Research Direction · Aesthetic Computer#

Last updated: 2026-04-06 Author: @jeffrey — ORCID 0009-0007-4460-4913

Current Goals#

1. Get all 27 papers to submission quality — integrate platter corpus citations, polish arguments, tighten prose
2. Submit to open deadlines: ACM C&C Demos (Apr 16), ICCC Short Papers (Apr 24)
3. Build the research moat — use the 87+ readings library and 94-project software history as scholarly foundation
4. Establish AC's place in computing history — repo archaeology paper traces the lineage; software history catalogs 94 predecessor projects
5. Complete SoSoft readings acquisition — ~55 remaining texts from Casey Reas' Software Art References list (see TODO below)

Per-Paper Revision Plans#

0a. PLORKing the Planet (arXiv — arxiv-plork/plork.tex)#

Status: Working draft, ~8 pages, WORKING DRAFT watermark Current citations: ~25 (PLOrk, L2Ork, SLOrk, Attali, Turino, Illich, OLPC, e-waste, surplus pricing) Core argument: PLOrk proved laptop orchestras are musically legitimate but the model is trapped in universities at $1,500+/seat. AC Native OS + surplus hardware ($50/seat) removes the economic barrier entirely — 240M Windows 10 EOL machines = raw material for a planetary laptop orchestra. What's needed:

• Add figures: PLOrk vs AC OS cost scaling chart, surplus hardware photo grid, ensemble network diagram
• Get exact PLOrk equipment cost figures from Trueman 2006/2007 papers (currently estimated)
• Add real AC OS ensemble performance test results (latency, voice count, network throughput)
• Cite Ge Wang's ChucK papers more specifically for SLOrk technical details — prose strengthened 2026-03-28
• Add section on software-defined spatialization (distributed speakers as emergent hemispherical speaker)
• Research and cite post-COVID laptop orchestra status (many dissolved?) — prose added in Related Work 2026-03-28
• Consider NIME 2027 submission (laptop orchestras + new instruments = core NIME topic)

0b. AC Native OS '26 (arXiv — arxiv-os/os.tex)#

Status: Working draft, ~6 pages, WORKING DRAFT watermark Current citations: ~16 (OLPC, Kittler, McLuhan, Illich, Papert, Ukeles, Raspberry Pi, Sonic Pi, Ted Nelson) Core argument: Flashing surplus commodity laptops with a bare-metal creative OS offers a post-OLPC, post-Apple model of personal computing — deeper personalization at lower cost with zero infrastructure What's needed:

• Add figures: boot splash screenshot, architecture diagram, cost comparison chart
• Cite Eben Moglen / FreedomBox — community-owned infrastructure lineage — BibTeX + prose added 2026-03-28
• Cite e-waste statistics (UN Global E-waste Monitor 2024) for the surplus hardware argument — BibTeX + prose added 2026-03-28
• Add real performance benchmarks (boot time breakdown, frame timing, memory usage)
• Reference FedAC kiosk variant as the Fedora-based predecessor
• Consider citing ChromeOS / CloudReady as the incumbent surplus-laptop OS — BibTeX + prose added 2026-03-28
• Add section on security model (no network services, no writable rootfs, EFI-only persistence)
• Pull hardware compatibility test results from different surplus laptop models
• Cite Ted Nelson Computer Lib / Dream Machines — personal computing philosophy lineage (BibTeX added 2026-03-18)

1. Aesthetic Computer '26 (arXiv — arxiv-ac/ac.tex)#

Status: Working draft, 5 pages, WORKING DRAFT watermark ✓ Current citations: ~14 (Processing, p5.js, Scratch, Glitch, Kittler, McLuhan, Ted Nelson, 10 PRINT) — all \cite{} calls wired into prose What's missing from the platter:

• Cite Kittler "There is No Software" — BibTeX added 2026-03-18
• Cite McLuhan "Understanding Media" — BibTeX added 2026-03-18
• Cite Ted Nelson Computer Lib / Dream Machines — BibTeX added 2026-03-18
• Cite Montfort et al. 10 PRINT — procedural generation / randomness in computation — BibTeX added 2026-03-18
• Cite Ukeles "Manifesto for Maintenance Art" — AC's maintenance-as-practice philosophy (ants, upkeep) — BibTeX + prose added 2026-03-28
• Cite Roos & McLean "Strudel" (ICLC 2023) — BibTeX + prose added 2026-03-18
• Cite Staunæs on Stiegler "Concept of Idiotext" — BibTeX + prose added 2026-03-18
• Add adoption metrics section (user counts, piece counts, session data from MongoDB)
• Reference the 94-project software history to strengthen "Background" section
• Consider adding a figure showing the repo evolution timeline (from archaeology paper)

2. KidLisp '26 (arXiv — arxiv-kidlisp/kidlisp.tex)#

Status: Working draft, 6 pages, WORKING DRAFT watermark ✓ Current citations: ~16 (Lisp history, creative coding, DSLs, Little Schemer, McCarthy, van Engelen, Joy of Clojure) — all \cite{} calls wired into prose What's missing from the platter:

