A reading/sound performance about “demonstrations” using the sound programming language mimium. A demonstration is an act of presenting something; it can signify direct political action, while at the same time it is sometimes used to showcase technological advancements. In this performance, while reflecting on the history of how technical demonstrations—as exemplified by Douglas Engelbart—have become depoliticized, the performer tries to connect this to the aesthetics of revealing code in live coding and attempt to repoliticize technical demonstrations. The performance is executed by intentionally inducing real-time audio feedback from the voice being read aloud, captured by a microphone, and controlling that feedback.
Photos by Kenji Agata
Text read during the performance
Mothers, Demos of All,
母よ、全てについてのデモたちよ、
This is a demonstration of mimium, a programming language for music.
Sound programming is done by calculating waveform of the vibration that will be sent to a speaker.
If you describe as vibrating speakers 1000 times per second, the sound of 1000Hz comes up.
If I add input from microphone, I can amplify my speech voice like this.
I am doing a demonstration.
The word of Demonstration means, show and present something. There are demos to show the technological progress, and also demos to show the will of protest to the government.
What does demonstration demonstrates.
In 1968, a computer scientist Douglas Engelbart did a demonstration of NLS, that is the ancestor of today’s modern computing environment such as Mouse and Word Processor.
This demonstration well known as it was later described as “The Mother of All Demos” by the journalist Steven Levy.
Mother gives birth to a demo.
It was 1994 in which Levy wrote this text. The phrase of “The Mother of All,” comes from the word repeated by Saddam Hussein for describing Gulf War as “The Mother of All Battles” has begun.
In contrast to his confident statement, the war had stopped in 100 hours and his word repeatedly broadcasted through TV. The phrase of “The Mother of All” became an ironical superlative form.
Mother gives birth to battles.
Engelbert’s research was inspired from by the paper “As We May Think” by another researcher Vannevar Bush. This text was written by Bush, who was deeply involved in Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb, for presenting a vision for non-military scientific research after the war, one month before the two bombs were dropped.
The young Engelbert, who was working in the military at the time, read this text in the small shed in Philippines and got impressed. He started thinking that, as humanity encounters the more and more complex problems, what we need to solve them is an augumentation of human intellect.
By the 1990s, personal computers, an extension of Engelbart’s vision, widely spread. Looking back, his demonstration was described as “The Mother of All”, which is a meme by people observing war with a detached gaze through the media.
In truth, we don’t know what he really thought about the war. During the demonstration, he focused solely on showing what could be done. That is precisely why the demonstration was so compelling, moved people’s hearts, and succeeded in making history.
It means, at the same time, he excluded what should we do and why should we do from the demonstration.
Although the Gulf War ended in a ceasefire, no peace treaty was signed. Since then, international conflicts in the Middle East have continued, from the Iraq War to the current war in Iran.
Mother gave birth to the war, and mother is going to put an end to it.
Human intelligence has been augumented. Artificial intelligence is now a useful tool for monitoring targets. Difficult problems have become even more difficult.
I am doing demonstration.
In live coding, showing their code to audiences is recommended.
It does not matter if the meaning of the code is understandable to the audience.
The meaning conveyed by the code does not necessarily describe the subject accurately.
For example, the definition of the Kick function described here is overly simplified model. In reality, it merely models the sound produced when something hit an object.
Naming in programming is arbitrary.
Thus, the sound does not change if I replace this Kick to Bullet.
However, by modifying the definition of the function named as Bullet, it is easy to make the sound nothing like Bullet apparently. I have a freedom to destroy Bullet.
You can understand that I destroyed the Bullet even if you do not fully understand the algorithm written in code. This is the meaning of showing codes in the live coding, and this is the explanation of the standpoint of “live coding is a matter of attitude”.
Live coding is a demonstration.
Code can be rewritten.
Program can be reorganized.
Calculation is not neutral.
Augumentation of Intellect is not a scalar.
I am doing a demonstration.
You can do a demonstration.
Do the demonstration with me.