THE SOUND OF TECHNOLOGY BY LUCY GOOD
Gordon Good
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mong the ambience of our home’s sun-dappled backyard, birdsong ent sound can be heard—the harsh click-clacking of a computer’s keyboard, perhaps; or the rhythmic tapping call, faintly discussing work blanketed in jargon unintelligible to me. Whatever part of this whirlwind of activities, Gordon Good always stands at the center, creating and working alike; he cycles through these things, and countless others, a seeming embodiment of the modern arts-and-technology obsessed attitude of Silicon Valley.
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n Silicon Valley, art and technology are near vital parts of life; technology especially. Despite the increased emphasis on the arts, as opposed to other places, today they can seem like mere decoration, a backdrop for more important—often corporate—technological matters. This can even be found within our own schools, proven bluntly by the fact that “California is behind when it comes to providing schools with funding for arts and music education…Only 1 in 5 public schools in California has a dedicated teacher for traditional arts programs…” (Beutner, Duncan). In spite of the overarching nature of these issues, nuance, and perhaps answers, can be found within the individual; in this case, Gordon Good. Standing simultaneously a passive bystander, critic, and prime example of the values of Silicon Valley is Good, a Mountain View based software engineer working for VMware who ties together arts and technology in his work and hobbies. hile STEM by itself, he says, as opposed to STEAM (which includes art) is practical, “...adding the arts and reading kind of humanizes that a lot” (Good), adding a softening element which rounds out technology to make it more human-focused. Still, it’s an unfortunate fact that, in Good’s own words, “[Art]’s viewed as less important”, and among controversies surrounding invasions of privacy from tech monoliths and criticisms of capitalistic greed devoid of humanity, this is an especially potent issue. Good is far from being the only proponent of greater incorporation of arts into technology, supported not only by people but facts. As one of many examples of this describes, “...through art-making projects, students at one school manipulated the abstract concepts underlying fractions for a more concrete understanding of how they work.” (Robelen). Not only does greater incorporation of art
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in their lives after school: “Students need jobs when they graduate…a singular opportunity has been lost if they are denied the opportunity to study foreign languages, the classics, literature, philosophy, music, theater and art. When else…will they get that chance?” (Prose). esides the clear importance of art within a broader range of issues, Good also makes it clear that art is important by its own merit—despite the seeming need to justify the presence of art based on outcomes (perhaps proving even more the undervaluation of art itself), “...it’s also intrinsically important to us as humans.” (Good). One needs only to look throughout the archives of history to see the inherent nature of art within humanity. To Good,
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truly cannot serve humanity without the acknowledgement of its intrinsic value; the value of both is doubtless apparent to him.
“[Art]’s viewed as less important.”
Part of Good’s garage-based workspace
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notice him engaging in what seems to be a daily ritual, hearing tapping of hands and feet on various surfaces, his voice enunciating along to the rhythm of music only auditory to him through his headphones, yet one listening in could almost hear the music themself. Whether this is a spur of the moment thing, or part of what he describes as his at least once-weekly, hourlong session of “really deeply listening to [a piece of classical music]”—a form of study—it’s clear have been his whole life. drove him nuts”, Good says—probably as well as the radio interference he caused on his brother’s stereo, which he again says drove him crazy—but also notes it was a good learning opportunity, if at the expense of his brother’s sanity.
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ince the early days of his youth in sixties and seventies Michigan, arts and technology have woven themselves seamlessly into the fabric of Good’s life. It seems, truly, almost like fate—with two pianist parents and two older brothers, one a trumpeter and the other a saxophonist (as well as a physicist), music was the earliest form of the arts he saw.
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he was quick to tell me he was made to practice in the bathroom of the family’s basement, followed by the trombone. While he honed his musical skills, he also pursued an radio receiver kit with his father at twelve over a few weeks and got his ham radio license at thirteen, and as his brother was living in the basement getting a doctorate in physics, he learned to hack his now-primeval, “dorm refrigerator”-sized personal computer. It “kind of
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urther pursuing music, he followed this interest into middle and high school, formance at the University of Michigan. After graduating, he got a job in a computer store. Next door to the store, its owner had a computer classroom where he taught, and would allow Good to use the computers and learn their applications. This, paired with his already existing passion for technology, led him to go back to school. After getting his degree, his of Netscape Communications; now, he works at VMware as a software engineer, in his free time working on personal projects.
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urrently, Good works on what I’ve
Inspired by a sound sculpture he saw—a type of contraption in which a sculpture is environmental factors, such as wind or rain, to produce sound—and already fascinated by pieces which make music, “even when there’s nobody around to see them” (Good), he decided to try his hand at his own version of this. Lacking the technical skills to create something as detailed as a sound sculpture, he thought: “...is there something I can do with electronics?” (Good). here was, it turned out, and it was to be found in an unlikely link between theremins, an instrument which produces its tunes from hand movements
picked up with a simple radio receiver. Good is in no shortage of these, and, just like a theremin, controlled remotely with one hand for volume and the other for frequency, the airplanes “play” our house, with the information sent out being mapped
borne of his passions for music and electronics, is music, described by Good as “pretty, new-agey” sleep music. n the future, Good hopes to see greater support of arts within schools and technology, and hopes participate in more music-based hobbies, particularly music writing—”eight bars or six bars of music like once a week, just as a kind of an exercise”—and study in depth parts of music history, especially those that tie together visual arts and music. ltimately, nothing seems to sum up Good and his future better than airplanes. Airplanes are constantly sending what he told me at the end of our interout signals stating important information view: “...I think mostly I just want to keep like altitude and location, among a multilearning new things.” tude of other things, all of which can be
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“...I think mostly I just want to keep learning new things.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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ucy Good is a junior at Freestyle Academy of Communication Arts & Technology and Mountain View High School, studying animation as her elective. She enjoys reading, listening to music, art, and going on hikes. She is especially interested in drawing, having practiced art her whole life, and hopes to use Freestyle as a learning opportunity to expand her skills.