Code as Collage

I called my blog “Code as Collage” for several reasons. First of all, collage has always been an important framework for me to think about how to put different disparate pieces together in a way that is insightful. I’ve always kept notebooks, carried scissors and glue, and cut and collected things from different places. It’s both a creative exercise and a way of thinking. Balanced between thinking and doing, integrating diverse pieces, moving things around until they are right, being comfortable in uncertainty while driving towards a goal – all of these remind me of the process of writing code, in terms of the repositories and creative work of others you draw from, putting together those different fragments in different ways to get at what you are trying to create, and trying to understand how those pieces can connect in the right way until you eventually get the program you are seeking. Not only that, but I think the process of collage is similar to the process of learning to code, at least for me. I’m drawing upon and referencing a huge range of different experiences in my life as pieces to move around, take apart, and put together, as I start to learn how to be creative in a new way.

More thoughts on this to come.