To make art with technology, one does not use it as a tool; one must understand it as a material. Technology is not always a tool, an engineering substrate; it can be something to mould, to shape, to sculpt with.
Materials have desires, affordances, and textures; they have grains. We can work with that grain, understanding what the material wishes to be, wishes to do – or we can deliberately choose to work against it. We must understand that grain and make a deliberate choice.
Software is a material. A language like Processing is better at some tasks than others, faster at some things than others, easier to manipulate in certain directions and harder in others. It has a grain, and desires, that we must understand to work with it – that we learn through working with it.
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