The Instrument and its Artist

In my opinion, there is no clear separation between the world of ideas and the world of materials and tools. Philosophically speaking, our tools influence how we think about the world. And our thoughts lead to new tools and new technologies. Our world in which we are thrown is contingent and so is the artwork and its creation. Tools, like pen and paper, instruments, a hammer, programming languages or frameworks, and even our hands act as interpreters. They translate our thoughts into actions that change the physical world around us.

As a constructivst, I argue that our mind has no direct access to reality, instead reality emerges by interacting with it. We get irritated and adapt accordingly such that the world makes sense. Therefore, this interaction is not a one-way street where we, the artist, enforce ideas onto the instrument. Instead, the instrument influences our ideas by opening and simultaneously limiting our space of possibilities. Our brain limits what we perceive so that structure can build up within our mind. It is a complexity-reducing organ that generates reality by differentiation, abstraction and selection—we and social systems literally make sense of the world. The overwhelming stream of the concrete is filtered and enriched with sense. But all this happens automatically. Before we start thinking about our brain, we use it. Sense is the universal medium which is shared by minds and social systems. Thinking and communicating operate on the basis of sense. Consequently, the sene of an artwork is contingent and depends on how we and social systems produce sense. A musical piece, a poem, a film, a novel emerges via the interaction between the artist and the world and while it emerges it changes the horizon of the possible. Each stroke, each note influences what can come next.

In the realm of (other) tools, it seems to be similar. Before we think about the being of a hammer, we use it. Furthermore, a hammer is always connected to other things, for example, a nail, a wooden chair and, of course, a function. A tool or an instrument provides us with the means of expression and a way of seeing. It defines the space of possibilities. By limitations, it paradoxically opens up our imagination.

I think limitations are one of the most underestimated requirements for artistic creation. If everything is possible, nothing will be accomplished. Too much freedom can be a burden for the artist. The form constantly collapses under the pressure of freedom. Without boundaries, the complexity of the concrete—the language of the instrument—can not be conquered. If we can create everything, we become unable to express anything.

On the other hand, too strict limitations lead to repetition. If the space of possibilities is too narrow, the artist becomes superfluous. There is just nothing to select from and the audience can not ask: Why is it this way and not the other way around? We encounter the great enemy of any creative process: boredom! Consequently, there is no precise optimal amount of limitations, i.e., space of possibilities. But changing the space from time to time can be a great source of inspiration. And in the end, it is the duty of the artist to construct a new horizon of the possible.

To find out what space of possibilities you wanna explore, extend, and break, I highly recommend to check out all available tools, and if none suits your needs, you may want to build your own! Building instruments to express ourselves (in relation to and contingent on the world) is one of those beautiful acts a programmer can do! Of course, we will always stay in some limited super-space of possibilities defined by the underlying machine we are working on. We are limited by practicality, i.e., by things that can are Turing-computable in a reasonable amount of time. If a computation consumes our lifetime, it is unpractical.

Now let us explore the space of possibilities that sclang offers.