[-empyre-] Generative Code; Second generation Pattern Language

[Nicholas Roberts]

I think a key if to understand that process can be paradigm if it has the
purpose of creating living systems

its a good thing that there is a focus on generative sequences and away from
idolising static stereotypical patterns

but for those from architecture or software or permaculture that know about
Christopher Alexanders 1970s book A Pattern Language, you might want to
update and have a look at the second generation pattern language he calls
Generative Sequences, Sequences or Generative Codes

first generation pattern languages are Patterns, and are like a menu of
items (dishes served at a restaurant)

second generation pattern languages are Generative Sequences, and are like
recipes (the procedures you can follow based on ingredients and
transformations of the ingredients to make those dishes)

http://www.livingneighborhoods.org/ht-0/generative.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequence_theory
http://www.patternlanguage.com/leveltwo/sequences.htm

On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 11:36 AM, Nicholas Roberts <
nicholas at themediasociety.org> wrote:

> *plenty of opportunities for process as paradigm with purpose*
>
> I am going to chime-in and bang a few pieces together too
>
> I read an earlier version of this thread just after attending Maker Faire
> in San Mateo County in California; lots of tinkering for the sake of it,
> cute electronics, gee wiz electronics new media, fiery interactives, steam
> punk contraptions, robots, drones and all sorts of rather pointless
> high-tech toys
>
> there was a small, minority of makers who had strong purpose, a
> social/world changing mission and where makers, and process what their
> paradigm, but they had PURPOSE.. i,e save the world, educate kids, give
> mobility to poor people etc...
>
> http://permaculture.tv/ross-evans-from-tinkering-to-world-changing-maker-faire/
>
> then there was a big gap and the majority of the toy-makers
>
> it would of been great if there was lots more creativity, making, new media
> and installations connected to real problems
>
> for instance, was thinking about public art in community gardens that used
> wind, rain, sun and soil to manage the garden with sensors and water
> reticulation, with feedback to the web to citizen science and transition to
> sustainability citizen science projects, to climate change...
> webcams/art/droid/automations/scarecrows that take time series photos, and
> open the chicken-coop or water the seedlings, turn the compost, feed the
> worms
>
> household sensors for water taps and garbage bins that connect to creative
> user interfaces of recycled objects that move or make noise or give colors
> based on sustainability sensors, that again connect to the web or mobiles
> and give wonderful interfaces into sustainability transitions and citizen
> science
>
> to group interactive / visualisations that allow democratic decision making
> for illiterates, or multi-lingual, using mind-maps created from photos,
> video, documents etc, and would allow people to touch and interact and move
> virtual objects in a room or on a touchscreen or a mobile or webpage
>
> use of games like Scratch and Etoys, to create ecological activist parables
> that give a sense of soil food webs, community ecology, cooperation vs
> competition, game-theory, Elinor Ostroms commons, permaculture and
> agroecology... that could be installed on OLPC XO's so that kids the world
> over could learn about ecology online, build their own models of school
> gardens, share libraries of ecosystems, provide real data for citizen
> science projects... could use Modkit and Adruino and Processing and Scratch
> to interface to the garden automota art
>
> for a movement of visual and new media artists to provide engaging and
> inspiring visualisations into the massive data dumps coming from the open
> government and data initiatives of world governments i,e Obama's Open Gov
> Directive data.gov or the World Banks data.worldbank.org
>
> use drones such as UAV and home-made weather balloons and connect via SMS
> or mobile or HAM radio with web aggregators like Managing News or Ushahidi
> to provide useful and inspiring pictograph based generative codes for
> regenerating a society, an ecosystem after the disasters of an earthquake
> and the slow disasters of after-shock, the famine
>
> http://mobileactive.org/howtos/mapping-sms-incident-reports-review-ushahidi-and-managing-news
>
> counter-surveillance tools for communities facing the neo-liberal onslaught
> of the Shock Doctrine; mobile, SMS, web, OLPC based tools for citizens in
> distress to manage the BINGOs, mil, corporate contractors and media...
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance#Countersurveillance.2C_inverse_surveillance.2C_sousveillance
>
> low-budget weather ballons that make low-tech, low budget maps of areas for
> citizens ecoligical and economic intelligence, DIY UAV drones that could
> fly-out an area and make maps of mines or extractive agrobusiness, i.e.
> logging the Amazon or Sumatra with powerful gut wrenching interactive
> visualisations and viral communications
>
> plenty of opportunities for process as paradigm with purpose
>
> --
> Nicholas Roberts
> skype permaculturecoop
> plans http://gaiapermaculture.com
> video http://Permaculture.TV
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 9:38 PM, christopher sullivan <csulli at saic.edu>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> kick me off this group if you like, but I cannot believe that in a world
