[PD] Thoughts in conclusion of the 4th Pure Data Convention

[Marco Donnarumma]

Hi folks,

it's a pity nobody is taking on the important issues advanced by Max.

I see this actually fitting in a general refrain (and I include myself
here) to discuss topics like: our Pd "flagship" website gives people a
unnecessary hardship, or the social network culture has since long time now
changed drastically the way we share on the web, and it does affect the way
we promote and talk about Pd. Even if we don't want to care about it.

Is is surely a long and perhaps painful discussion to draw upon, but I
think it is needed at this point.
We can also leave things take their drifts, which is ok, but why can't we
be pro-active also at this level?

I'm not sure about the demographic issue Max reported, as I see my and
other's courses always very well participated, along with a fairly good
dynamics taking place on the various collective platform on the web.
However, it is a fact that we are inflicting ourself and our community a
gratuitous pain in terms of sharing, distribution and self-teaching
infrastructure.

I'm the first who's always too busy to really take on this issues when
somebody else points them out, but sometimes I wonder what would happen if
we could be able to gather a 10% of the energies we spend developing stuff,
and use it to improve once for all the way Pd appears on the web (meaning
here, the way loooots of cool documentation material is overly underused
because it can't be easily reached, the way how the plone website literally
scare newbies, and also the fact of avoiding constructive comparisons with
other open communities out there, like the processing one which does an
amazing work in this sense).

Pd is used by many developers, artists and so on. There are incredible
works out there who earned prestigious prizes (see for instance Jaime's at
FILE and Guthman Instrument Competition), new frontiers for interactive,
mobile, and biosensing techs are being open only thanks to Pd, and you know
what?
The 80% of the people I talk to (also practitioners) don't even know about
it.

Imho, this is very wrong, and most importantly, dangerous for the good sake
of our community.

I'm aware this has been discussed far too many times, but we all could
benefit a lot from a new and useful web appearance and all things related.

So the question now becomes, how can we elaborate a collaborative strategy
to build a proper web platform, which would emphasise the work of our
developers and creators rather than hiding it? and how can we think of a
communal approach to make easily available all the knowledge that sits in
scattered instances all around the web?
I'm sure Pd will live far longer than me, but why don't we make a little
effort to gather more devs, creators and thinkers around us y simply
getting all our efforts clearly visible?

hope somebody else feel the same as me and Max and would feel like further
the conversation.

cheers and thanks,
Marco




>
> When I find artist like Lukas Buschfeld presenting his prints printed by a
> custom large scale dot matrix printer which is programmed in and run by Pd
> entirely (plus a little Arduino) I'm stunned. Look at the prints:
> http://lucasbuschfeld.com/index.php?cat=graphic
>
> In an attempt to improve the first impression you get when checking out Pd
> I've been experimenting with vimeo gathering Pd based works in a group:
> http://vimeo.com/groups/puredata/
>
> When you look at a few other OSS Audio related softwares i find their
> websites to be very clear and well structured
> http://musescore.org/
> http://www.iannix.org/
> http://ardour.org/
>
> Now compare. It's a great ressource but plone can certainly look nerdy and
> cluttered:
> http://puredata.info/
>
> I'll leave it at this hoping to spark a little discussion on the list now
> for example about how Pd can become more attractive in our very own
> interest not to loose a future user base not only for the next convention.
> Also I'd be interested to hear where the next convention will take place ;)
>
> MN




-- 
Marco Donnarumma
New Media + Sonic Arts Practitioner, Performer, Teacher, Director.
ACE, Sound Design MSc by Research (ongoing)
The University of Edinburgh, UK
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Portfolio: http://marcodonnarumma.com
Research: http://res.marcodonnarumma.com | http://www.thesaddj.com |
http://www.flxer.net
Director: http://www.liveperformersmeeting.net
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