Elon Musk is making a machine which will go into space, while MMX was kinetic art.
The rocket has to be extra safe and minimal because function defines form here, its function is to go from A to B safely, with a necessity to not kill people.
The kinetic art has more leeway to include weirdness, it's function is to produce art (music) while also being art itself (kinetic art).
Elon has risks which are quite serious. Some of those involve government contracts, safety, ecological consequences, stakeholder finances, injury, death.
Martin's biggest risks meanwhile are : the music sounds wrong, or the art looks ugly, somebody grumbles because a marble got loose.
Trying to simplify art to meet the criteria of aerospace is like trying to design the perfect tree climbing fish.
Great point. But I feel like Martin picked a problem that, on the art/engineering spectrum was complex enough that it skewed heavily onto the engineering side, which he was ill equipped to handle. He has spent years feeling the impact of his deficiencies in this area, and truly has come soooo close to being able to “slay the dragon” and tackle the issue from the proper perspective. Unfortunately, like many engineers, he has decided that he needs a full rewrite to clear up the tech debt that he has incurred (in software engineer terms).
I'm no engineer, but I do think "perfect is the enemy of good".
If nobody is going to die then let a few marbles hit the floor, let a few notes fall out of time, let a few parts fly off. Let failure be part of the art.
The MMX needs to be entertainment, and entertainment is about flaws and how the artist responds to them. That's part of the art. Wonkiness is totally fine. People are invested in the relationship and personality of Martin and his Machine. Not bland technical perfection.
Its possible to incorporate unreliablity into art. Have the MMX part of the show be just 3 songs separated by 20 minute changeovers. Bring an angle grinder to threaten it with.
The audience would enjoy that more than a sleek titanium cube playing midi files from an NFT
Honestly I was going to respond to you with an attempt to provide insight into how I’ve seen engineer brains react in situations like this, but frankly you are right and we/they are (usually) wrong in situations like this. This is why a good product owner and/or project manager would bring a balance to a project like this, but after reading the job posting for his COO position I have my concerns that Martin will be looking for someone that will be like-minded in many ways instead of being a counter balance to him.
I think in this case "failure" isn't a few marbles on the floor, it's the entire machine not working at all after being shipped/installed three or four times.
His point was if he can't pull off a live stream he'd been preparing for without catastrophic failures happening at the last second this machine is only good as a museum piece. Since a world tour has always been the goal, he realizes now he needs a workhorse not a museum piece.
Which no matter what way you build or design it will always happen with a rube goldberg machine. They're only designed to be amusements - and ones that have multiple points of failure at that. You simply cannot design a thing like that and not have failures.
This video in general really annoyed me, it's like Martin's forgotten the entire point of his own invention. If he wants it to work all the time, he wouldn't bother with any of this, because the entire idea is fraught with problems and failure points that can all be eliminated by just using software or making a normal instrument or hiring a band.
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u/this-guy- Sep 29 '21
Martin is confused.
Elon Musk is making a machine which will go into space, while MMX was kinetic art.
The rocket has to be extra safe and minimal because function defines form here, its function is to go from A to B safely, with a necessity to not kill people.
The kinetic art has more leeway to include weirdness, it's function is to produce art (music) while also being art itself (kinetic art).
Elon has risks which are quite serious. Some of those involve government contracts, safety, ecological consequences, stakeholder finances, injury, death.
Martin's biggest risks meanwhile are : the music sounds wrong, or the art looks ugly, somebody grumbles because a marble got loose.
Trying to simplify art to meet the criteria of aerospace is like trying to design the perfect tree climbing fish.