>> full of hunger, politics, love, sex, children, moose, you name it,
>> that so many people think that Data, machines, are content.
>>
>> Eilean is making a valid comparison. At least I hope you realize that
>> those
>> using image and sound as generative content, are not just behind the
>> times, we
>> work differently than you, and to much success.
>>  As a teacher I have told graduate students that I could not work with
>> them,
>> three times. one wanted to make fashionable purses, one was a color field
>> painter (I sent them to fine color field enthusiasts) and one animator who
>> said
>> they where not interested in what there work was about. But in twenty
>> years I
>> have run into nothing but people who look at there medium as a tool. I
>> much
>> beloved tool, but a tool, a skill set, a craft, to be reckoned with
>> historically,
>> but not the content of there work..
>>
>>   this is not about age, (I am 49) my 20 year old students are as bored by
>> glitches, chance operations, and algorithms as I am. a computer IS a tool.
>> If
>> you have a relationship with it, that is fine, but many complex
>> thinkers,(I
>> will call myself one) does look at my cameras, sound recorders, computers,
>> as
>> tools.
>> We make our work about other things, like most filmmakers, writers,
>> painters,
>> play writes, have been doing forever.
>>      Why are so many New Media artists and academics, embracing modernism
>> at
>> this moment in history. do we really have so little faith in having a
>> meaningful dialogue with the world at large! where is your blood?
>>
>> from the Love, hate, sex, birth, death guy, Chris.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Quoting Erika Jean Lincoln <fur_princess at yahoo.ca>:
>>
>> > Hi Eileen,
>> >
>> > I am going to have to disagree on your comparison.
>> > You stated that
>> > > The image as output seems to me the most active agent
>> > > because it is out in the world
>> > > communicating.
>> >
>> > I don't think it is the image that communicates in the example we are
>> looking
>> > at if that was the case then why have any process at all. the software
>> > communicates through the image.
>> >
>> > > However, if one is more
>> > > interested in the the data set being "algorithmically"
>> > > processed through a computer, then why waste the paper to
>> > > create an image that is non active at the end?
>> >
>> > I think the image can still be a part of the work, I feel that the way
>> the
>> > work is described misplaces the location of the agency within the work.
>> On
>> > the larger question of agency and images and tools, I think to describe
>> a
>> > work as we are discussing by not talking about the software/hardware we
>> do
>> > just create an impression of "computer as tool".
>> >
>> > Your illustration of a painting on the wall in a museum painted
>> centuries ago
>> > cannot be used as an example. Time is not accounted for in the same way.
>> > Leonardo and/or his helpers painted an image where time is not
>> considered.
>> > Yes it took time to make the work but that time was singular not to be
>> > addressed again. The desire of the artist was to create the work as a
>> > singular piece that exists in time the process stops when the artist
>> puts
>> > down the brush an says "Yep its done". Conservators exist to halt time
>> on
>> > such paintings, museums spend money to halt time on works.
>> >
>> > Where as a work that exists in space and is intended to change over time
>> is
>> > very different. Process denotes actions over time. I happened to be in
>> > Toronto a couple of weeks ago and Hans Haacke's work Ice Stick was on
>> > display, (someone mentioned Haacke's work in relation to this topic
>> earlier).
>> > It consists of a refrigeration unit, and condensed water vapor that is
>> in the
>> > form of a stick, for lack of a better description. the work exists in
>> its
>> > environment and changes over time. People may look at it and call it a
>> giant
>> > popsicle sculpture. But it cant be reduced to only one element, the
>> popsicle
>> > cant exist without its refrigeration unit which has to be plugged in to
>> work,
>> > and the gallery's environment. these elements are integral to the work,
>> and
>> > cannot be seen as tools displayed on a pedestal separate from the work.
>> >
>> > It is like the difference between the terms complicated and complexity
>> that
>> > N. Katherine Hayles describes in her book "My Mother was a Computer:
>> Digital
>> > Subjects and Literary Texts"
>> >
>> > Complicated: (within machines) parts interact with each other in defined
>> and
>> > predictable ways. reducible
>> >
>> > Complex: (computation) many parts interacting with one another to create
>> > something different and unpredictable. non-reducible
>> >
>> >
>> > Erika Lincoln
>> > Electronic Media Artist
>> > Winnipeg/Manitoba/Canada
>> > http://www.lincolnlab.net
>> >
>> >
>> > --- On Fri, 5/21/10, Eileen Reynolds (Asst Prof) <EReynolds at ntu.edu.sg>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> > > From: Eileen Reynolds (Asst Prof) <EReynolds at ntu.edu.sg>
>> > > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Process as paradigm
>> > > To: "soft_skinned_space" <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>> > > Received: Friday, May 21, 2010, 11:18 PM
>> > > Hi Erika,
>> > >
>> > > The image as output seems to me the most active agent
