Hey,
I'm Kassen. I'm 33, live in The Hague (NL) and I like weird things.
I got to programming audio after "normal" modular synthesis didn't quite do
it for me any more for expressing musical ideas (it's still fine for sound
ideas). I like interaction and I like very short musician-instrument
feedback loops so livecoding made immediate sense as a way of working and as
a recreational activity. I'm not that into elaborate preparations and the
stale performance experience those lead to so coding for a audience also
made sense.
I've been ChucKing since the dawn (dusk?) of the "Dracula" version and
that's my main instrument. I like Fluxus a lot for visuals and to enjoy the
entirely different programming style. Lately I've been playing with a
certain synthesis extension to Fluxus (that I'm not allowed to mention by
name for fear of getting more users by a certain developer) a lot for
whimsical experimentation and because it's very simple and very fast.
My experiences with livecoding also encouraged me to put myself on the spot
more with other experimental/unstable forms of improvising music (like
turntables, feedback-based analogue synthesis, etc). I try to play that way
as often as possible on local free radio. I'd like to encourage those on the
fence to just start and try it once; with free software demanding your money
back if you would turn out not to like it is quite easy. Pairing up with
somebody, with one person doing audio and the other doing visuals that react
to this has been a good form of practice for me and that might be a "safe"
context to start with; there is a audience but the audience is in the same
shoes. We may have put too much emphasis on "skill", even "competition", and
too little on "enjoyment" in the past; few would argue that a guitar only
has value when played on a stage, playing by yourself is also fine, as is
playing in small ad-hoc ensembles. IMHO livecoding should be seen in the
same way.
Yours,
Kas.
Received on Tue Feb 15 2011 - 18:45:24 GMT