• Cite The Little Schemer — BibTeX added 2026-03-18
• Cite van Engelen "Lisp in 99 lines of C" — BibTeX added 2026-03-18
• Cite McCarthy 1960 (original Lisp paper) — BibTeX added 2026-03-18
• Cite Fogus & Houser Joy of Clojure — functional paradigm context — BibTeX added 2026-03-18
• Cite Roos & McLean "Strudel" — BibTeX + prose added 2026-03-18
• Add 118-function table or appendix (the spec exists in kidlisp/README.md)
• Reference Dropbox kidlisp-syntax-colors/ design assets
• Add real-world usage stats from kidlisp MongoDB collection

3. Pieces Not Programs '26 (arXiv — arxiv-pieces/pieces.tex)#

Status: Working draft, 4 pages, WORKING DRAFT watermark ✓ Current citations: ~19 (+ Ted Nelson, 10 PRINT, Shklovsky, Adorno, Langer) — all \cite{} calls wired into prose What's missing from the platter:

• Cite Langer Feeling and Form — the "piece" as aesthetic unit — BibTeX added 2026-03-18
• Cite Shklovsky "Art as Technique" — defamiliarization, making the familiar strange — BibTeX added 2026-03-18
• Cite Adorno "Punctuation Marks" — formal systems criticism — BibTeX added 2026-03-18
• Cite Ted Nelson Computer Lib / Dream Machines — BibTeX added 2026-03-18
• Cite Montfort et al. 10 PRINT — BibTeX added 2026-03-18
• Cite Ingold "Textility of Making" — BibTeX + prose added 2026-03-18
• Cite Staunæs on Stiegler — BibTeX + prose added 2026-03-18
• Reference the 94-project software history: show how "piece" concept evolved across Jeffrey's tools
• Add examples of pieces that illustrate the argument (from disks/ directory)

4. notepat '26 (arXiv — arxiv-notepat/notepat.tex)#

Status: Working draft, 4 pages, WORKING DRAFT watermark ✓ Current citations: ~6 What's missing from the platter:

• Cite McLuhan "Medium is the Message" — keyboard as musical interface, repurposing everyday input — BibTeX + prose added 2026-03-28
• Reference notepat.com Netlify routing and custom domain setup
• Add usage/adoption data if available
• Reference predecessor tools: nopaint (6 repos!), whistlegraph performance tools — prose added 2026-03-28
• Consider citing Eglash on culturally situated design tools

5. Aesthetic Computer JOSS (joss-ac/paper.md)#

Status: Working draft, 2 pages, WORKING DRAFT watermark ✓ JOSS focus: Software quality, documentation, community impact, contribution guidelines Revision plan:

• Update contribution guidelines reference (does CONTRIBUTING.md exist?)
• Add community impact metrics
• Verify all API documentation links are current
• Cross-reference with arXiv paper to avoid duplication

6. KidLisp JOSS (joss-kidlisp/paper.md)#

Status: Working draft, 3 pages, WORKING DRAFT watermark ✓ JOSS focus: Software quality, test suite, API documentation Revision plan:

• Reference the test suite (spec/ directory, npm run test:kidlisp)
• Add test coverage metrics
• Update API documentation references
• Link to kidlisp/README.md as canonical language reference

Upcoming Deadlines#

Open Research Threads#

Repository Archaeology#

• Working draft published at papers.aesthetic.computer/ac-repo-archaeology
• Traces AC through 4 successive repos (system-ac → disks-ac → 2022.aesthetic.computer → aesthetic-computer)
• Documents 94 predecessor projects with GitHub source links
• Next: Could become a formal paper for a software engineering venue

Software History Lineage#

• 94 projects cataloged in system/public/assets/papers/readings/text/jas-software-history.txt
• Platter at papers.aesthetic.computer/platter — searchable research hub
• Three lineage threads: drawing tools → AC pieces, performance tools → multiplayer, dev infrastructure → hot-reload

Citation Integration (The Moat)#

• 87 readings in system/public/assets/papers/readings/text/ (up from 58 as of 2026-04-06)
• 32+ now cited across paper bibliographies (up from 0 as of 2026-03-10)
• Batch added 2026-03-18: Little Schemer, van Engelen, Joy of Clojure, McCarthy 1960, Ted Nelson, 10 PRINT, Kittler, McLuhan, Shklovsky, Adorno, Langer, Fisher across 8 bib files
• Prose citations added 2026-03-18: \cite{} calls integrated into 6 paper .tex files (ac, kidlisp, pieces, sustainability, os, complex)
• Final Tier 1 batch 2026-03-18: Ingold, Strudel (Roos & McLean), Staunæs/Stiegler added to bib files AND cited in prose
• All 6 papers build clean (xelatex + bibtex, 3 passes, no undefined citations)
• Tier 1 complete. All originally identified Tier 1 priorities now have BibTeX entries and prose citations.
• Remaining uncited readings worth considering (Tier 2): Arnheim, Klee (already in arxiv-whistlegraph), Manovich
• Batch 2026-03-28: Ukeles (AC paper), McLuhan (notepat), Moglen/FreedomBox + e-waste stats + ChromeOS Flex (OS paper), post-COVID status + ChucK/SLOrk detail (PLORKing), Jeffrey economic specifics (Who Pays), predecessor tools (notepat)
• Next: Write actual paper prose around citations (currently integrated as single sentences; some could become fuller paragraphs)

