Project Statement

On Friday October 19th, 2009 during the NOWCASTING conference at UCLA, Warren Sack proposed that computational languages should be studied not from within the sciences, but as language from within the digital humanities. This idea is intriguing and the development of new programming languages would benefit a great deal from this mode of thinking. Contemporary models for the majority of computational language development is still very much rooted in what should be considered “the original” ways of communicating with computers. Sure, some portions of logic and naming conventions are set in the traditions by which we understand thought processes. However, at a certain level, there tends to be a wide range of barriers unintentionally integrated into the various systems that prevent different types of thinkers with different aptitudes from being able to understand the constructs considered to be “inherent” within the incredibly short historical contexts of these “language” environments. At times these are the strengths of the systems for the initiated but this also is the aspect that prevents these structures from being fully integrated and understood as proper language. The presentation proposes that by studying programming structures in this way, those who develop programming languages and those who utilize them in order to create should be considered to be writers, essayists and storytellers. By embracing this model of studying programming languages as language to look at the past and evaluate in the future, new systems for the creation of the media through the exploration of computational process can become more accessible to a wider range of thinkers and makers.

As a non-programmer (or more accurately a “folk coder”) and someone who has played around with generative processes in a variety of media (see: www.formalplay.com) this also raises the question “how much emphasis should be placed on how something is built?” In written language, literature for example, the way in which a piece is written, the language used, is an integral part of a critique. But in this case the relationship of language and experience is much more clear. Once the system of “writing” is such that the “writing” and the “result” or 2 very separate elements, should how something was made be included, even in a small way, in the value or perception of what was made? This piece poses this question directly through the development of an audio and visual system in which the full meaning is most accessible when both the code that has created the piece and the piece itself are viewed. Information about the audio and visuals being displayed have been carefully crafted into the function names, variable names and comments for development of and integration into the final display.

In its original form, this piece is displayed full-screen on a large monitor with wireless headphones.