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October 28 th 2003: A Programmer's Perspective.

[October 28th 2003]


Sean Treadway. Photo: Martin Kjems

A Programmer's Perspective
A late night chat with Sean Treadway

In this part of our special on software art, Thomas Petersen meets up with the American programmer Sean Treadway for a late chat session on Messenger. Originally from Seattle, Sean came to Denmark in 1999 and ended up collaborating with the Danish artist group Superflex, with whom he founded the project Superchannel (www.superchannel.org). Superchannel is a tool and a platform used by diverse groups to produce and publish streaming media content. Presently Sean is working as a software developer at Oncotype (www.oncotype.dk). Among other topics this chat touches upon the difference between the development of commercial software for eg. RealNetworks and Microsoft on one hand and an art project like Superchannel on the other. Other subjects are the aesthetic aspects of coding and the nature of tools. We enter the chat just as Sean is getting thirsty..

Click here to find the other texts within the special on software art

Sean says:
(just making a cup of coffee)

Sean says:
ahh... ok

Thomas says:
so, how did you end up in Copenhagen?

Sean says:
I was transitioning between hourly and salaried work at RealNetworks, which ment that I would be getting stock options, but couldn't cash them in for 3 years. So I was looking at a 3 year sentence, with maybe 2 weeks of vacation each year. At the age 24, I was watching my future pass before my eyes. I asked for 3 months vacation during the job transition and they granted me that. the last words from the human resource woman was..."whatever you do, don't meet a girl"

Sean says:
so, my friends and I were hanging out at the "Lux" in Seattle, drinking (good) coffee and talking shit, when my friend said that he was going to the "Burningman Festival" http://www.burningman.com and asked if I wanted to go. I had been meaning to go for 3 years now and really wanted to make it. It was a spur of the moment kinda decision which usually always turn out for the best. The next day I had a ticket to Reno. And they rented an RV to drive from Reno to the middle of fucking nowhere.

Thomas says:
so this is where u met Signe?

Sean says:
yeah. Signe had a similar experience, after being in the states for 2 days, she met someone who was heading out to Burning Man from San Francisco. He said, "If you want to come along, meet me here at 17:00 with a bag packed.". She and 3 friends got together and headed out to the same camp we were at. We ended up meeting, connecting, and hung out throughout the festival. At the end of the festival, I asked her, "Now what?"

Thomas says:
when was this?

Sean says:
This was September 1998. The next week, we talked on the phone, and I visited her in San Fran. We traveled to Colorodo, then decided to find a place to live together in San Fransisco. (things were moving pretty fast). 3 months of living together flew by. I think it'd be better now compared to before (during the dot.hype era)

Thomas says:
how was the situation then?

Sean says:
Every time you went out was a job interview. I was on my 3 month break. I had a job to go back to in middle of November (or was it December). Well after the 3 months, we asked each other "What now?". and I called my work and talked with the same Human Resources woman. There was an awkward pause. And she asked promptly, "You met a girl, didn't you?". Yeah, I left RealNetworks to follow and develop a relationship with a Danish woman in Copenhagen.

Thomas says:
Like many have done before u

Sean says:
yeah, i found out that it was far from original

Thomas says:
how did u end up at Superchannel - I mean how did u transfer from a job at Realnetworks and San Fransisco-dot.com... to an art project in DK? Must have been pretty different ?

Sean says:
Well, I had worked at Microsoft and RealNetworks. Two very well functioning corporate environments. And was up for experiencing something else. I didn't know what and was looking for work in Denmark. I had the luxury to not worry about money for a short period so I took my time. However, 2 months after I arrived I was at a party that Jakob Fenger (one of Superflex) held. Signe had a connection with Superflex through a series of friends and Jakob had just returned from an exhibition in Japan ...literally the same day. This was in February, 1999. So we were sitting on the floor talking and he asked me what I did. I gave him my story and when I mentioned I had experience with streaming media, he perked up. He said that Superflex was thinking about the possibilities that are present with using the internet as a medium to challenge existing media structures. They had some loose thoughts about television production, live broadcasting and the possibilities of the net.


