Week 1:

Readings / Viewings

• Live coding / interactive programming
  • Read
    • 1.25 hours - Bret Victor: Learnable Programming
    • 1 hour - T.R.G. Green: Cognitive Dimensions of Notation
    • 30 minutes - Charlie Roberts:Realtime Annotations & Visualizations in Live Coding Performance Chrome only
• Creativity Support Tools / Flow
  • Watch
    • 20 minutes - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
  • Read
    • 1 hour - Resnick et. al: Design Principles for Tools to Support Creative Thinking
• HCI Fundamentals
  • 15–20 minutes - Read items 1–5 at https://lawsofux.com

For each article / viewing:

1. Write a 3–4 sentence summary of the main important points you identify.
2. Identify one problem or question you have about the article. With 3–4 sentences, provide more detail or context for the question/problem.
3. Place the results as a .pdf file (or as markdown) in the assignment dropbox. NO WORD DOCS. NO WORD DOCS. NO WORD DOCS.

Design / Composition

For this first week, we will experiment with live coding systems. I recommend one of the following:

• Hydra (2D visuals)
• Livecodelab (3D visuals + a bit of music)
• Marching.js (ray-marched visuals)
• Gibber (music + 3D visuals)
• Script-8 (games and 8-bit art)

Create a short (2–3 minute) performance using one of these systems (consider syncing to music if you’re doing a graphics performance), or, if you’re using Script-8, create a basic game that is playable. You will be asked to conduct peer critiques of this assignment in groups next week. As you use these systems, consider how the “liveness” of the environment is contributing to your workflow. Does programming become more fun? Is the arguably informal nature of these systems an impediment to you? What do you like / dislike about them?

Write a short response (minimum 500 words) addressing these questions or other aspects of the environment you found interesting or problematic. Draw on the readings to inform your response. For example, can you use the Cognitive Dimensions of Notation to help describe these systems? How do they follow (or not follow) the design principles suggested by Resnick et. al? Did you ever acheive a “flow” state while programming with these tools? It is required that you draw on the readings for your response.

Include a video of your performance, or a link to your “cassette”, at the top of your writing.