Alex McLean

Heading north

I’m heading for Sheffield with my family in September.. I’ll have finished writing up my PhD by the time my funding runs out in April, and so will be looking for gainful employment from then, something like teaching, research, software development, music and/or event production in or around Sheffield. Any leads, including interesting people to meet, possible hosts for research applications (programming language design for artistic domains, interactive music interfaces etc) or anything else much appreciated. I am aware of the excellent access space and also the fine Adrian Moore at Sheffield Uni but little else… I’d also consider remote work/collaboration.

Paper on bricolage programming

I’m very happy to have a paper “Bricolage Programming in the Creative Arts” accepted to this year’s PPIG (the Psychology of Programming Interest Group).  You’re probably better off reading the PDF version, but I’ve put it here too:

Abstract:

In this paper we consider artists who create their work by writing algorithms, which when interpreted by a computer generates their plotted drawings, synthesised music, animated digital video, or whatever target medium they have chosen. We examine the demands that such artists place upon their environments, the relationships between concepts and algorithms, and of cognition and computation. We begin by considering an artist’s creative process, and situating it within the bricolage style of programming. An embodied view of bricolage programming is related, underpinned by theories of cognitive metaphor and computational creativity, and finally with consideration of the bricolage programmer’s relation to time.

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