November 5, 2004
amit pitaru
In my effort to avoid doomist thoughts given the week’s events, I attended the nyc acm siggraph (future participants ?) panel presentations at Pratt Manhattan. Amit Pitaru ‘s talk was noteworthy. Trained as a pianist, he never intended to write software, but he does now, spending time between writing his own tools and using them. He demonstrated a beautiful 3D drawing tool, and in general the set of tools he develops is amazing! I highly recommend checking out his work, pretty inspirational. A nice summary and more links can be found here. While he does not argue that his work is political, I can see how his very specific ideas about how tools are created for specific needs could be applied as an activist software design strategy. Its heartening to see someone rethinking the tools they use so clearly and articulately, stripping away commercial concerns and just plain irrelevant interfaces. . .