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Creativity also happened in unlimited environments. That’s why there are many more use cases for computer/laptop.

by zakki 3y ago

Retric 3y ago
Does it? I find creative solutions very rarely occur when I am actually using a computer rather than sitting back and thinking or going for a walk etc. Computers seem to be awesome tools for refining ideas yet really bad at facilitating their creation.
- iraqmtpizza 3y ago
  There is no shortage of limitations in real life or on a massively powerful desktop computer. People on desktop are not gods. Nor are they unlimited. I don't know what creative solutions you're talking about but unless we're talking about things making art with limited colors and resolutions which is only necessary because that's what the customer has, there is not much point in limiting oneself artificially unless you are truly stuck otherwise or are doing it for its own sake on some sort of metaphysical quest
  - gizajob 3y ago
    In the case of music and recording, often times better and more creative records were made by people having to devise complicated solutions to having technology with huge limitations - a famous example being that Sgt Pepper by the Beatles was made using tape machines that were limited to four tracks. Hence those involved had to think deeply and be inspired to find solutions to “defeat the machine” (in the words of Paul McCartney). Compare this to the state of affairs today where people are virtually “gods” in terms of power - the number of audio tracks, sounds, editing capabilities of someone using Logic is essentially unlimited, and yet music hasn’t responded very much to the technology because now the machine is incredible and powerful to the point where it basically cannot be defeated - almost nobody can even come close to utilising the power and capabilities offered. We haven’t had an explosion of novel forms and a wealth of newness, people just use them to clone what was produced in the past but cheaper and more quickly. The horizon of the canvas of a DAW is really too huge to ever get to the end of, and it’s almost overwhelming for most artists to rise to the challenge of, so they just stick with the limitations and live an easier life. There’s been no great flourishing of 21st century music with the emergence of this power, we’re mostly stuck in forms and genres created in the 20th century. There’s also an analogous situation in hip-hop with the very limited SP-1200 and MPC 60 samplers. They don’t do much but what they do, they do well, so it’s up to producers to work to that and try to transcend it. Having an unlimited workspace in the computer to replicate the same doesn’t lead to better hip hop. So you’re right to invoke metaphysics, because the machines have a kind of ontology, same as the mode of life of the artists using them. It doesn’t have to be a metaphysical quest, but there can be better and more interesting ways of creating on limited tools, particularly if you’ve used them for a long time. Some writers such as Jean Baudrillard stuck with typewriters as a writing tool long after the introduction of the desktop computer (he died in 2007) because he found it was simpler and better, less distracting, more focussed on the word and him. You could invoke the same “omfg you could be pasting in hyperlinks and doing referencing and surfing at the same time you’re just doing it for your own sake!” toward someone like that, but actually it’s not for its own sake, he only needs to think and produce text and it’s the perfect tool for that, the computer is only ever pretending to be a typewriter and comes with a load of noise and headache alongside.
    - iraqmtpizza 3y ago
      Did Beethoven make his best stuff after he went deaf (genuinely curious; I'm inherently Beethskeptical after being Toccata-Fugue-D-minor-pilled)? Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori were technologically well-resourced as far as I can tell. Why did nujabes pioneer lo-fi? I don't think there's anything fundamentally limiting about the iPad or iPhone computationally. The only limiting factor is the interface. Which if you're trying to cultivate frustration in order to pour it into your album, sure. But mere frustration is better had elsewhere, imo. I think that staying with the typewriter to write books is entirely different than adopting a curated, sandboxed mobile device as one's medium. Firstly, it was at one point the gold standard for writing. Never the case with touch screens. Secondly, iPhones and iPads are not simpler or less distracting than a typewriter, or even a computer not connected to the internet. playing with the chmod command from 1970 is really not that interesting. But also I seriously doubt that people will look back on iPhone 5 videos like they do and will do vinyl records, LaserDiscs, or even CDs.
      - gizajob 3y ago
        “iPhones and iPads are not simpler or less distracting than a typewriter” Yeah, my point. Please read my comment before negating it as matter of course. Beethoven’s ears breaking is a slightly different issue than technological limitations - his technology of ink on paper was still the same. He wasn’t playing each orchestral part one by one when he wrote his symphonies, he just couldn’t hear his main composing instrument any more, but had obviously internalised the skill of hearing it all in his head long before he lost the ability to hear it outside of his head upon playback, sadly. Nujabes didn’t pioneer lo-fi.
        iraqmtpizza 3y ago
        >Nujabes didn’t pioneer lo-fi. What do you want? I guess you mean he only pioneered good lo-fi that wasn't Grandmaster Flash cringe. How did Niggaz Of Destruction pioneer lo-fi? You completely skipped over my point about the internet but ok.
        3y ago
  - Retric 3y ago
    The limitations removed by a computer is the size of my working memory. Draw a line, type something, or whatever and suddenly it stops competing for space in my head. The idea space I can explore with a computer is so many orders of magnitude larger it’s practically unbound by comparison. However, by saving those thoughts to a computer suddenly they are more likely to be tweaked than discarded. I’m not bound to include them they just get sticky and slow down my exploration of novel ideas. A whiteboard lends itself to constantly erasing things rather than meaningless tweaks. Collaborate with a few people and nobody suggests moving a box you just drew on a whiteboard, but on a computer someone will want to move it around. The capacity itself becomes a distraction.
    - iraqmtpizza 3y ago
      I fail to see how a box's position on a digital whiteboard is considered more up for debate than a box on a real whiteboard. Have you ever used a real whiteboard in a collaborative environment? When you move it, you have to redraw all the lines to and from it. Also, what is your point?
      - lanstin 3y ago
        The mechanism of using a general purpose computer is so engaging that people stop to argue about the color of the bike shed instead of attending to the conceptual,world where the problem they are trying to solve lies. People spend their mental energy optimizing trivial things instead of writing the great American novel of our century or creating an infrastructure to allow decentralized, non-advertising based products that bring the benefits of networked communications and less of the harm. At least I think that is the point.
        iraqmtpizza 3y ago
        That has not been my experience. But a physical whiteboard doesn't get distributed to millions of people over potentially hundreds of years or more. If it were, then at that point you may as well take the time to get it right. You contribute to bikeshedding when you whine about how the position of the box doesn't matter. Let them put it wherever they want then if it doesn't matter.

