Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Live Coding

Open Access peer reviewed papers on live coding published at the 1st International Conference on Live Coding (ICLC) in Leeds

MosAIck: Staging Contemporary AI Performance - Connecting Live Coding, E-Textiles and Movement

This paper introduces our collective work “Patterns in Between Intelligences”, a performance piece that builds an artistic practice between live coding sounds and coding through dance, mediated and shaped through e-textile sensors. This creates a networked system of which both live coded processes and human bodies are part. The paper describes in detail the implementations of technology used in the prototype performance performed at No Bounds Festival in Sheffield UK, October 2022, as well as discussions and concerns the team had related to the use of AI technology on stage. The paper concludes with a narrative reflection on the Sheffield performance, and reflections on it

Role of asynchronous awareness in digital art creation

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2008.Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-85).The majority of visitors to sites on the World Wide Web (WWW) have traditionally been only passive observers; consumers of previously created content. More recently, however, these users have been encouraged to contribute to these sites, opening the door to new forms of creative self expression. As we enter this new era of widespread collaboration and sharing made possible by the WWW, one question that remains is how to build appropriate communication channels to and from this new medium with respect to the tools used for digitally mediated creative expression. In this thesis, I will attempt to formulate a coherent set of characteristics that both creative programming environments and their associated WWW sites must possess to help improve, inspire, and support the work of creative individuals using these systems, which I will refer to as architectures for web-based collectivity.by Kyle Matthew Buza.S.M

Collaborative interfaces for ensemble live coding performance

This research is a practice-led investigation into collaborative user interfaces within the practice of live coding; the act of writing computer code for generating improvised music live in front of an audience. It examines the impact of user interface design parameters on group creativity and explores the roles of data, text, and programming languages as media for musical communication. Utilising a multi-faceted research method that combines iterative “participatory design” (Spinuzzi, 2005) with performance-led “research in the wild” (Benford et al., 2013), this research couples ethnographic and autoethnographic observations to gain insight into the practice of ensemble live coding and inform software design. Three novel collaborative interfaces have been developed as part of this research that explore various facets of musical collaboration in live coding. Each interface was developed through an iterative and reflexive methodology focused on user-centred design and was employed in a cyclical process of artistic practice and refinement based on user evaluation and in-depth study. The first interface, entitled Troop, is a shared text editor that allows multiple performers to collaborate on the same single body of code together. The second, CodeBank, explores how private working in a collaborative context affects creativity and improvisation. Finally, PolyGlot, combines multiple live coding languages into a single collaborative interface that enables live coding musicians to play together, regardless of their knowledge of languages. As well as these three graphical interfaces, the functionality of an existing live coding language, FoxDot, was extended to help facilitate the sharing of musical information within an ensemble. Each interface was used in live performance by The Yorkshire Programming Ensemble and evaluated through group interview sessions that examined the themes of immediacy, trust, and risk with regards to both human-computer interaction and intra-ensemble communication as well as the experience of personal- and group-flow states

Rapid Composition for a Multi-Device Networked Music Platform

In this paper we discuss the results of a workshop study for the HappyBrackets system – a development framework for creatively coding multi-device musical performances, sound installations and interactive media artworks – in which new users using the system are invited to create new multi- device music compositions in a rapid creative and collaborative hacking session. We consider the types of works made, the problems encountered and the methods used, including how some of the new features we have added to the system support exploratory creative search. We develop our observations into design principles that we speculate will better support more rapid creative exploration of multi-device creative musical compositions

Extempore: The design, implementation and application of a cyber-physical programming language

There is a long history of experimental and exploratory programming supported by systems that expose interaction through a programming language interface. These live programming systems enable software developers to create, extend, and modify the behaviour of executing software by changing source code without perceptual breaks for recompilation. These live programming systems have taken many forms, but have generally been limited in their ability to express low-level programming concepts and the generation of efficient native machine code. These shortcomings have limited the effectiveness of live programming in domains that require highly efficient numerical processing and explicit memory management. The most general questions addressed by this thesis are what a systems language designed for live programming might look like and how such a language might influence the development of live programming in performance sensitive domains requiring real-time support, direct hardware control, or high performance computing. This thesis answers these questions by exploring the design, implementation and application of Extempore, a new systems programming language, designed specifically for live interactive programming

Collaboration and embodiment in networked music interfaces for live performance

Research regarding liveness and embodiment in electronic music has tended to explore the relationship of bodies and instruments, audience perception, interfaces, and shifting definitions, less theoretical and empirical study has considered network situations, perhaps given their relative cultural novelty. Network music has seen many advances since the time of the Telharmonium, including the invention of the personal computer and the widespread proliferation of internet connectivity. These advances have fostered a unique approach to live electronic music that facilitates collaboration in a field where solo performance is perhaps more common. This thesis explores the design of network music interfaces, and how those interfaces mediate collaborations. Three new network music system interfaces, each using different a different paradigm for interface design are presented in this study. One an instrument for creating modular feedback lattices. Another is a three dimensional virtual pattern sequencer. And the last is a web based collaborative live coding language. Accompanying each system is an evaluation using quantitative and qualitative analysis to frame these instruments in a larger context regarding network music. The results highlight important themes concerning the design of networked interfaces, and the attitudes of musicians regarding networked collaborations

Epistemic tools: the phenomenology of digital musical instruments

Digital music technologies, and instruments in particular, are the result of specific systems of thought that define and enframe the user’s creative options. Distinctive divisions between digital and acoustic instruments can be traced, contrasting the conceptually based design of software with the affordances and constraints of physical artefacts. Having lost the world’s gift of physical properties, the digital instrument builder becomes more than a mere luthier. The process of designing and building the instrument is transformed into a process of composition, for it typically contains a greater degree of classification and music theory than its acoustic counterpart. Part I of this thesis begins by framing musical systems in the context of the philosophy of technology. Here technological conditions are questioned and theories introduced that will assist the investigation into the relationship between creativity and technology. After this general grounding, the ramifications digital technologies pose to the human body are explored in the context of human expression through tool use. The human-machine relationship is described from phenomenological perspectives and relevant theories of cognitive science. This analysis serves as a foundation for the concept of epistemic tools, defined as the mechanism whereby techno-cultural models are inscribed into technological artefacts. The cultural element of tool use and tool origins is therefore emphasised, an aspect that is highly relevant in musical technologies. Part I thus frames the material properties of acoustic and digital instruments in relation to human culture, cognition, performance and epistemology. Part II contextualises these theories in practice. The ixiQuarks, the live improvisation musical environment that resulted from the current research, are presented as a system addressing some of the vital problems of musical performance with digital systems (such as the question of embodiment and theoretical inscriptions), proposing an innovative interaction model for screen-based musical instruments. The concept of virtual embodiment is introduced and framed in the context of the ixi interaction model. Two extensive user studies are described that support the report on ixiQuarks. Furthermore, comparative surveys on the relationship between expression and technology are presented: a) the phenomenology of musical instruments, where the divergence between the acoustic and the digital is investigated; b) the question of expressive freedom versus time constraints in musical environments is explored with practitioners in the field; and c) the key players in the design of audio programming environments explain the rationale and philosophy behind their work. These are the first major surveys of this type conducted to date, and the results interweave smoothly with the observations and findings in the chapters on the nature and the design of digital instruments that make up the majority of Part II. This interdisciplinary research investigates the nature of making creative tools in the digital realm, through an active, philosophically framed and ethnographically inspired study, of both practical and theoretical engagement. It questions the nature of digital musical instruments, particularly in comparison with acoustic instruments. Through a survey of material epistemologies, the dichotomy between the acoustic and the digital is employed to illustrate the epistemic nature of digital artefacts, necessitating a theory of epistemic tools. Consequently virtual embodiment is presented as a definition of the specific interaction mode constituting human relations with digital technologies. It is demonstrated that such interactions are indeed embodied, contrasting common claims that interaction with software is a disembodied activity. The role of cultural context in such design is emphasised, through an analysis of how system design is always an intricate process of analyses, categorisations, normalisations, abstractions, and constructions; where the design paths taken are often defined by highly personal, culturally conditioned and often arbitrary reasons. The dissertation therefore dissects the digital musical instrument from the perspectives of ontology, phenomenology and epistemology. Respective sections in Part I and Part II deal with these views. The practical outcome of this research – the ixiQuarks – embodies many of the theoretical points made on these pages. The software itself, together with the theoretical elucidation of its context, should therefore be viewed as equal contributions to the field of music technology. The thesis closes by considering what has been achieved through these investigations of the technological context, software development, user studies, surveys, and the phenomenological and epistemological enquiries into the realities of digital musical instruments, emphasising that technology can never be neutral

Notational approaches for composing and directing a non-homogeneous laptop orchestra

Within this composition commentary, I seek to outline my practice for composing for laptop ensembles, as well as the notational approaches I have developed to facilitate composition, direction, rehearsal and ultimately performance within an intentionally non-homogeneous laptop ensemble. Illustrating the requirement to move beyond the current typical ‘application as score and meta-instrument’ paradigm, I outline my own notational approach for laptop ensemble writing and the features it offers to the operation of laptop ensembles. As a consequence of the notational approach I seek to outline the performative coding role of the player and acknowledge the compositional role it extends to the performer. These theoretical considerations are considered within the practical operation of the Huddersfield Experimental Laptop Orchestra (HELO) and its sibling HELOpg. As a consequence of these experiments I present my preference for graph and text based notations for directing the laptop performer