<p>In a powerful central visual sequence, Mindstorms presents a series of illustrations showing the screen output of code alongside a running dialog. The conversation starts with a proposition to draw a flower like one sketched on paper. First they consider what programs they might already have to make use of, in this case they have a procedure to draw a quarter circle. Through a series of steps, mistakes are made, plans are adjusted and retried, happy accidents lead to discoveries (it’s a bird!). In the process the “ends become means” and a new tool is put to use to create a garden, and then, incorporating the “bug”, a flock of flying birds.</p>
<p>In Belgium, where I live “brico” is the French language equivalent to “DIY” and is often used in a derogatory sense to indicate that something is made in an amateurish way. Papert, is borrowing the term from Claude Lévi-Strauss, who first used the term in an anthropological context hypothesizing how “universal” knowledge might form from myth and fragmentary cultural knowledge<ahref="#fn16"class="footnote-ref"id="fnref16"role="doc-noteref"><sup>16</sup></a>.</p>
<p>For Papert, bricolage exhibits a quality whereby informal methods not only appeal to “common sense” but also engage more profoundly with the materiality of its subject than would a formal approach. In the case of the circle, the “turtle” method is not only a way for the student to imagine the problem physically, it also relates to methods of differential calculus, something the algebraic formulation misses completely. In hacker circles, bricolage is evident in an approach of embracing “glue code” and “duct tape” methods, like the pipeline, that allow different systems to be “hacked” together to do useful (new) things.</p>
@ -130,8 +130,8 @@
<liid="fn1"role="doc-endnote"><p>Casey Reas and Ben Fry, <em>Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists</em> (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007), xxi-xxii.<ahref="#fnref1"class="footnote-back"role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p></li>
<liid="fn2"role="doc-endnote"><p>John Maeda, Design By Numbers. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999), 19.<ahref="#fnref2"class="footnote-back"role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p></li>
<liid="fn6"role="doc-endnote"><p>Casey Reas and Ben Fry, <em>Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists</em> (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007), xxi-xxii.<ahref="#fnref6"class="footnote-back"role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p></li>
<liid="fn7"role="doc-endnote"><p>A web standard for “scalable vector graphics”, SVG is more integrated into the DOM than are java applets (in classic Processing) or the canvas element (see p5.js).<ahref="#fnref7"class="footnote-back"role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p></li>
<liid="fn8"role="doc-endnote"><p>Casey Reas, “Paragraphs on Software Art”, Software Structures, retrieved October 28 2021, <ahref="https://artport.whitney.org/commissions/softwarestructures/text.html#structure"class="uri">https://artport.whitney.org/commissions/softwarestructures/text.html#structure</a>.<ahref="#fnref8"class="footnote-back"role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p></li>
@ -21,9 +21,9 @@ In the fall of 1996, John Maeda joined the MIT Media Lab to replace the recently
[^dbn]: John Maeda, Design By Numbers. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999), 19.
[^dbn_144]: Maeda, Design By Numbers. 144.
[^dbn_144]: John Maeda. 144.
[^dbn_252]: Maeda, Design By Numbers. 252.
[^dbn_252]: John Maeda. 252.
Maeda created the Aesthetics and Computation group in part to continue Cooper’s research. Maeda developed (with students Tom White, Peter Cho, Ben Fry, and later Casey Reas among others) a software system called Design by Numbers[^dbnsite]. It had extreme constraints such as a fixed 100 by 100 pixel size and monochrome-only graphics. The command set is similarly constrained with only two drawing commands for lines and points. Commands like "paper" and "pen", controlling the gray value of background and foreground colors, invoke the materiality of a (pre-digital) print practice. The accompanying print publication also had a square format.
