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Ada Lovelace, 07 Lines of Life Project,07 The Dot Party, 07 Cellular Nation, 06 Project Stitch, 06 Digital Dragon, 05 Carnival Parade, 04 Home.Land.Geo, 96 |
 In Memory of Ada Lovelace [1815 to 1852] a performance by Tristan d'Estr´e Sterk and Vicki Moulder
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Performing Ada Lovelace, 2007This project explored the use of performance as a design tool for understanding how artists can weave together aspects of a character through a device. The performance narrative is directly inspired by Ada Lovelace´s translation of the Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea´s memoir on Charles Babbage´s proposed machine, the Analytical Engine between 1842-1843. In this article Ada appended a set of notes detailing a plan for calculating Bernoulli numbers with the Engine. Historians now recognize this plan as the world's first computer program. Performance Excerpt: Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent. We say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquards loom weaves flowers and leaves. It is desirable to guard against the possibility of exaggerated ideas that might arise as to the powers of the Analytical Engine. In considering any new subject, there is frequently a tendency, first, to overrate what we find to be already interesting or remarkable; and, secondly, by a sort of natural reaction, to undervalue the true state of the case, when we do discover that our notions have surpassed those that were really tenable. The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate any thing. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. Yes, the Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate any thing. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform." |
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