Okay, we should have read these earlier, I guess. Rather than discovering now things (well, there are a few in the physical computing list), I would say that reading these two passages was like reacquainting myself with some of my takeaways from the first half of our course.
‘Shut up’ is a rude phrase, especially when it’s called to the alleged ‘creator’ of a piece – I thought. Then it comes to the question again: “To what extent could we deem to be the creator, and to what extent should the intentionalistic pursuit of the creator be respected?” I have no clear answer to this. But if we hop out of the framework of intentionalism and think of ‘shut up’ as also a part of the ‘creation’ process—as if there is no static ‘art piece’ but only the rating process (borrowed from musicking if you’re curious), then the seeming sacrifice of intentionalism could serve something higher than itself. Philosophical enough, even merely regarding the pragmatic effect that ‘shut up’ could bring us, I believe the amusing moments that happened in our mid-term presentation could speak for themselves, signaling us creators to take another lens and subsequently improve the creation. That is, in a sense, also the creation process, isn’t it?
Anyway, as for the topics/types of physical computing projects listed, obviously, just within our class (or even only within my projects), there are already a lot of ‘overlapping’ ideas. If you ask me if in this particular case I would be bothered by the ‘ingenuity’, the answer – surprising or not – would be a clear NO. My interpretation of this problem would be similar to cover versions of music and the iteratively performed classical music – each and every version/performance contributes to the collective musicking process with its own uniqueness. Even if we are ‘just copying’, there is still nothing to be ashamed of: copying, or more professionally speaking, imitating, is still one of the best ways to learn.