Artistic Software: Processes and Products

1
Artistic Software Processes and Products

• Letizia Jaccheri, Department of Computer and
  Information Science, Norwegian University of
  Science and Technology

2
Structure

• Motivation
• Background Software
• Goals art and software
• Experience art and software
• Future and challenge

3
Background

• Software engineering (1988 - )
• Master Software development environment 1988
• PhD Software process modeling 1995
• The informatics era is over
• Cuore Computer Mondadori
• Kjærlighet og Computer
• Multidisciplinary (2001 - )
• Health, military, biology, bank, schools, ...
• Art!

4
Computer science/engineering

• Programming Constant, variable, if, then, else,
  while, for, compilation unit, library, C, C,
  Java, Python, procedure, algorithm, task, thread
  (ex. processing)
• operating system, database
• Software engineering Object oriented programming
  and design, testing, software process, software
  architecture, empirical software engineering,
  requirements, design, software architecture,
  quality, open source software
• AI artificial intelligence
• Hardware CPU, RAM, ROM, BIOS, buses, power
  supply, ... (ex. arduino)

5
Software Creativity and constraints

• Software development
• Creativity code and fix / free software
• Constraints WaterFall model
• Research
• Creativity good ideas
• Constraints Research method, middle term
  evaluation, state of the art, literature review

6
Software do and observe/write

• Software development
• Do programming
• Observe document
• Research
• Do Software design
• Observe Empirical software engineering
• ... Action Research

7
Software models and products

• Software
• The models are the products (compilation)
• Hw
• Physical construction of components
• Architecture
• ...

8
Goals

• Explore the way the interaction between software
  technology and art can also be beneficial for the
  software technologists
• I was told that software is intangible...
  Through art we want to sense software by
  hearing, touching, and seeing. We want to engage
  in software dialogs.

9
Experience (art - software)

• RIK (Rom IKT Kropp project film 2002)
• Experts in team
• 2004 (IT - art) 2005 (technology - art) 2006
  (software art)
• Blog letiziajaccheri.splinder.com
  letiziajaccheri.motime.com
• Cooperation with
• TEKS (board) Trondheim electronic art center
• Oyvind Brandsegg
• Falanx / ARM / Mario Blazevic
• Åsmund Gamlesæter (lysvegg)

10
Experience

• Course software art products and processes
• Project and master students
• 2005-2006
• Thor Arne S. and Audun
• 2006-2007
• 1 Nicolas M.
• 2 Rune F.
• 3 Thibault and Maximo
• PhD and PostDoc
• 2006 PhD Salahuddin Ammed (from 25.09)
• 2007 PostDoc Anna Trifonova (from late 2006)

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Literature (a start)

• (1) Aestetic Computing, edited by Paul Fishwick
  , Leonardo Books, 2006. ISBN 0-262-06250-X.
  Chapter 1, An Introduction to Aesthetic
  Computing, Paul Fishwick, 25 pages.
• (2) Craig Harris. Art and Innovation The Xerox
  PARC Artist-in-Residence Program , Leonardo
  Books, 1999, ISBN 0-262-08275-6. An Archeology
  of Sound An Anthropology od Communication, Paul
  De Marinis, pages 164 - 184
• (3) Rachel Greene. Internet Art. Thames and
  Hudson, World of Art, June 2004. ISBN
  0500203768. Introduction pages 8 - 19, Chapter 2,
  Isolating the Elements, pages 73 - 118.
• (4) Sally Yeates Sedelow. The Computer in the
  Humanities and Fine Arts. ACM Comput. Surv.,
  2(2) 89 - 110, 1970.

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Research questions

• Analysis/synthesis
• Pattern recognition and analysis in art
  architecture, music, literature
• Construction or synthesis
• Representation (Sedelow70)

13
Research questions

• Aural or auditory
• Music is the art form which has been most
  amenable to be computer-aided
• Visual
• Tactile (Seddelow70)

14
Research question

• Data storage Communication between the humanist
  and computer scientist may well be easier as to
  data representation and input than as to internal
  data storage and manipulation. In fact computer-
  aided tasks undertaken by humanists require the
  same range of conceptual models and storage
  structures as do computer-aided projects in other
  disciplines arrays, lists, trees, ..., and
  matrices. But for the humanist who is quite
  comfortable with the notion of a table of words
  may be quite baffled by the word array in a
  software context, and the computer scientist may
  be equally put off by the word style, or by the
  words such as tone and texture associated with it
  (Seddelow70)

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Research questions

• Representing programs and data structures with
  specific notations
• Incorporate artistic methods in computer science
  activities
• Improving the emotional and cultural interaction
  with the computer (Fishwick)
• Aesthetic being the philosophy of art
• Art and creativity
• Computer science
• ACM and IEEE
• Discrete mathematics
• Ars electronica 2003 computer code as raw
  material for art
• http//processing.org/

16
Research question

• Art and Innovation The Xerox PARC
  Artist-in-Residence Program (Harris)

17
Research questions

• How computers and internet have influenced art
• Net.art
• The importance of critique
• Email
• Collective projects
• Browser art
• Authorship
• Avatar (Greene)

18
Preliminary lessons learnt

• Software architecture of the algorithmic music
  system ImproSculpt
• Eventually frustrated with the amount of
  collateral work associated with further
  development of the system, Brandsegg decided to
  give up developing the old source code any
  further, and rather start with a new and more
  structured approach. This is where our project
  met his.

19
Software architecture

• Structure and quality attributes
• Performance ()
• Modifiability ()
• Availability ()
• Usability
• Security
• Testability
• Quality tactics

20
An architecture

• ... Is shaped by some collection of functional,
  quality, and business requirements. We call these
  shaping requirements architectural drivers

21
Preliminary lessons learnt

• Provided that software has influenced algorithmic
  composition, the general research question in
  this work is
• how does algorithmic composition constrain and
  shape software?
• which qualities will software for algorithmic
  composition have?
• The concrete goal of this project is
• to design and implement and improved software
  architecture of the algorithmic composition
  system Improsculpt.
• Through participation to this development
  project, the candidates will get insights in the
  system as well as empirical data which can be
  used to answer the research questions

22
Preliminary lessons learnt

• Motivation (some) students love to work with
  Improsculpt and artists in general
• Creativity and constraints
• Do and observe
• Programs and models

23
Future work

• Sacco software art creativity community openess.
  Proposal submitted to NFR (2 PhD 1 post Doc)
  with Falanx/Arm
• Choose/develop one software system at IDI
• Work for artists as with Improsculpt

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Do - observeChallenges ahead

• One of the challenges with this project has been
  finding a balance between devoting time to our
  research goal and working towards the concrete
  software goals. The two sets of goals have been,
  if not contradictory, then at least
  complementary. Our research goal has been
  observing how architecture is shaped by this kind
  of software, while the more concrete project goal
  has been to improve the software itself.