had a beautiful chat with nasif.
we first discussed the differences between my original premise & my experiments — i wanted to make people experience cellular-automata with senses other than sight; yet my experiments were all around sight.
i thought about why that was — i am intuitively drawn more towards sight; but i also recognize that it is safer than other territories. who wants to say “i’m going to make people taste cellular-automata”? realized that i was being avoidant; that i had fears; that i was playing too safe.
he also probed further into the project being an art piece versus a tool. is it automata in different medium (perhaps as creative research) or is it a tool that other people will use? he explained his disdain for the overuse of the word ‘tool’; which echoes my feelings of itp-projects being one-offs — even though they’re termed as ‘tools’.
he didn’t see value in it as a tool; i disagreed. maybe he’s right though, and i wouldn’t know yet.
we made a connection between zimoun sculptures — work, by zimoun — and physical-expression of rule0based systems. i hadn’t seen that yet.
he ended by explaining a series of ‘itp-theses-traps’; one of which was to make a series (an alumni mentioned this to him). so, we discussed whether i want to make many or make one, well-executed one. this is largely because an itp-thesis must end in a commitment; because it is easy to hide behind experiments & not make decisions. related to collages, not committing, and making many.