Creativity also happened in unlimited environments. That’s why there are many more use cases for computer/laptop.

by zakki 3y ago

Creativity also happened in unlimited environments. That’s why there are many more use cases for computer/laptop.

Does it? I find creative solutions very rarely occur when I am actually using a computer rather than sitting back and thinking or going for a walk etc. Computers seem to be awesome tools for refining ideas yet really bad at facilitating their creation.

iraqmtpizza 3y ago
There is no shortage of limitations in real life or on a massively powerful desktop computer. People on desktop are not gods. Nor are they unlimited. I don't know what creative solutions you're talking about but unless we're talking about things making art with limited colors and resolutions which is only necessary because that's what the customer has, there is not much point in limiting oneself artificially unless you are truly stuck otherwise or are doing it for its own sake on some sort of metaphysical quest
- gizajob 3y ago
  In the case of music and recording, often times better and more creative records were made by people having to devise complicated solutions to having technology with huge limitations - a famous example being that Sgt Pepper by the Beatles was made using tape machines that were limited to four tracks. Hence those involved had to think deeply and be inspired to find solutions to “defeat the machine” (in the words of Paul McCartney). Compare this to the state of affairs today where people are virtually “gods” in terms of power - the number of audio tracks, sounds, editing capabilities of someone using Logic is essentially unlimited, and yet music hasn’t responded very much to the technology because now the machine is incredible and powerful to the point where it basically cannot be defeated - almost nobody can even come close to utilising the power and capabilities offered. We haven’t had an explosion of novel forms and a wealth of newness, people just use them to clone what was produced in the past but cheaper and more quickly. The horizon of the canvas of a DAW is really too huge to ever get to the end of, and it’s almost overwhelming for most artists to rise to the challenge of, so they just stick with the limitations and live an easier life. There’s been no great flourishing of 21st century music with the emergence of this power, we’re mostly stuck in forms and genres created in the 20th century. There’s also an analogous situation in hip-hop with the very limited SP-1200 and MPC 60 samplers. They don’t do much but what they do, they do well, so it’s up to producers to work to that and try to transcend it. Having an unlimited workspace in the computer to replicate the same doesn’t lead to better hip hop. So you’re right to invoke metaphysics, because the machines have a kind of ontology, same as the mode of life of the artists using them. It doesn’t have to be a metaphysical quest, but there can be better and more interesting ways of creating on limited tools, particularly if you’ve used them for a long time. Some writers such as Jean Baudrillard stuck with typewriters as a writing tool long after the introduction of the desktop computer (he died in 2007) because he found it was simpler and better, less distracting, more focussed on the word and him. You could invoke the same “omfg you could be pasting in hyperlinks and doing referencing and surfing at the same time you’re just doing it for your own sake!” toward someone like that, but actually it’s not for its own sake, he only needs to think and produce text and it’s the perfect tool for that, the computer is only ever pretending to be a typewriter and comes with a load of noise and headache alongside.
  - iraqmtpizza 3y ago
