#mignonneau

The quality of a media artist lies in her sensitivity to new visions and ability to explore new tools and structures to support these visions and create content and experiences that transcend time and material, touching deeper emotions not readily explained through code, numbers, or aesthetic experiences alone. (181)

The most difficult part in creating artworks with computers is [...] not so much acquiring technical skills or learning the software languages, but evaluating and estimating their technical possibilities, as well as exploring new technical and intellectual ideas by balancing their conceptual and technical capacity and value. (181)

The liberty of designing one's own software and creating one's own hardware could be compared to mixing one's own colors from pigments instead of using a paint set with premixed colors. It is experimenting with the details as well as the sometimes accidental discovery of novel features that make programming itself a highly creative experience. During the programming process, essential new discoveries can be made by chance or even by misconception. The programming language itself is designed to be used in a certain way (the grammar and the words, the syntax), but what this language describes has not been fixed, leaving the programmer great freedom to use this language. Programming is a process of constant discovery, and asking others to create a program on one's behalf excludes many creative details essential to the work's final look and even its final content. (170)