Music 256A: Reading Response 2 – Chapter 2: Designing Expressive Toys + The Idyllic Video Game Sublime

Grant Bishko

10/02/2021

Chapter 2 of Ge Wang’s Artful Design was quite different from chapter 1. Rather than focusing on fundamental ways we design and design (as a whole) philosophies, we saw a lot more specifics on technology, history, and examples of combining music and tech. This was super cool. A quote that stuck out to me right off the bat was: “Music technology is a dynamic, complex, and cultural entity” (61). The “cultural” part stands out. I agree with this sentiment since music plays such a prominent role in society and in different cultures -- it only makes sense that this would now evolve to include tech in this day and age.  It was also fascinating to me to see how quickly technology has evolved over the past hundred years, and how much it has grown exponentially in recent years (the graph seen on page 66 is so cool, I can’t believe there are around 7 billion mobile devices…).

I really love Ge’s principle 2.1: “Design for play and delight”. This is sort of something I brought up in my first reading response last week, but I love this idea. That sometimes we aren’t designing with a particular problem to solve in mind, rather just for the fun of it. Finally, we saw this in action with Ge’s Ocarina example. Such a fun “expressive toy” as he puts it. I completely agree with this, and I love it. It’s interesting that he chose to name it a “toy” rather than an instrument, implying that it isn’t fully an instrument, but balanced out the “play”  component with the word “expressive”, since this is a simple tool any of us can use to make music and express ourselves!

I was intrigued by the notion of Inside-Out Design (working outward from available technologies) and the idea that function can sometimes follow form. I guess Ge’s Ocarina would be a good example of this, by seeing what we could do with a smartphone (i.e. multiple fingers on the screen at a time, blowing into the microphone hole, etc.) and then coming up with an idea. I am hopeful that this quarter (or honestly anytime in the future)  I will get the chance to build something and come up with amazing ideas just from what I’m given -- it seems like a super cool design/creativity exercise.

I will end this reading response by talking about the video: The Idyllic Video Game Sublime. I would like to talk about specifically the final “level” that Ge reaches: Aaru. This absolutely stunning landscape and frankly plot-less stage of the game looks so soothing to wander. It seems like it gave Ge a nice freeing escape from the real world. This reminds me of the idea that “technology should create calm” as seen in principle 2.6 in chapter 2. This part of the game, Aaru seems to create calm for both the player in the game (a nice break from the adventure and dangers) and for the player controller (a beautiful landscape to simply explore). Sometimes all you need in a good game or activity is rest and peace. I am not much of a gamer, but I was very tempted when I saw the Aaru aspect of the game Ge played. I don’t like the high stress nature of most video games, but this just seems like a beautiful escape from the real world -- I love that technology can do that for us. This actually reminds me of what we talked about in class last week: the idea of high-tech + low-life vs. low-tech + high-life. It’s crazy that years ago, the internet started out as an escape from the real world, but now us putting down our phones is the escape. Why not have an escape inside a virtual world too like Aaru? But also, is that escape worth it just for the beautiful landscapes, when one could easily go on a hike and see some real beautiful scenery?? I personally would prefer real mountains. But! We are all different.

This chapter and video were a nice (?) reminder of how crazy technology is advancing in our day and age. I am both excited and terrified to see what the world looks like when I have children and when my children have children, etc. Hopefully it won’t be like those dystopian movies that are so popular today. Hopefully we achieve “Solar-Punk” -- high-life + high-tech. The good news is that I don’t see much of a problem with the technologies we are building in this class! Maybe our toys we make will help people escape their own lives and allow more play in the world which we all so desperately need :)