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Includes unlimited streaming of Manipulating Automated Manipulated Automation
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"Manipulating Automated Manipulated Automation" is a recorded document of games that I (Chiho Oka) devised around the act of “using a computer.” The recording contains three types of games.
The first type is the “Dancing Cursor Game” (2, 4), performed by activating a code that automatically moves the cursor on the desktop. In an extension of that system, through the automatic movement of the keyboard and mouse, a live performance system was created in which desktop folders are beautifully arranged, sounds are played through selection of sound effects in the system preferences, Minesweeper is activated, poems appear on the screen, the computer shuts down, and so on. (Tracks 10-13)
The purpose of the desktop screen, keyboard, mouse, etc. is the exchange of information between a machine and a human being. Normally, people operate these things in real time when using a computer. But I, as the human, decided not to move the keyboard or mouse myself; instead, the movements of the pre-manipulated mouse and keyboard perform automatically, and I simply watch the screen, without doing anything.
The uniqueness of software is that, when a person operates a single parameter, the multiple automated actions connected beyond it react in turn. A large number of these processes then form a series, interconnect, and make up (for example) a gigantic operating system-like software program. The individual processes cannot be fully understood by the vast majority of end users. I am one of those end users.
For the end user, though, the real defeat may actually be something like (for example) creating the type of music they’re expected to create when using DTM software, or painting the kind of picture they’re expected to create when using a painting program, or listening to the kind of music they’re expected to listen to on a music streaming app.
The final game the end user can play is intervention. In this game, an automated action specified by a certain person is operated with a different aim than that person intended.
In terms of openness in dealing with computers, I think the really important thing is not to learn to write code (with market value), but to devise anomalous processes for using tools. Based on this idea, the “mechanization of human action towards computers” is a type of anomalous play that I consider to be one method of intervention.
The second type of game is to assign the computer a task that it just manages to accomplish right before the live coding environment stops functioning properly or terminates abnormally. (Tracks 6-8)
First of all, live coding is a performance method in which one writes/activates code and makes sound in real time, while projecting the computer screen on the stage with a projector and revealing the performance system to the audience.
However, partly because I did too much “practice” during my classical music education in Japan, this process of writing and activating code in real time is always painful for me, as I don’t want to keep on practicing steadily every day for the rest of my life. So why do I have to do live coding? I’ve had this question in my head ever since I started live coding.
One thing I like about computer music is its effortless nature. Simply put, it’s like, “If you push this, the performance starts by itself.” And if that leads to humor or oddness, it’s even more interesting for me. The same is true for the automatic play button on an electronic piano, or an animal walking on a keyboard attached to a synthesizer. And when this playing method and process were delayed more and more and the performance was accomplished just at the brink of abnormal termination, the thrill of that performance and its development truly came from something effortless. When I discovered this game, I thought, “OK, I’ll keep on doing live coding for a while!”
The third type of game is playing with toys. Tracks 1 and 3 were recorded when I was playing with a SuperNoteClub EX, an educational toy computer released in 1996. I found the toy at the Hard-Off store in Akihabara. By the way, when I was five, I learned to operate a keyboard with a Hello Kitty educational toy computer. Now that I think about it, it was around the same time I started learning piano. Track 5 is a pseudo-Bach recording. Track 9 was recorded when I was playing with a Korg Volca Drum, a physical modeling rhythm machine. I found an inexpensive one on the Mercari shopping site.
I’ve attempted to provide some explanation of the document of three types of games contained in this CD. It may seem as if I’m just repeating odd things, but if there’s some meaning here, I think it’s that I consistently wrestled with the idea of how to experience and understand the transmission of information—that is, the communication—between a machine and myself. I mean, if there’s any meaning at all… (Chiho Oka / English translaton by Cathy Fishman)
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