B2B
4 min read
Programming is sculpting
As I’ve aged, I’ve come to believe that within each of us is an artist. When we consider this claim from a developmental standpoint, it’s kind of obvious: all children by a certain age want to express themselves, and it’s just a question of what media they gravitate towards. Some choose words, some choose colors, some choose structures. Some, I think, choose more abstract forms, like games, or the creative imagining of fantasy worlds. Expressing ourselves through art is natural, human, and universal.
I learned long ago that my medium was sculpture. Whether it was Legos, or pillow forts, elaborate racetracks for my matchbox cars, or intricate mansions in which my domesticated Optimus Prime could raise his children with his community of Decepticons, I was always fascinated by creating spaces in three, four, or more dimensions in which I could tell stories. This fascination continued throughout my childhood: in 2nd and 3rd grade, I started an origami club with my friends, and taught our classmates to make bears, dinosaurs, and stars. In 5th grade, it was papier-mâché for its surrealism. In 7th grade, I was ecstatic to take a classical sculpting class, where we learned a combination of calligraphy and kiln work, and joys of muddy fingers.
Throughout, though, mathematics emerged as my ultimate medium. I was fascinated by the way that a small number of ideas, just like a constrained palette, or the simple combinatorial possibilities of a lego brick, could be responsible for so much complexity. Primary math showed me these tools, but middle school math revealed to me how symbols could represent shapes, images, or entire theories of the universe and its matter. If I arranged the symbols in just the right order, I might create the illusion of life.
And so when I stumbled upon code in 7th grade, I knew I’d found my preferred sculpting medium. It combined everything I loved about every other medium I’d tried: a rich expressiveness that offered an almost comprehensive canvas of all other media, links to so many of the human senses that give life texture, like time, randomness, pixels, and sound, and interactivity. It was by no means as direct as clay, or bricks, or fabrics, but the sheer possibilities it offered were a worthy trade.
As I gained skill in rearranging symbols, I learned that sculpting with code felt most like clay. A huge lump or brick of polymer clay can become anything, but it is not a straight path. It requires a high level plan for the form of things, for how areas of a piece will be stitched together as a coherent whole. It requires attention to detail at the joints, and in the textures and transitions between surfaces. Understanding progress means looking at a piece from all angles, trying to understand how form interacts in different light, angles, and scales. Some changes a sweeping, others are surgical, and accomplishing them requires the right tools. And yet even the tiniest changes — a small turn at the corner of a smile, for example, or a 2 degree tilt of a foot — can change everything about the emotions a piece evokes. A sculpture is never done; it’s just done enough to fire, seal, and share. And then what it is depends on who is looking, who they are, what they know, and what they want.
Code is the same. It can become nearly anything, but giving it form is never linear in process. Without a plan, code becomes a ball of mud, instead of a coherent structure. The connectors that link components require exceedingly careful design, otherwise entire portions of a project can halt. Tracking process is a matter of using software from a near infinite number of inputs, where a slight tilt in perspective can reveal entire universes of defects. Some changes alter the entire meaning of a program, others just the tiniest corners, but even the smallest changes can have profound effects on the utility and reliability of a project. Code is never done; it’s just done enough to compile, document, and ship. And then what it is depends on who is using, who they are, what they know, and what they want.
It’s tempting to say this is metaphor. But I’m inclined to think that this is just what sculpting is. There is something about working in dozens of dimensions — whether a myriad of types and states, or a palette texture, sheen, color, form, scale, density, weight —that can overwhelm the senses in some complex and compelling ways. And the processes and intuitions that sculptors use to realize their pieces can be overwhelming in the same way.
Perhaps one way that code and form meaningfully differ from an artistic perspective is their degree of capture. Sculpture has been mostly resilient to capitalism, aside from its entanglement with galleries and wealth. And code, from its beginning, has primarily been about power, through war, profit, and function. But I wonder if this were reversed. What if code was only in galleries, something to engage from afar, not to accomplish, but to change how one sees the world? And what if sculpture was the heartless center of commerce, culture, and domination? If programmers were obscure, renowned only to the pretentious subcultures of high art, and high school students seeking status and security strived to be admitted to top ranked art schools for the promise of wealth, respect, and power?
I think I’d rather have a world where all sculptors, of code and clay alike, were respected and compensated. And not for the utility of their creations, but they way they make us feel new feelings and see new worlds. A world where art was seen as the province of all, code included.