>> > > because it is out in the world
>> > > communicating.   However, if one is more
>> > > interested in the the data set being "algorithmicly"
>> > > processed through a computer, then why waste the paper to
>> > > create an image that is non active at the end?  If the
>> > > production of the image is just a remnant and record of the
>> > > computer's processing, then no, it is not an active agent,
>> > > and only proof of the actively processing computer and its
>> > > ability to do something.
>> > >
>> > > My other thought is the old classic - "the computer is just
>> > > a tool".   And since we place these tools on
>> > > such a high pedestal, perhaps the Louvre should instead
>> > > display the paint brush that Leonardo used to paint the Mona
>> > > Lisa rather than just the 30 × 20 inch remnant of the
>> > > pigmented data set that he "algorithmicly" processed through
>> > > the bristles. But I'm not too certain that would interest
>> > > very many.
>> > >
>> > > -Eileen
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > ________________________________________
>> > > From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> > > [empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au]
>> > > On Behalf Of Erika Jean Lincoln [fur_princess at yahoo.ca]
>> > > Sent: Friday, May 21, 2010 11:38 PM
>> > > To: soft_skinned_space
>> > > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Process as paradigm
>> > >
>> > > Hi Maria, Yann,
>> > > Isn't it more precise to say that the data set of the
>> > > digital image is "algorithmicly" processed through an
>> > > computer which leads to a different data set which is then
>> > > represented as an image?
>> > >
>> > > To me the image is not the active agent.
>> > > Thoughts?
>> > >
>> > > Erika Lincoln
>> > > Electronic Media Artist
>> > > Winnipeg/Manitoba/Canada
>> > > http://www.lincolnlab.net
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > --- On Thu, 5/20/10, Maria Verstappen <notnot at xs4all.nl>
>> > > wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > From: Maria Verstappen <notnot at xs4all.nl>
>> > > > Subject: Re: [-empyre-] Process as paradigm
>> > > > To: "soft_skinned_space" <empyre at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>,
>> > > "Yann Le Guennec" <y at x-arn.org>
>> > > > Received: Thursday, May 20, 2010, 11:37 AM
>> > > > Dear Yann,
>> > > > In the context of this exhibition the notion of
>> > > "generative
>> > > > image" can be taken quite literal as a still image
>> > > that
>> > > > generates the next image in real time. Subsequently
>> > > this new
>> > > > image forms the basis for the next image, etcetera. In
>> > > case
>> > > > of a screen based work, the viewer experiences this
>> > > ongoing
>> > > > sequence as a dynamic animation.
>> > > > Maria
>> > > >
>> > > > On May 19, 2010, at 10:09 PM, Yann Le Guennec wrote:
>> > > >
>> > > > > Hello dear Empyreans,
>> > > > >
>> > > > > systems are open;
>> > > > > entropy is a mistake;
>> > > > > boundaries are in the mind (of the 'modelizer'=
>> > > > someone making a model);
>> > > > > every process is part of n systems;
>> > > > > quantum physics is a biface (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biface
>> );
>> > > > > we build tools we need, to prove what we think;
>> > > > > we use tools someone built (some day), to prove
>> > > what
>> > > > we thought (some day);
>> > > > >
>> > > > > but ... i would still like to know what is this:
>> > > a
>> > > > 'generative image';
>> > > > >
>> > > > > http://www.laboralcentrodearte.org/en/714-catalogue
>> > > > (PDF p: 55)
>> > > > >
>> > > > > Do you mean a picture can generate something, or,
>> > > an
>> > > > image is necessarily a mind projection ? in the
>> > > future
>> > > > (unforeseen) ?
>> > > > >
>> > > > >
>> > > > > best,
>> > > > > yann
>> > > > >
>> > > > >
>> > > > >
>> > > > > _______________________________________________
>> > > > > empyre forum
>> > > > > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> > > > > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>> > > >
>> > > > _______________________________________________
>> > > > empyre forum
>> > > > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> > > > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>> > > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > _______________________________________________
>> > > empyre forum
>> > > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> > > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>> > >
>> > > CONFIDENTIALITY: This email is intended solely for the
>> > > person(s) named and may be confidential and/or privileged.
>> > > If you are not the intended recipient, please delete it,
>> > > notify us and do not copy, use, or disclose its content.
>> > > Thank you.
>> > >
>> > > Towards A Sustainable Earth: Print Only When Necessary
>> > > _______________________________________________
>> > > empyre forum
>> > > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> > > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>> > >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > empyre forum
>> > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>> >
>>
>>
>> Christopher Sullivan
>> Dept. of Film/Video/New Media
>> School of the Art Institute of Chicago
>> 112 so michigan
>> Chicago Ill 60603
>> csulli at saic.edu
>> 312-345-3802
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mail.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/attachments/20100525/34c248fb/attachment.html>