@ -142,13 +142,8 @@ Papert described the pedagogic project of LOGO in book titled Mindstorms. In a k
> TO CIRCLE REPEAT [FORWARD 1 RIGHT 1]
In a powerful central visual sequence, Mindstorms presents a series of illustrations showing the screen output of code alongside a running dialog. The conversation starts with a proposition to draw a flower like one sketched on paper. First they consider what programs they might already have to make use of, in this case they have a procedure to draw a quarter circle. Through a series of steps, mistakes are made, plans are adjusted and retried, happy accidents lead to discoveries (it's a bird!). In the process the "ends become means" and a new tool is put to use to create a garden, and then, incorporating the "bug", a flock of flying birds.
@ -21,9 +21,9 @@ In the fall of 1996, John Maeda joined the MIT Media Lab to replace the recently
[^dbn]: John Maeda, Design By Numbers. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999), 19.
[^dbn_144]: Maeda, Design By Numbers. 144.
[^dbn_144]: John Maeda. 144.
[^dbn_252]: Maeda, Design By Numbers. 252.
[^dbn_252]: John Maeda. 252.
Maeda created the Aesthetics and Computation group in part to continue Cooper’s research. Maeda developed (with students Tom White, Peter Cho, Ben Fry, and later Casey Reas among others) a software system called Design by Numbers[^dbnsite]. It had extreme constraints such as a fixed 100 by 100 pixel size and monochrome-only graphics. The command set is similarly constrained with only two drawing commands for lines and points. Commands like "paper" and "pen", controlling the gray value of background and foreground colors, invoke the materiality of a (pre-digital) print practice. The accompanying print publication also had a square format.
@ -142,13 +142,8 @@ Papert described the pedagogic project of LOGO in book titled Mindstorms. In a k
> TO CIRCLE REPEAT [FORWARD 1 RIGHT 1]
In a powerful central visual sequence, Mindstorms presents a series of illustrations showing the screen output of code alongside a running dialog. The conversation starts with a proposition to draw a flower like one sketched on paper. First they consider what programs they might already have to make use of, in this case they have a procedure to draw a quarter circle. Through a series of steps, mistakes are made, plans are adjusted and retried, happy accidents lead to discoveries (it's a bird!). In the process the "ends become means" and a new tool is put to use to create a garden, and then, incorporating the "bug", a flock of flying birds.
@ -201,7 +196,7 @@ In contrast, I find as a pedagogic project, I find Processing actively uninteres
> A concatenation of operations of misplaced concreteness thus allow the gaps, overlaps, and voids in the interrelated capacities of such systems to construct a more "accurate" account of its own operations.[^fuller_p104]
Fuller's recipe for critical media engagement feels like the basis of what might be termed a digtial vernacular. A digital vernacular is about working withing the constraints of available resources, rather than living with a fantasy of negligible time or unlimited storage. A digital vernacular rejects the sense of disembodiment, rather if locates itself in interactions between many bodies. A digital vernacular finds itself in conversational forms that are open to happy accidents. A digital vernacular rejects the "false neutrality" of the seamless universal design solution, embracing instead the tips and tricks of specific tools, in specific contexts. A digital vernacular tears open its seams proudly displaying its glitches and gaps. A digital vernacular rejects the illusory construction of an isolated artist sitting at a blank canvas creating works from scratch. Instead the digital vernacular thrives on working with the contingencies of existing systems, and embraces working with boundary objects as a means of bridging diverse communities of practices.
Fuller's recipe for critical media engagement feels like the basis of what might be termed a digital vernacular. A digital vernacular is about working withing the constraints of available resources, rather than living with a fantasy of negligible time or unlimited storage. A digital vernacular rejects the sense of disembodiment, rather if locates itself in interactions between many bodies. A digital vernacular finds itself in conversational forms that are open to happy accidents. A digital vernacular rejects the "false neutrality" of the seamless universal design solution, embracing instead the tips and tricks of specific tools, in specific contexts. A digital vernacular tears open its seams proudly displaying its glitches and gaps. A digital vernacular rejects the illusory construction of an isolated artist sitting at a blank canvas creating works from scratch. Instead the digital vernacular thrives on working with the contingencies of existing systems, and embraces working with boundary objects as a means of bridging diverse communities of practices.
