Hack #3

For Hack #3, Software Invasion, I used Logic Pro to act as a word document software. Logic Pro is a digital audio workstation, meaning it is intended for audio recording, production, and music composition. Just like other digital audio workstations (or DAWs), Logic Pro utilizes musical instrument digital interface, or MIDI, technology to store musical data. MIDI is the universal, digital language of musical devices and technologies, essentially storing musical data (typically in the form of notes). In virtually every DAW, there is a “piano roll,” a storage medium that depicts and emulates audible frequency ranges for selected sounds, that allows users to input music notes and their durations. In the piano roll, users can either digitally record MIDI data through hardware (MIDI controllers, keyboards, and even traditional QWERTY keyboards) or physically punch in desired notes. Most piano rolls and their MIDI data of a typical composition appear to be stacked lines and blocks, similar to that of spectrogram analysis (visual representations of frequencies). For my Hack #3, however, I used MIDI and piano roll technologies to display letters and words, rather than chords and melodies. By manually changing the duration and location of different notes, I built every letter of the alphabet so that Logic Pro can act as a typing software. Additionally, one comment stuck out to me in class that particularly inspired this project: “think about the ways in which the software’s tools suggest ideas through their names and functions.” Logic Pro’s primary piano roll editing tool is named “pencil tool,” suggesting that I write. Thus, my Hack #3 challenges social assumptions of what the software offers. 

My Hack #3 is informed by both historical readings and concepts on critical play, hacking, and design. These readings and concepts include chapters from Steven Levy’s Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (1984), the term “Cognitive Friction” coined by Alan Cooper, and excerpts from The Craftsman (2008) by Richard Sennett. These three different influences exhibit how the imperfect, incorrect, and unintended use of various tools and technologies often lead to the most innovative discoveries and productions. Thus, they act as crucial foundations for how I use software “incorrectly” and innovatively for my Hack #3. 

For starters, Levy describes in his chapters that early computers were often only used for military and government applications upon their initial development. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for instance, the first digital computer was used during World War II to develop missile flight patterns for the US Navy (Levy 10). However, a group of students who were part of the Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) at MIT secretly used these machines in ways that were unintended, yet innovative. By developing their own code and programming and “hacking” the machine at night, these students created several video games and even music creation software on a computer that was otherwise meant solely for war. Essentially, this “incorrect” use of technology allowed for the newly discovered possibilities that computers have to offer. Of course, the scales between my Hack #3 and early MIT missile computers are quite different, but the understanding of using technologies in unorthodox ways remains consistent. Just as the members of the TMRC challenged the expected use of early computers, so too does my Hack #3 challenge the expected use of Logic Pro. 

In a similar vein, Alan Cooper’s concept of “cognitive friction” continues to inform and inspire the ways in which my Hack #3 challenges traditions and expectations. Cognitive friction (mostly used when referring to design and user experience) is “the resistance encountered by a human intellect when it engages with a complex system of rules that change as the problem changes” (Cooper 2004, 19). In simpler terms, cognitive friction refers to seemingly intuitive systems that deliver unexpected results. This concept greatly influences Hack #3 as the whole objective of the project is to redirect, break, and warp the expected uses of a particular software, creating high cognitive friction. For instance, creating letters through MIDI notes would inevitably create undesirable, odd melodies that would be difficult to use in a composition context. The letters Z, J, or S, for example, would create strange chords, arpeggios, and melodies that would deter the users from including them. Similarly, creating words with these letters is extremely time consuming and simply unnecessary when word document software is so readily accessible. Thus, using Logic Pro to display text challenges its expected use as music creation software. 

Similarly, this idea of challenging the norm / expected use can be seen through Richard Sennett’s chapter “Arousing Tools” from The Craftsman (2008). In a portion of this chapter, Sennett mentions that the early discoveries and uses of microscopes were quite imperfect, leading to newly found creativity and imagination. More specifically, Sennett references an iconic drawing of a fly found in Robert Hooke’s Micrographia (1665), a historical research book on the microscopic observations through different viewing lenses. The drawing of the fly “is a much clearer image than what Hooke or Wren could have seen under the microscope’s lens” (Sennett 201), meaning that a great deal of imagination had to have been present when crafting such a detailed image. While the early microscope may not have been able to provide an accurate depiction, it instead nurtured creativity and imaginative thinking. Faults or improper uses of tools (microscopes in this case) thus have the ability to spark unorthodox ideas. For my Hack #3, Sennett’s ideas on imagination prove to be crucial. Many pieces of software have faults and imperfections, so being conscious of them allows for creative stimulation. In the case of my hack, however, being too perfect is its imperfection. For example, Logic Pro’s piano roll allows for the quantization of MIDI notes and data. Music heavily relies on time and its relationship with time, so most (if not all) genres encourage playing in “time” or at least being aware of time. Typically, each musical bar in music is divided up into infinite equal divisions of two, creating different durations of notes (whole, half, quarter, eighth, etc.). In the piano roll, these divisions are represented through a grid, displaying the timed layout of each bar. Thus, Quantization allows for the perfect alignment of MIDI notes with respect to the grid, meaning that notes can be played exactly at the halfway, quarter, eighth, and so on point. Essentially, users can write notes that are impossibly accurate because of human imperfections. While a bit of an oxymoron, this utter perfection acts as Logic Pro’s imperfection when thinking about The Craftsman (2008). Since users can create such perfect durations of notes, the piano roll becomes a pixel-like, 8-bit form of illustration. Ultimately, creating legible letters and words is only possible through such a “perfect” system. 

Through these various influences, ranging from Steven Levy’s Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (1984), the term “Cognitive Friction” coined by Alan Cooper, and excerpts from The Craftsman (2008) by Richard Sennett, my Hack #3 challenges the implications and expectations of Logic Pro’s functions and purpose. 

Informed by:

Steven Levy, chapters 1 and 2 of Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (1984), pages 1-31

Richard Sennett, “Arousing Tools” from The Craftsman (2008), pages 194-213

Alan Cooper, The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity (2004)

Documentation: