Inspired by John Baldessari singing the instructions of Sol Lewitt, I sang the instructions that I knew, C++ code. C++ is made up of two files, the header file and the body file. This simple C++ program layers the videos of me singing the C++ files.

Like many programmers, I know what it means to be “in the zone”. It’s like an ecstatic flow state, a very empowered feeling, where you are so fluent in computer programming that you can just express your intentions as code without having to translate them. But to achieve this “in the zone” state, you have to adapt yourself to the interface and give up some of your humanness. You have to make yourself think like a computer. In this state, you can only think what the programming language allows.

This dichotomy doesn’t just happen with programming but with all interfaces. User experience designers actually strive for this in their designs. The goal is for the user to be conscious only about what they are trying to do and forget the interface exists.