[PD] elitism, software and academia (was GEM FTGL Sadness)

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Jun 8, 2007, at 6:18 AM, Jamie Bullock wrote:

> Hi Jared,
>
> On Thu, 2007-06-07 at 07:16 +0100, jared wrote:
>
>> While I'm ranting :-)....In my academic experience, it's often  
>> frowned
>> upon to use other's patches in your own compositions because it seems
>> that the patches themselves are the work of art; and it's almost  
>> as if
>> this is considered plagiarism.
>
> I don't know what your academic experience is, but there is a lot of
> evidence to suggest the opposite of what you are saying. The  
> sharing of
> PD patches and abstractions is commonplace in the PD community.
> Currently in the CVS there are:
>
> pd/ 424 pd patches
> externals/ 3464 pd patches
> abstractions/ 953 pd patches
>
> That doesn't include ad-hoc patches people have shared via the mailing
> list, of which I have 847 on my computer grabbed from the list  
> archive.
>
> All of these are publically available, and free for use in your own
> work. They range from simple help files to complex abstractions and
> patches.

 From my experience with Pd in academic environments, I think they  
are generally not very good an interfacing with the net communities  
and other external communities.  Of course, there are exceptions,  
some very notable ones, but think overall the tendency is for  
academic communities to be very inward looking.  This is something  
that I think makes things worse for all involved, but being involved  
in academia, I can see why things are like that.

One key reasons is that face-to-face communications and collaboration  
are much more fulfilling than doing the same via email, IRC, IM,  
etc.  But in the case of the academic communities in NYC, there  
should be a lot more crosstalk, but some institutions really actively  
avoid external interaction.

Part of this is driven by the "business model" of many universities  
(yes, people who run universities think like that, tho many of the  
academics are isolated from it).  Most universities in the US need  
students to pay tuition in order to pay the bills.  If there is lots  
of external collaboration, then there is perhaps less incentive to  
pay the $40,000 a year to be part of that community.

One thing that inspires me is barcamps/unconferences, and I believe  
this is what the role of the university should be.  A university  
should be an institution that supports education and research.   
Access should not be arbitrarily restricted by things like money,  
degrees, affiliation, etc.  Anyone who wants to come should come and  
participate.  There will be of course trolls, spoilers, people who  
talk too much, etc.  Such things are a part of life everywhere.

We are human, and an essential part of our nature is communication.   
Therefore, if we don't have the collective social skills to handle  
this, it is time to develop them.  In doing so, we will gain a vast  
improvement in the exchange and development of knowledge.  For  
example, at the barcamps and unconfernces that I have participated  
in, I have seen these collective social skills being used and  
developed.  And when it works, it is really an inspiring experience,  
and provides an experience that is much closer to the ideal of a  
conference in terms of the amount of knowledge developed and exchanged.

So now the missing link in all this is the funding.  That is a big  
reason why I am happy to be working at Polytechnic University.  It is  
an institution that has withered a lot from its glory days.  In the  
language of those in the university business, it's a "third tier"  
university.  One of the key benefits is that there is a quite a bit  
of space, classrooms, exhibition space, and an 350 seat auditorium  
that are very much underused.  That means I can host events paying  
nothing for the space.  Other universities in the area charge their  
own faculty and staff thousands for access to the same space.

Also, my job supports me so that I have time to help organize such  
events.  It's actually not very expensive for the university at all,  
and we can provide something really quite unique in the NYC area, and  
much closer to my ideal of an academic institution.

That's my semi-related rant of the day...

.hc

>
>> I think academia needs to recognize that there are many composers who
>> use computers as a means to an end;
>
> I find this patronising, almost offensive. Do you have any examples of
> academics who don't recognise this? Even if you do, you shouldn't make
> generalisations about an entire community based on a few personal
> examples.
>
>> who make music with the AID of
>> computers; not to make music WITH computers.
>
> Could you explain the difference?
>
>>  There is still a rigid
>> line that separates the composer and the programmer.
>
> Where is this rigid line? Do you have any evidence for it? As far as I
> can tell there exists a continuum like this:
>
> composer <-> composer/programmer <-> programmer
>
> I know many people who are in the middle of this - straddling the  
> 'line'
> between composer and programmer.
>
>> Most Music
>> curriculums are still classically based.  Most Music Technology
>> curriculums are programming based.
>
> I'm not sure if this is true or not, but if it were, it might be  
> because
> there is 'most' demand for classically-based music courses and
> 'programming-based' music technology courses...
>
> However, in the UK, there are many jazz-based and other non-classical
> graduate music courses, as well as music technology courses that  
> contain
> no programming elements at all. There are also hybrid 'Sonic Art'
> courses that bring in elements from the visual arts, music and
> information technology. I suspect this the case in other countries  
> also.
>
>>  What about today's composers who are
>> interested in classical compositional techniques and forms, but  
>> who are,
>> at heart, electronic music composers and want to apply these  
>> classical
>> techniques and forms to their electronic compositions with the AID of
>> technology, yet have no interest in programming?
>
> They should use software that doesn't require any programming. I would
> suggest something like Beast (http://beast.gtk.org) if they are Linux,
> Bidule (http://www.plogue.com/) if they are on Mac OS, Audiomulch
> (http://www.audiomulch.com/) if they are on Windows.
>
> Any of these would provide a good entry point for beginners who could
> later move on to something with a  dataflow programming element  
> like PD.
>
> Jamie
>
>
>
>
>
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