Quotes from research
December 22nd, 2008
A list of quotes on design, computing, learning, creativity and related material from my readings.
“Some of the most crucial steps in mental growth are based not simply on acquiring new skills, but on acquiring new administrative ways to use what one already knows.”
Seymour Papert
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papert%27s_principle
Of course all expression and all thought is to a degree formulaic in the sense that every word is a kind of formula, a fixed way of processing the data of experience, determining the way experience and reflection are intellectually organized, and acting as a mnemonic device of sorts.
Walter Ong
(”Orality and Literacy”, 1982 pg 36)
Artists use a wide range of materials to great effect: leather, honey, blood, oil, steel, felt, latex, paper, rubber, plastic, bones, cotton, concrete, glass, ceramics, copper, etc. The choice of material affects the perception of the work and therefore a careful choice is critical to success. Artists working with the software medium also use a wide range of materials: Java, C++, Perl, PHP, BASIC, LISP, PostScript, Python, etc. These software materials are not as familiar to most people as the physical materials mentioned above, but regardless, the choice of programming language greatly affects the perception of a piece of software. Some programming materials allow working quickly, some require intense attention to detail, and all modify the way the programmer thinks about the structure.
Casey Reas
(http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/softwarestructures/text.html)
Hume’s account of the autonomous association of ideas is a prime instance of how one can be both rational and creative. From the standpoint of a Humean aesthetics the artistic aspirant does not have to delve into mad love, schizophrenia and drugs in the manner of the Surrealists, because the autonomous association of ideas is quite simply an everyday operation of the mind. It is, according to Hume, the fundamental mechanism of mind to the extent that it feeds reason.
We forget that this is the case because, like metaphor, the products of imagination that become accepted into social currency become treated over time as if they were natural and God-given, and not the products of a creative process. Accordingly, reasoning should not necessarily be equated with convention-bound rationalism. Reasoning, as a process, can be quite as creative as the dream and daydream beloved of romantic aestheticians.
Graham Coulter-Smith
“DECONSTRUCTING INSTALLATION ART” 2006
(http://www.installationart.net/Chapter4Recombination/recombination04.html)
But crucial to a deconstructive model of creativity is the notion that the unconscious must first be informed, be loaded with information before the process of decomposition and recombination can take place. Whereas romantic aesthetics understands creativity as arising out of nothingness, deconstruction requires pre-existing systems that can be taken apart and recombined.
When considering creativity it is also necessary to admit that it is not exclusively contained within the unconscious. In order to lead to a creative product, the autonomous association of ideas that takes place in unconscious cognition must enter into consciousness. And when this happens the idea fusions of unconscious process are judged according to the genre or artistic language game that the artist is working within. And this process keeps on iterating because a work of art is usually created or built up over time. It consists of a series of micro-creative acts that are subjected to conscious reasoning and judgement and assembled into a whole.
Graham Coulter-Smith
“DECONSTRUCTING INSTALLATION ART” 2006
(http://www.installationart.net/Chapter4Recombination/recombination04.html)
Actually, the thing about tools is that you need constant access to them. I like to work with whatever equipment I have and not plan things for equipment I don’t have–because it teaches things, the material does, in doing it; it teaches me things.
Laurie Anderson
(”Art Talk”, 1988 pg 35, original interview 1979)
“I think the creative process in architecture, the design process is extremely circuitous … it’s labarynthian … it’s Calvino’s idea of the quickest way between two points is the circuitous line not the straight line.”
Thom Mayne
“… when a child learns to program, the process of learning is transformed. It becomes more active and self-directed. In particular, the knowledge is acquired for a recognizable personal purpose. The child does something with it. The new knowledge is a source of power and is experienced as such from the moment it begins to form in the child’s mind.”
Seymour Papert
(originally from “Mindstorms” 1980, found in “The New Media Reader” pg 414)
“For example, many children are held back in their learning because they have a model of learning in which you either ‘got it’, or ‘got it wrong.’ But when you learn to program a computer you almost never get it right the first time. Learning to be a master programmer is learning to become highly skilled at isolating and correcting ‘bugs’ the parts that keep the program from working. The question to ask about the program is not whether it is right or wrong, but if if it is fixable.”
Seymour Papert
(originally from “Mindstorms” 1980, found in “The New Media Reader” pg 416)
“You have a hundred L-shaped blocks to build a building. You take all the pieces, put them together, pull them apart, put them together. After a while your like a kid on a jungle gym. There are all these constructs in your mind and you can swing from one to the other with ease.”
Carl Alsing - on microcode writing
(”Soul of A New Machine” Tracey Kidder: 1981)
“Positive emotions broaden people’s thought-action repertoires, encourageing them to discover novel lines of thought or action. Joy, for instance, creates the urge to play, interest creates the urge to explore, and so on. Play, for instance, builds physical, socioemotional, and intellectual skills, and fuels brain development. Similarly, exploration increases knowledge and psychological complexity.”
(originally from “The Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions” Barbara L. Fredrikson 2004, found in “Emotional Design” Donald A. Norman pg 102)
“Is our capacity to think creatively being undermined by the very ‘information’ that is supposed to help us? Is information processing being confused with science or even beginning to replace thought? And are we in danger of blurring the distinction between what machines do when they process information and what minds do when they think?”
Theodore Roszak
(”The Cult of Information” 1986)
“Computers may be good at word and number crunching, retrieval of trivial data or objective right /wrong questions but is this quality learning? When it comes to appreciation of literature, history, creative writing or art then computer software is not in the race. Education does not equal information. Ideas, values, taste and judgement are more important than information. The place you will find these things is in other human minds, not computers.”
Theodore Roszak
(”The Cult of Information” 1986)
Writing software is a process of translating fuzzy ideas from one’s mind into a strict notational system. Using this notation as an intermediate step, visual and kinetic ideas manifest themselves in computational machines. As with other types of art, software may be written through a process of intuitive exploration, and it can be written precisely to meet a goal.
Casey Reas
(http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/softwarestructures/text.html)
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