McCullough writes a lot about generative structure, drawing on Chomsky and Piaget. While generative structure may no longer be a satisfactory explanation for human language, McCullough sees is as a principle of computing media.<\/p>\n
“We have seen the role of structure, particularly generative structure, in several contexts already: the syntax of notation, the design of an interface, the constructions of a type, the essence of a medium. In each of these contexts, structure is revealed in transformation.” (p. 232 of Abstracting Craft)<\/p>\n
We learn about the structure of digital media by playing with it – by playing with a software package and seeing what sorts of transformations happen when we try different features. (See the section “Generative Structure” in the chapter “Symbols” – starting page 98.)<\/p>\n
This connects to play and games. Generative structures provide the constraints that make play possible and open the possibilities that give play meaning.
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\nMcCullough points to Digital Mantras by Steven Holtzman as a work that explores the history of generative structure.<\/p>\n
For a good short exchange on Chomsky’s revolution see Searle and others at The New York Review of Books: CHOMSKY’S REVOLUTION<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" McCullough writes a lot about generative structure, drawing on Chomsky and Piaget. While generative structure may no longer be a satisfactory explanation for human language, McCullough sees is as a principle of computing media. “We have seen the role of structure, particularly generative structure, in several contexts already: the syntax of notation, the design of … Continue reading Generative Structure<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-multimedia-theory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theoreti.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}