"AMPFACTS” stands for:
Agnostic
Medium
Post-
Fractal
Analysis and
Composition
Theoretical
Serialism
In plain English meaning: The revisitation of ‘serialism’ design techniques for art / music / interactivity in a world where fractals are now a relatively commonly recognized / known phenomena
Goal: To establish a forum / community for the exchange of ‘medium agnostic’ (i.e. simultaneously applicable to music, visual, film, narrative / UI / experiential project) design techniques / analysis tools, to allow for the sustained and enjoyable creation of creative work.
Why was AMPFACTS created?
- Contemporary “Music Theory” (in the traditional of 18th Century European Harmonic theory) fails to provide an adequate and practical framework for the analysis / composition of non-european classical music / contemporary music relevant to the casual listener / creator.
- A language / set of tools was desired to access the knowledge of the ‘meta-medium’ (the abstractions / forms of a creative work that exist independent of the medium itself / that may be used to convey the same aesthetic / emotional data through another medium).
- To help eliminate creative “false starts”, i.e. repeated unfinished projects by generally setting completion goals, and making the creative process enjoyable and interesting to the ‘composer’.
- To encourage the exchange of creative ideas between makes of different mediums. I.e. how can a graphic designer apply melodic theory to visual art? How can a musician apply visual principle of balance, brush strokes, and patterning to a musical composition?
- To share “Information-Asymmetric Design Techniques” (i.e. ‘Hidden’ or ‘Closed Source’ Techniques). An “Information-Asymmetric Design Technique” is a technique that is considered to be impossible and / or extremely difficult to reverse engineer from a finished work. - which is to say, a technique that is used to generate a creative work, that another observer could not figure out from studying said work. Some techniques, can be more easily understand than others just from examining creative works, but other techniques, who’s full structure or information is lost when applied, can only be passed down and communicated to others outside of their mediums - AMPFACTS serves as a medium for creators to exchange these ‘Close Source’ techniques.
Primary Tenets:
- Human perception (and thus design) is based upon breaking apart the spectrum of the whole of natural existence into discrete pieces. (i.e. the rainbow can be interpreted as 7 distinct colors; the frequency space between octaves are broken into 12 tones [in western tradition]).
- Human design is an extension of the process of life, therefor the distinction is considered arbitrary with relation to analysis / composition (design as literal life / biological process).
- Because of tenant 1, ‘serialism’ (abstract numbered or indexed lists on any imaginable thing; see definition in terminology section) is used as the primary tool for the interpretation / creation of universes.
- ‘Completion’ is the basis for ‘creative satisfaction’.
Technique Tenets:
- AMPFACTS is a philosophical and aesthetic framework; not a functional framework (i.e. it may involve the analysis or “reverse engineering” or a natural process or piece of creative work, but it is not “functional engineering” in the strict sense.
- AMPFACTS techniques are ‘reversible’, i.e. any and all techniques are simultaneously analysis / composition techniques, although quite often analysis of a process many times may different from the process leading to its existence, i.e. an ‘ampfact’ created from examination of a peice of work may be an entirely different process than created the individual work.
- AMPFACTS techniques are ‘loose’ and ‘flexible’, i.e. presented as inspiration / thought experiments that are meant to be expanded upon / experimented with at the whim of the ‘composer’.
- AMPFACTS were created with the explicit goal of making the composition process enjoyable to the composer. In that spirit, the only purpose of AMPFACTS is to inspire creativity.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**Necessary Terminology
- “Composer” - The individual using the techniques to form a creative work. The term is derived from its usage in music, but is expanded to the creator / creators of any medium using AMPFACTS techniques. ‘Composing’ in this sense refers to the mental process of gradually shaping an idea from concept to completed work.
- “Meta-Medium” - The abstractions / forms of a creative work that exist independent of the medium itself / that may be used to convey the same aesthetic / emotional data through another medium
- “Completion” - Used in the context of AMPFACTS, ‘Completion’ refers to the full finishing of any process that involves a number of steps.
- “Serialism” - Used in the context of AMPFACTS, ‘Serialism’ refers to the multi-disciplinary approach to design, stemming from Arnold Shoenberg’s 12 Tone Serialism Musical Composition Method. In respect to the general tradition, ‘Serialism’ in this context refers simply to the idea of creating lists as a creative tool.
References
1. The Aesthetics of Total Serialism - https://books.google.com/books/about/Aesthetics_of_Total_Serialism.html?id=yd6rvMNbHGUC