8.4 The most agility imaginable In order to get a better
feeling for all aspects of agility working in concert, let's see if we can
imagine the most responsive possible medium for text-graphic dance. This
imaginary performing instrument will represent the limits of agility which the
present medium tries to approach. We might describe this medium in operation
as hand-powered performance animation. Not only are text and graphics
moving as fast as the operator desires, but even the very quality of their
movement in under his or her complete control. Admittedly such a medium is
hard to imagine complete animation of text-graphics generated live in
performance but perhaps part of the problem lies with our ability to
imagine ...
Consider the following parable. A cargo plane is flying over the jungle enroute
to a very remote Club Med. Through a freak accident, the player piano meant for
the night club accidentally falls out of the cargo bay along with hundreds of
paper rolls, some with music and some blank. Miraculously the piano survives
intact, the only damage being the total destruction of the keyboard. Discovered
by a local tribe, one of their musicians figures out how the player piano can
be operated in order to make music. It takes about two days to punch a roll
which then produces two minutes of music. Years later an explorer happens upon
the tribe and they demonstrate piano music for him. He listens politely and
thinks somebody ought to tune the thing. Then he tries to explain the concept
of a keyboard and its use in jazz improvisation. The tribe listens
politely and thinks he is crazy. They explain patiently that his idea would
never work: piano music is far too complex for human beings to make up and
control in real time and even if they could, no interface could possibly
handle the bandwidth.
