Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!isi.edu!vaxa.isi.edu!smoliar From: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) Newsgroups: comp.music Subject: Re: ICMC reaction Message-ID: <15134@venera.isi.edu> Date: 27 Sep 90 01:19:38 GMT References: <40170@becker.UUCP> <3456@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> Sender: news@isi.edu Reply-To: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) Distribution: comp Organization: USC-Information Sciences Institute Lines: 70 In article eiverson@nmsu.edu (Eric Iverson) writes: > >I did not say that previous ICMC conferences were more "idea rich." I >have not been to previous ICMC conferences. However, I have been to >AI, Computational Linguistics, and Artificial Life conferences in >which I left knowing a lot more than I did when I arrived, and had >accumulated several papers that I then incorporated into my own >research. With limited exceptions, this did not happen at ICMC. > I should probably begin with the disclaimer that I was not at the ICMC conference. On the other hand, like Eric, I have a fair amount of conference-going experience. In fact, I was at the Artificial Life Conference which he has been extolling (with good reason, in my own opinion). One of the things I have observed lately is that there is a depressing tendency among conferences which become "established" (such as IJCAI and AAAI in artificial intelligence). The problem is that these conferences become the forum for those individuals who are obliged to present there work due to their publish-or-perish circumstances. WHAT they present is irrelevant, as long as it manages to get approved by the program committee. That committee, alas, is so overwhelmed by the volume of submitted material that it is often very difficult to make terribly good judgments . . . particularly when those judgments are trying to anticipate what will appeal to the curiosity of less conventional conferees. The Artificial Life Conference was a truly inspiring experience because it did not have to bear this burden of establishment. The people who were there were there because they WANTED to be there. Indeed, I came away with the impression that practically everyone who was working on Artificial Life was doing it as an auxiliary activity and therefore did not have to worry about putting on a good show for any powers that be. Having said all that, let me venture forth with some potentially dangerous remarks about computer music. While we would like to think of computer music as a fresh discipline as exciting as Artificial Life, the true is that is has become quite established. The mere fact that there is this organization which encourages membership in order to participate is a sign of such establishment. I would even venture a guess that the discipline first began to become established when a critical mass of practitioners started trying to take the work which had come out of Bell Laboratories (primarily from Max Mathews) and make a standard out of it. Standards beget establishment, and establishment saps excitement. Of course, there will always be excitement out on the fringes. Unfortunately, such fringe work often tends to get rejected by established organizations. When it DOES get accepted (and, having read Eric's paper, I would classify him as someone who is out on an exciting fringe), it is still subjected to isolation because it just does not conform to any of the approved themes of the affair. Next month I shall be delivering an artificial intelligence paper at a meeting of the Society of Music Theory. I shall be part of a session involving cognition and music theory, but I already sense a sort of isolation between my approach and that of the other papers in my session. I do not know if I shall come away from this conference with the same sort of frustration which Eric reported. However, by virtue of Eric having the courage to speak his mind on these matters, I know I shall be thinking about them and will probably try to report on them when I return from my own conference experience. ========================================================================= USPS: Stephen Smoliar USC Information Sciences Institute 4676 Admiralty Way Suite 1001 Marina del Rey, California 90292-6695 Internet: smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu "It's only words . . . unless they're true."--David Mamet