may differ between the two groups. An artist may be content to explore variations indefinitely or until it feels finished. Whereas, a designer may need to finish their work in a shorter time frame and thus prefer more limitation.

And, as far as the aesthic quality of these computer generated permutations, there may again be some variance in preference between artists and designers. An artist may be able to get away with a completely random looking piece if it seems to convey some idea even if vague, but a designer may have to adhere to a sticter form.

These are only a few examples and it's not to suggest that a designer would always want limits and an artist would always want more control. But, it does help illustrate that the battle between limitation and control is almost always present. As Cohen stated, “For the machine to serve his Purpose the artist will need to use it as he uses himself.” So, a perfect CEDS or any tool in that spirit will need to be able to adapt to the person using it and offer as much control or limitation that they require.

Systems design for artistic and creative expression.

Brylie Oxley
Creative Programming, Fall 2010
brylie@gnumedia.org

Systems design for artistic and creative expression.
In the consideration of systems for use in artistic expression, design, scientific exploration, and analysis, it is crucial for developers to take the users' frames of reference, language, and expectations into account. In order for computer design tools to be effective and easy to use, the uses' workflow should naturally fit into a system's interface and should not be impeded when the user wishes to assert manual control. A highly functional system will allow for exploration and experimentation both within and outside of existing paradigms.

Art, design, science, and analysis are progressive pursuits. They build on the efforts, schema, theories, practices, paradigms, and frameworks that are evolved over generations. As systems evolve to facilitate our exploratory process, commonalities are sometimes discovered between seemingly distinct modes of thinking and creative contexts. By selecting for diverse and robust qualities in software design, common tools and dialects can coalesce out of a seemingly discordant network of industrial specialization and theoretical/perceptual factionalism.

Each area of specialization and exploration, typically, has a uniquely expressive vocabulary of concepts and techniques. In the process of becoming, we absorb, or assimilate, the ideas and practices of our peers while developing our unique conception of emergent phenomena. Pinned to our conceptions are a lexicon of common, generally agreed upon, terms that serve purposes including conveying expressions, critiquing and analysis, and the priming of neural action potentials for conceptual solidification. Systems designers working directly with artists, or even artists designing creative tools themselves, add value to the tools they create by decreasing the conceptual learning curve. They also increase usability by extending their creations out of the practices that are already familiar to many users. A shining example of software developers working in close coordination with artists and designers is the Blender 3D1 project where developers work closely with 3D animators as they create various animated movie projects2. Domain Driven Design3 is a method by which software developers and other stakeholders can communicate ideas and find common ground in order to facilitate a dynamic development approach.

While it is important to work within the artist's vocabulary and conceptual structures, it is also important not to stifle the invention of new methods and genius by constraining the creative process through traditional channels. “[T]he artist considers one of his
functions to be the redefinition of the notion of
art”
(Cohen, 744). The software design process can facilitate the recursive modification of interface elements and functional components through patterns, such as Model-View-Controller5, that focus on decoupling functionality from the interface. This decoupling generally prevents interface changes from impacting core functionality. This approach also lends well to internationalization as translation is generally a matter of changing interface indicators and software documentation rather than core logic, although the latter may be desirable as well.

The vocabulary used to describe certain activities and document features of various tools can prevent recognition of potential uses across disciplines and contexts. While activities are being described and labeled, the user is forming implicit associations to semantically related concepts. These associations can overpower less established, germinal, ideas and prevent their emergence. Likewise, vocabulary from one specialization may be disjunct from others while describing the same processes or phenomena.

Design extends beyond written and spoken language into the realm of visual and symbolic interface elements. On-screen elements, sometimes called widgets, can reflect or represent common material objects such as handles, buttons, brushes, &c. These visual queues can transcend the possibilities of textual elements to intuitively convey the purpose that they provide. Users already accustomed to thinking and working in a certain paradigm will benefit from familiar graphical iconifications of tools and processes they engage with on a regular basis. This familiarity can reduce the learning curve and time spent gaining proficiency with a new tool. This reduction in initial training time translates to faster productivity if the user deems the tool as compatible with their desired workflow.

Not only can computer applications emulate expected and generalized behaviors but they can also preform recursive actions based upon minimal user input and intervention. A balance must be found between complete manual control and a system that functions completely without operator feedback. In the case of complete manual control the user gains no efficiency in having the computer as a design aide. In a system that functions without user intervention we lose the power to select for our subjectively desired traits, leaving the computer to decide, mathematically or logically, between aspects usually reserved for the non-liner, less formally logical parts of human consciousness.

In conclusion, we must operate and design at differing levels of consciousness, both individual and collective, in order to facilitate and increase the rate of evolution of creative tools and processes. Cross-discipline collaborations can help strengthen our tools as applied to varying contexts. These interactions also stimulate discovery and re-contextualization of processes, developed in relative isolation, that have relevance to many fields of study. From this process, a mutual lexicon can evolve, but this lexicon must not be considered as the 'ultimate' expression of our understanding, only as a step in the evolutionary process of discovery and creation.

In my opinion the general purpose of the readings is to make us aware there is nothing random about what computers do and that there is a purpose behind everything we do even more so when putting computers and their role into context. Like an Artist working towards his final purpose computers work towards achieving what we define as the purpose is. I was little apprehensive about things because if used to feel somewhere down the line you loose control while using computers but what becomes clear after reading these essays is that maybe I haven't got enough control on the medium as yet and you need time to dissolve these inhibitions.

There are certain inhibitions any designer will face when he uses computer as a new medium, which is the same when you use a pen or pencil. And these inhibitions become less and less as you keep working with the medium. So I think it is faulty to think you are going to face these problems because you are using computers as a medium. It's just that you are new to it and as you become more experienced it would become more of an extension of your body and mind as any great artist in any other medium is. ? So as mentioned in 'Beyond Code' that you adapt a process or a system and you try to interpret and engage with different mediums and try to learn from it and understand it better.

I feel if a medium, which works outside the frameworks of all the programming languages and technology could be developed it would be an evolutionary medium, which would make it more accessible to non-programming genre of people too.

I have always been curious about how you go about things when you see some digital art. My immediate impression was always apart from that It looks cool was if the artist actually meant to do it or if it had any purpose? Even in that case, the same can happen in any other medium liking painting and all. You can't vouch for everyone and say he did it with a purpose. So even of you are using computers as a medium of expression its entirely dependent upon the artist whether he has found any purpose or not.

I am in Compliance with Harold Cohen has to say in his essay in 'Purpose'. It's quite intriguing to see correlations between art making behavior and the machine behavior that has developed it and as an artist gives identity to his work we are giving the machine our identity by defining its purpose. Like a human decision making behavior the machine has the ability to choose completely based upon our input. And the machine follows our purpose at every step elucidates there is nothing arbitrary about what they do. Its up to us to find the process, purpose and structure to define our work and the machine would simply follow it.

In the essay by Peter J. Bentley and Una-May O’Reilly they talk about what goes into the making of an evolutionary medium and what are the obstacles involved. But I am not in compliant with Step 7, software telling about how good and bad your building is aesthetically and learning from your inputs. Somehow it doesn’t seem right, you can have software telling you how climatically or energy efficient it is but how appealing it is? As an Architect I cant just agree with that. But I am completely in agreement with the importance of developing medium for specific purposes and as small important steps and parts rather than a whole thing together. This firstly would be easier to incorporate in a medium you are already working on and secondly it would be easier switch if found to be competent enough to do your work with.