[g129774]

there was a period in computer arts around 2008 or so (edit, björn's comment prompted a reflection, it might've been earlier than that, let's call it "early 2000s"), that went away like many things with pervasive computerization. vvvv including it's naming and otherwise opaqueness is a product of that period. it was represented by groups like TOPLAP and dorkbot, and it was kind of marriage of technologists and artists, back when such a marriage would've still been self-conscious. stylistically it was a lot of algorithmic generation, live coding, and noise, people liked to use puredata, and vvvv, and other such projects to produce sharp jittery zigzaging lines on a projector screen at get togethers in brooklyn. a kind of deliberate, practiced obscurantism was part of aesthetic, you weren't supposed to keep your PD patches organized. there was a particular typographic convention associated with projects of that time, involving a lot of deliberate but arbitrary additions of punctuation marks, -/////lower case letters, repeating letters00xxx. terms like psychogeorgaphy were involved, there was of course an {esoteric}} component to it. downstream the movement took chiptunes mainstream, and produce early minimal house. some of the conventions remain in the digital arts, and video production circles.

so if you think vvvv is not propertly marketed, maybe will benefit from a mission statement, then it's not for you.

[necrotic_comp]

This aesthetic is of its time but is really import - I went to the share@open air parties in ~2003 or so, continuing to visit periodically through their run at Santo's Party House. I didn't know anything at the time, and the overwhelming obscurantism was part of the appeal.

I have a lot of feelings about this movement, and I'm happy that I was a part of it. It's driven my feelings about music and art in general, and I've spent a ton of my time since then trying to figure out how to make things that put music first while still containing the cold stochasticity of this time.

I found a great set of pictures on Flickr from ~2007-2008: https://www.flickr.com/photos/oblaat/with/3062581867

[g129774]

oh yeah i should've added share to my list! when i moved to nyc i was so poor i was subleasing a room from a carribean dude in prospect park, and would bike to lafayette with a hand me down ibook g3 :>

i really don't know how to contextualize that experience. i'm glad i was part of it, but like a lot of things immediately pre-pervasive digitalization, i feel like it will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

[bj-rn]

vvvv event in 2008:

https://www.flickr.com/groups/node08/pool

similar vibe.

[sunep]

Great festival, so many great people.

[bj-rn]

> there was a period in computer arts around 2008 [...] vvvv including it's naming and otherwise opaqueness is a product of that period

actually vvvv is about 10 years older.

[g129774]

the dates are vague, while the point remains, because trying to remember things clearer i did livecoding at toplap in brooklyn 2004-2005, and i wasn't a pioneer. but also i'm talking artistic trends, something could've happened prior to it becoming part of bigger whole, but then evolved as part of the whole that it itself has brought about.

[g129774]

but you're one of the meso guys, it would've been interesting to hear your opinions on what i said, outside the quible about dates. in my recollection vvvv leaned heavily into the aesthetic conventions around toplap at the time, and you must recall what i'm talking about judging by dates on your project page.

[bj-rn]

I started out at meso (~2005) and I worked for them for quite some time but I am not really one of the meso guys. tbh I landed there by chance at the recommendation of a friend while looking for a place to write my diploma thesis. at that time I had no idea whatsoever what they were doing and no relation at all to "digital arts" or "generative design".

[joemi]

I might be misinterpreting the aesthetic you're talking about, but I think it was similar to (and probably directly inspired by) the graphic design that The Designers Republic was doing in the 90's (think the Wipeout videogame). Their aesthetic spread pretty rapidly at the time.

[necrotic_comp]

That was definitely a gigantic influence, I agree.

[enqk]

antiorp