Ars Electronica 2026#

• Submission at papers/ars-electronica-2026/
• demoplay.md, description.md, architecture report
• Festival: Sep 9–13, Linz, Austria

Conference Demo Preparation#

• For ACM C&C and ICCC: need a live demo setup
• Consider: notepat live performance, KidLisp collaborative drawing, AC piece gallery walkthrough
• Hardware: phone + laptop + projector (URL-addressable = easy demo)

Platter Corpus Summary#

The research platter (papers.aesthetic.computer/platter) contains:

• 27 papers (26 arXiv LaTeX + 2 JOSS Markdown) — up from 20 as of 2026-03-28
• 87 readings (PDFs with text extractions) — up from 58 as of 2026-04-06
• 109 reports (internal markdown)
• 162 plans (internal markdown)
• 8 studies (internal markdown)
• 70+ reference items
• 94-project software history
• Repository archaeology (4-repo evolution)
• API & data source documentation

This corpus is the scholarly foundation. Every paper revision should draw from it.

TODO: SoSoft Readings Acquisition#

Casey Reas' "Software Art References (2000+)" on sosoft.arts.ucla.edu/docs lists 77 texts. As of 2026-04-06, we have acquired 18 (14 full-text + 4 SoSoft doc digests). ~55 remain.

Acquired (14 full-text conversions from open-access PDFs)#

Pending (known open-access, need different extraction)#

• Manovich — The Language of New Media (2001) — scanned PDF on Monoskop, needs OCR (tesseract or similar)
• Chun — Programmed Visions (2011) — MIT Press OA at direct.mit.edu, 403'd on direct fetch; try browser download
• Fuller (ed.) — Software Studies: A Lexicon (2008) — Monoskop blocked; try alternate mirror or manual download
• Mansoux & de Valk — FLOSS+Art (2008) — Monoskop blocked; try alternate mirror or manual download
• Paglen — "Invisible Images" (2016) — full text at thenewinquiry.com, needs manual copy (WebFetch refused copyright)

Not yet searched (remaining ~55 from Casey's 77)#

Many are commercially published books without known open-access editions. Priority tiers:

Tier 1 — most likely findable (exhibition catalogs, institutional publications)

• 010101: Art in Technological Times (SFMOMA, 2001)
• Abstraction Now (Künstlerhaus, 2003)
• Respini — Art in the Age of the Internet (Yale UP, 2018)
• Archey & Peckham — Art Post-Internet (UCCA, 2014)
• Stocker & Schöpf — Ars Electronica 2003: Code (Hatje Cantz)
• Coder le monde (Centre Pompidou, 2018)
• Paul & Rellie — Feedback (LABoral, 2007)
• Bernard & Quaranta — Holy Fire: Art of the Digital Age (iMAL, 2008)
• Sonic Acts volumes (multiple, 2001–2008)
• Schmalstieg — Manifestos for the Internet Age (Greyscale Press) — GitHub repo exists

Tier 2 — commercially published, check Archive.org lending library

• Bourriaud — Relational Aesthetics (Les presses du réel, 2002) — Monoskop may have
• Bratton — The Stack (MIT Press, 2015)
• Cubitt — Practice of Light (MIT Press, 2014)
• Cornell & Halter — Mass Effect (MIT Press, 2015)
• Harrell — Phantasmal Media (MIT Press, 2013)
• Hoy — From Point to Pixel (Dartmouth, 2017)
• Shanken — Art and Electronic Media (Phaidon, 2009)
• Wilson — Information Arts (MIT Press, 2002)
• Vesna — Database Aesthetics (U Minnesota Press, 2002)
• Rinehart & Ippolito — Re-Collections (MIT Press, 2014)
• Raley — Tactical Media (U Minnesota Press, 2009)
• Whitelaw — Metacreation (MIT Press, 2004)
• Anderson — Technologies of Vision (MIT Press, 2017)

Tier 3 — artist monographs, harder to find digitally

• Arcangel — The Source Digest (2017)
• Cheng — Emissaries Guide to Worlding (2018)
• Hershman Leeson — Civic Radar (2016)
• Lozano-Hemmer — Pseudomatisms (2016)
• Maeda — Maeda@Media (2000) and Creative Code (2004)
• Simon Jr. — Outside In (2009)
• Sollfrank — net.art generator (2004)

Strategy for remaining texts#

1. Manual Monoskop download — several blocked texts exist on Monoskop but need browser-based download
2. Archive.org lending library — many MIT Press titles available via controlled digital lending
3. Institutional access — UCLA library access may cover many MIT Press, Phaidon, Verso titles
4. OCR pipeline — install tesseract-ocr for scanned PDFs (Manovich Language of New Media)
5. Exhibition catalog PDFs — many institutions post catalog PDFs; search museum websites directly