Week 7: Aesthetics and the Language of Computing

I enjoyed reading the author’s perspective on the relationship between the human system and the computer system. This assignment helped me to remember when designing code it is important to translate the language between user and processor. Here are some of the comments from the reading that resonated with me in relation to creative coding:

This immediacy, enhanced by the coupling of manual operation and mental cognition, convinces the user that it is her, who generates all the changes:

This observation reminded me of music editing programs where the computer is always calculating while the musician makes adjustments based on the musical cues they hear.  For example, when recording a drum track, a musician might continually change drum kits to experiment with different sounds. While the rhythm stays the same the computer keeps calculating the change in digital instrument. Because the changes are immediate the musician responds in real time. The musician might even be playing on a computer interface that simulates a real drum kit, such as Roland V-drums.  This interface is so sophisticated that the entire drumhead is a mesh sensor capable of detecting every nuance the drummer plays, such as a drumroll. The drummer hears the cues and plays the V-drums perceiving them to be as real as a traditional drum kit. This kind of human-computer interface is inspiring as there is virtually no gap between both the human and computer systems.  I would like to explore more interactivity in future coding projects where the experience is this seamless.

The development has reached a point where the actual computing processes almost disappear behind the interface:

The idea that the actual computer processing is nearly invisible behind the interface was particularly interesting to me in relation to our coding projects.  This statement reminded me of the println command in some of the programs where without this command you cannot see that anything is happening. Without visual cues the user is blind to what changes have been made.  For example, if you could not see a video timeline while editing clips in Adobe Premiere then it would be hard to edit a scene’s pace.  These visual cues allow the editor to refine the clips until the desired pace is achieved.  This inspires me to incorporate more visual cues in my coding work.

Without sensual perception of the situation, we remain blind and deaf, literally untouched. We may persuade ourselves into believing that we could think it all up. If you have ever tried it, you know that this is false belief.

This reminded me that when writing code the designer should engage the audience's senses so that they focus on the use of the program and let the computer focus on the calculations.  The more organic the experience for the user the more direction the user provides the computer.