From the publication Supermanual. Check out: http://www.superchannel.org

Sean says:
I described to them what they needed to do to setup a system to run the thing that they were thinking about and didn't think much about it afterwards. A week later they called me and asked if we could meet again to talk a little more about the idea. We did, and I described a little more about the possibilities. At this point I didn't have a concrete idea of what they were really intending, so I acted like a tool for them to understand the technical feasability of their ideas. One of the things I missed at RealNetworks, was that I never had a connection with the people that were using the software I was developing. I never saw their faces when they used my software for the first time. The more we worked with the ideas, the more curious I got about how it would affect the people that used it. We had a exhibition at Artspace 1% on Vendersgade in May where we opened up a studio and broadcasted with the first superchannel. When I saw the way people responded to project, my perception of what it was, what it could do, and how it achieved what it did changed.

Thomas says:
what did you want to change - and what can you change with a software-tool?

Sean says:
We wanted to change the way people though about what most consumed every day without thinking twice about it. television, radio and print are mostly 1 directional mediums. we put a timeschedule on the window of the gallery and people could schedule their own productions the primary way this medum was 2 directional. We also had chat during the broadcasts so people could affect the broadcast while it was happening.

Thomas says:
how was the response at this time?

Sean says:
The response was really good. People changed when they were on the other side of the camera. They got to live out their desires in public. Whether it was political, entertaining, cozy, provocative or just weird. There was nobody that said "No, that's not appropriate for others to see."


Images from the different Superchannel studios. Left: The first Superchannel. Middle: The studio in Blågårdsgade as a debating platform after 9-11. Right: The Tenantspin studio in Liverpool. Images from http://www.superchannel.org and http://www.superflex.dk.

Thomas says:
free access media?

Sean says:
yeah at the time. we provided the studio setup and the labor to run the thing..all people needed to do was show up with an idea...and there were LOADS of ideas

Thomas says:
how was the process of construction - compared to more commercial programming?

Sean says:
There were pros and cons of working with non-programmers. The process was completely different to what I was used to, but really enjoyed the flexibility of the process. It was a constant brainstorming that felt limitless. in commercial projects a significant effort is made defining the borders of a project and given a timeline must be met it is most common that those borders shrink over time. it was opposite with the Superchannel.. over time the possibilities grew.

Thomas says:
there have been a lot of artist/programmers/engineer-collaborations through the years - how did this particular collaboration work?

Sean says:
we all exchanged ideas about what it could do and I pulled in the reigns now and then because it would take to long or have other negative effects elsewhere. but I felt really connected with them, a peer and part of Superflex during the process.. They never said it had to be a certain way, they were open to all kinds of ideas.

Thomas says:
when did you decide to go permanent, and did the tool change in this period?

Sean says:
After the first superchannel at Artspace 1% our goals shifted slightly. When we realized how little work it was to learn and run a studio, and how easy it was to setup studios, we changed the Superchannel to be a collection of channels where each represented a seperate studio. There was strength in the number of Superchannels under one Superchannel. We then changed our focus to train others to produce content, the result of all that was successful behind the first Superchannel. So, we redesigned the Superchannel website from the ground up. I found Zope, http://www.zope.org, which is an open source web publishing framework written in Python.

Thomas says:
what were the goals at this point?

Sean says:
The goals were to provide those that already have a social network a tool to strengthen that social network internally and externally through the use and control of their own media.

Thomas says:
how many channels were you going for?

Sean says:
we had no idea at the time, I think we were hoping for 10-20. it all depended on how successful it was

Thomas says:
who were supposed to use superchannel?

Sean says:
groups of people that share a similar but minority interest, interests that are not commonly shared, but exist as pockets around the world. the net has had the effect of bringing people together in that sense. where there may be 1 person in a town that likes underwater basketweaving (for example). there are 100 on the net.

Thomas says:
what was the biggest success at this point - in which context did it work best?

Sean says:
personally, the biggest success was to see the expression of peoples' faces change when they realized what the superchannel could do for them in their own situation. When they applied the use and control of their own media to their own lives. This worked best with people that had a common passion.

Thomas says:
whos using it today?

Sean says:
Right now, there is a very successful group of public housing tenants using the superchannel to get closer to the politicians making descisions about their living environment. http://www.tenantspin.org/


Images from the Tenantspin studio. http://www.tenantspin.org/

Thomas says:
why is it relevant to create alternative software tools? isn't it like a drop in the ocean compared to all the standard stuff, like windows etc? what's the point in contesting them?

