[PD] [not really OT] a contemporary sensibility?

[Steffen]

On 06/04/2007, at 9.04, Kevin McCoy wrote:

> http://art.sewanee.edu/mccoy/comparison.jpg
>
> From left to right:
> Situationist International, "The Naked City"
> Expanded view of a multiple GOP patch
> Julie Mehretu, "Untitled"

Very nice! I dig it.

> Are there any articles/literature on this sort of thing? [...] I  
> have occasionally joked about drawing in Pd, maybe it's time to get  
> serious.

Not to put you down or anything. But I don't think it is a new thing  
to make graphical art in Pd using the bare PD code as the graphics.

I find a lot of complex "messy" patches tremendously beautiful.

On example which actually is kind of using the grafical  
representation to underline what's going on in the code, but none the  
less hard to read as code is many of the example patches from PMPD,  
or actually a subpatch in them for example structure in 08_ball2D.pd  
and  array in 45_newWave.pd [1]. It's much like concrete poetry too  
[4]. (Now i can't find my favorite spherical one.)


Another example is a ever going generative pice that explores  
randomness to produce "binary" sounds like when you play C64 tapes in  
your tape player or cat your (linux) kernel to /dev/dsp named  
Tabfight [2] by Steven Pickles aka Pix. The Pd code is a total mess,  
which i think is on purpose to underline the kind of (very listen- 
able addictive) noisy sounds that it in-fact generates.

A third is a pice by Jack Stockholm aka Oddible called if.pd [3]. It  
doesn't actually make any sounds. It is accompanied by this text:

	"For some reason I couldn't break free of my old flow control habits  
and 		created a Frankensteinish IF function."

It indeed is very Frankenstein like as it is a complete mess. is does  
some control flow things, but also just don't work, and you can  
interact with by hitting some messages boxes round and about and  
observe meaningless outcome. I fund it interesting especially while  
having Frankenstein in my mind.

About writings. I recall a (or two) phrase from one of Millers  
articles about Pd where is states an aim in the design of the  
interaction with Pd - ie. the interface - to make it as natural and  
cultural (especially wrt. musical cultures and traditions)  
independent, such that the paradigm used for that interaction was  
natural and wouldn't suggest any particular use. Even though it is a  
nobel aim it is of cause not possible since there exist both people  
how find this graphical paradigm easy to digest and others that have  
no way to relate it to the beats they crack. Through out the world.  
I'm not saying that it only suggest one kind of musical expression  
but does suggest things, here among to use the graphical interface/ 
paradigm  to something else then music.

Another pice of writing the touches this topic is Pd & Synaesthesia,  
from the proceeding from the first Pd conference or the Bang book, by  
IOhanne Zmöling and James Tittle. It says for example:

	"Pd is a graphical computer-music language.Small graphical elements  
are 		combined into bigger functional units by wiring them  
together.While Pd-		programs (commonly referred to as “patches”) are  
often used to produce 		sound,writing such a program actually entails  
working within a graphical 		tool:in essence,the act ofcreating music  
is an act ofcreating an image."

It also caries an example and is a fine introduction to Synaesthesia  
which you might find interesting do you not already know about it (or  
even if you do you may not know the examples they pull forward hence  
it's also interesting in it's own right).

best, steffen

[1] <http://pure-data.cvs.sourceforge.net/pure-data/externals/pmpd/ 
exemples/>
[2] <http://pix.test.at/pd/tabfight2k-r4nd2.tar.gz>
[3] <http://www.oddible.com/projects/pd/if.zip>
[4] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_poetry>

Ps. Consider this a sketch of what will/can/could show up in  
Exhibition (on http://puredata.info/exhibition/)