pt5 is a script for the monome norns programmable audio computer. It was intended as a prototype for phenotropic programming, Jaron Lanier’s idea that software components should “interact through pattern recognition of each other’s surfaces”, rather than through protocols agreed upon in advance. Phenotropic programming was theorized in the early 2000s by Lanier, presented in some conferences, and was the subject of several papers, articles and book chapters, but then mostly faded from computer science discourse. I’m keenly interested in the neglected alternative paths that computer science often forgets, and phenotropic programming is one of them, one which may still be revived and further researched.
The script hopes to demonstrate a certain application of phenotropic programming to sound synthesis, dramatizing it with a population of amorphous cells that drift, collide, briefly stick together, and mutate their short symbolic programs that determine the sound each cell emits.
Source code is available on GitLab.
There is a thread for the script on the lines forum.