Sean says:
yeah, there are many tools out there. one tool will not solve all the problems of everybody. but many tools will allow others to choose which tool is most appropriate for their needs. That's where the gratification comes from. When someone chooses superchannel as a tool for their own needs.

Thomas says:
theres a lot of interest in the more radical type of software from the art world. like hackers as artists, political software. like the injunction generator: http://ipnic.org. why do you think that is?

Sean says:
well, hacktivism is something that people can relate to. It's kinda like those that look at graffiti and feel proud that the streets still belong to the inhabitants. that power is still held in the peoples hands.

Thomas says:
this whole thing about software in art, like the readme-festival http://www.m-cult.org/read_me/ and the code theme of Ars Electronica this year http://www.aec.at. why is code important to deal with on that level?


The logo of the Ars Electronica festival 2003. Code.

Sean says:
Even though technology is around us all the time (or at least we're led to belive this). there are some that find it their creative domain. I think it's important to feel a sense of connectedness with technology through the humanization of it. when I relate to an innovative use of the computer, i'm assured that it's still the humans controlling the machines and not the other way around.

Thomas says:
or a hype controlling the creation of software

Sean says:
naw, I think it's human nature to create in every form possible. the hype comes from the scarcity of medium.

Thomas says:
have you sensed any change in the role of the programmer since you started? like through the eighties and nineties. I remember the demo-parties.. i think it sort of came back with the www

Sean says:
but it was about man vs. machine. well, with www it became man vs. man. the demos were all about the limits of the silicon, and with the web it's more about carbon.

Thomas says:
yeah - but back then I remember the programmers being the real artists. I remember Andreas Broegger mentioning the representation of code in mainstream culture. I think Matrix was his reference (check it out here) ...programmers as magicians, hackers as heros and so on.

Sean says:
yeah, there still is the man behind the curtains that seem to run the ghost in the machine.

Thomas says:
it's a bit like the movie War Games: the 'programmer-hero'. Code is usually inaccessible, or undecipherable for anyone else than programmers. It could seem unlikely that code would be possible to deal with in a broader cultural context. but it pops up everywhere anyway..

Sean says:
yeah, the programmer-hero does contain an impetus for many. I have a little more pragmatic approach to the computer as a tool. Imagine that we had no arms or legs. and then watch someone that had arms pick up a rock and smash something with it. I would be amazed that what he achieved with this ability he had. but when it comes down to it, he just moved the rock. one doesn't need the arms to move the rock, just the will to find a way. (heh, "there is no spoon" rings a bell). the coder may have access to some parts of the computer, but there are others that have access to other parts. But it takes a similar understanding to grasp the more subtle elements of code. There is a seperate aesthetic within the code. Just as a painter would be able to appreciate the brush strokes of a painting a coder can appreciate the logic and structure of a program. Not just the composition of the painting or the output of the program. As more people learn code (and grow arms) the mystery behind the result will be replaced by the appreciation of the method.

Thomas says:
aesthetic interpretation of code.. I remember a piece. . http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/codedoc/paley.shtml


W. Bradford Paley's contribution to Whitney Artport's CODeDOC project.

Sean says:
heh, it's a visualization of my visualization when I code.

Thomas says:
its very zen - nothing to do with functionality - just rythm

Sean says:
inspiring. in regards to media control, i like the frequency clock project - http://www.frequencyclock.net/. it's about actors in physical and virtual space creating semantic relationships which result in a video/text stream. A really cool media artist (Phillip Pocock) sent me this link to a project he's working on. http://www.unmovie.net. Also: http://193.197.170.79/portal/writings/unmovie_cat2.htm.


Screendump from Unmovie.

Thomas says:
(checking out unmovie) what are the bubbles?

Sean says:
they are different "personalities". each with a database of expressions. I ended up having a very surreal conversation with them. until finding out they were autonomous

Sean says:
but at the time, I was too.

Thomas says:
i gotta sleep

Sean says:
ta ta, and sleep well.

Thomas says:
you too

More...
Read more about Sean Treadway at: http://sean.treadway.info/
Mail him at seant@superchannel.org

 

 

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