TITLE: A Few Thoughts on Artists as Programmers
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: February 26, 2008 6:00 PM
DESC:
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BODY:
I've written so much about scientists as programmers, I'm
a little disappointed that I haven't made time to write
more about artists as programmers in response to
Ira Greenberg's visit
last month. The reason is probably two-pronged. First,
I usually have less frequent interaction with artists,
especially artists with this sort of mentality. This
month, I did
give a talk
with an artistic connection to an audience of art students,
but even that wasn't enough to prime the pump. That can
be attributed to the second prong, which is teaching
five-week courses
in languages I have never taught before -- one of which,
PHP, I've never even done much programming in. I've
been busy preparing course materials and learning.
Before I lose all track of the artists-as-programmers thread
for now, let me say a few things that I still have in
waiting.
Processing
is really just a Java IDE. I don't mean that in a dismissive
sense; it's very useful and provides some neat tools to hide
the details of Java -- including classes and the dread
"public static void main" -- from programmers who
don't care. But there is not all that much to it in a
technical sense, which means that CS folks don't need to
obsess about whether they are using it or not.
For example, you can do many of the same things in
JES,
the Jython environment created for Guzdial's media computation
stuff. When I taught media computation using Erickson and
Guzdial's Java materials, I had my students implement the
an interpreter for the simplest of graphics languages and
then asked them to show off their program with a piece of
art produced with the language. One result was the image
to the right, produced by freshman Keller McBride's using
a program processed by his own interpreter.
During his talk, Greenberg mentioned that he had a different
take on the idea of web "usability". Later I commented
that I was glad he had said that, because I found that
his website
was a little bit funky. His response was interesting in a
way that meshes with some of the things I occasionally say
about computing as a
new paradigm for expressing ideas.
(This is not an original idea, of course; Alan Kay has been
trying to help us understand this for forty years.)
Greenberg doesn't see computation only as an extension of
the engineering metaphor that has defined computing in the
age of electronics; he sees it as the "dawn of a new age".
When we think of computation in the engineering context,
issues such as usability and ergonomics become a natural
focus. But in this new age, computing can mean and be
something different:
Where I want my toaster to "disappear" and simply render
perfectly cooked bread, I don't want that same experience
when I compute--especially since I don't often have an
initial goal/purpose.
He mentioned, too, that his ideas are not completely settled
in this area, but I don't think that anyone has a complete
handle on what the new age of computing really means. It
sounds as if his ideas are as well formed as most anyone's,
and I'm excited when I hear what non-CS people think in
this space.
Finally, when it comes to teaching art and computer science
together, some schools are already working in that direction.
For example, faculty at Yale recently announced that they
are putting together a
major in computing and the arts.
I am not sure what to think about their proposal which aims
to be "rigorous" by requiring students to take existing
courses in the arts and computer science. There are courses
created especially for the major. That is probably a good
idea for some audiences, but what about artists who don't
want a full computer science-specific CS experience? Do
they need the same technical depth as your average
CS student? Somehow, I don't think so. A new kind of
discipline may well require a new kind of major. But it's
neat that someone is taking steps in this direction. We
will probably learn something useful from their experience.
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