    Did Beethoven make his best stuff after he went deaf (genuinely curious; I'm inherently Beethskeptical after being Toccata-Fugue-D-minor-pilled)? Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori were technologically well-resourced as far as I can tell. Why did nujabes pioneer lo-fi? I don't think there's anything fundamentally limiting about the iPad or iPhone computationally. The only limiting factor is the interface. Which if you're trying to cultivate frustration in order to pour it into your album, sure. But mere frustration is better had elsewhere, imo. I think that staying with the typewriter to write books is entirely different than adopting a curated, sandboxed mobile device as one's medium. Firstly, it was at one point the gold standard for writing. Never the case with touch screens. Secondly, iPhones and iPads are not simpler or less distracting than a typewriter, or even a computer not connected to the internet. playing with the chmod command from 1970 is really not that interesting. But also I seriously doubt that people will look back on iPhone 5 videos like they do and will do vinyl records, LaserDiscs, or even CDs.
    - gizajob 3y ago
      “iPhones and iPads are not simpler or less distracting than a typewriter” Yeah, my point. Please read my comment before negating it as matter of course. Beethoven’s ears breaking is a slightly different issue than technological limitations - his technology of ink on paper was still the same. He wasn’t playing each orchestral part one by one when he wrote his symphonies, he just couldn’t hear his main composing instrument any more, but had obviously internalised the skill of hearing it all in his head long before he lost the ability to hear it outside of his head upon playback, sadly. Nujabes didn’t pioneer lo-fi.
      - iraqmtpizza 3y ago
        >Nujabes didn’t pioneer lo-fi. What do you want? I guess you mean he only pioneered good lo-fi that wasn't Grandmaster Flash cringe. How did Niggaz Of Destruction pioneer lo-fi? You completely skipped over my point about the internet but ok.
        3y ago
- Retric 3y ago
  The limitations removed by a computer is the size of my working memory. Draw a line, type something, or whatever and suddenly it stops competing for space in my head. The idea space I can explore with a computer is so many orders of magnitude larger it’s practically unbound by comparison. However, by saving those thoughts to a computer suddenly they are more likely to be tweaked than discarded. I’m not bound to include them they just get sticky and slow down my exploration of novel ideas. A whiteboard lends itself to constantly erasing things rather than meaningless tweaks. Collaborate with a few people and nobody suggests moving a box you just drew on a whiteboard, but on a computer someone will want to move it around. The capacity itself becomes a distraction.
  - iraqmtpizza 3y ago
    I fail to see how a box's position on a digital whiteboard is considered more up for debate than a box on a real whiteboard. Have you ever used a real whiteboard in a collaborative environment? When you move it, you have to redraw all the lines to and from it. Also, what is your point?
    - lanstin 3y ago
      The mechanism of using a general purpose computer is so engaging that people stop to argue about the color of the bike shed instead of attending to the conceptual,world where the problem they are trying to solve lies. People spend their mental energy optimizing trivial things instead of writing the great American novel of our century or creating an infrastructure to allow decentralized, non-advertising based products that bring the benefits of networked communications and less of the harm. At least I think that is the point.
      - iraqmtpizza 3y ago
        That has not been my experience. But a physical whiteboard doesn't get distributed to millions of people over potentially hundreds of years or more. If it were, then at that point you may as well take the time to get it right. You contribute to bikeshedding when you whine about how the position of the box doesn't matter. Let them put it wherever they want then if it doesn't matter.