well, i for one, welcome the livecoding overlords ;)
it was 2 years ago, when people with some interest for livecoding met
in hamburg.
julian rohrhuber invited people for the 'changing grammars symposium'
(
http://swiki.hfbk-hamburg.de:8888/MusicTechnology/609)
it was also julian who made the jit(just-in-time)lib extension
classes for supercollider3
(btw. also for sc2 there was a functional jitlib by him).
this made livecoding very straightforward for all sc users, most of
whom untill then were not
that familiar with the possibility of starting a performance with an
empty text file,
and typing a concert from scratch.
i'd advise anyone with interest for 'live-coding' to have a look at
the jitlib example files,
and then thank julian for his great work !
personally i found that livecoding works well for fast prototyping as
well as concerts,
but the addition of a few buttons and some sliders makes the whole a
lot easier, and more flexible too, especially in a live setting.
the jitlib way of doing sc things is, and will probably be, my
prefered way of making live computer music, though i do not realy
feel it is important to communicate this, since i cannot understand
why code in itself would be interesting to watch for a general public,
i guess watching visuals generated from the same code as the music
would help such an audience better to percieve what is going on. for
settings with a more 'informed' public that would be different
possibly..
the toplab manifesto is quite clear on this however;
"We acknowledge that:
• It is not necessary for a lay audience to understand the code to
appreciate it, much as it is not necessary to know how to play guitar
in order to appreciate watching a guitar performance.
i am not sure about this comparison, i think there's no uneducated
audience that appreciates code, unless they want to learn, which is
probable in a workshop situation.
also, because the public is very much familiar with the sound of a
guitar, watching the player
can be fun (just one unknown factor). a computers sound can be
anything, the code will not resemble anything an audience has seen
before (text-wise), together this might just be too much too
understand what is going on (which is what a public wants,
understanding before appreciation)
most people actually got fed-up with guitar players' solos, and their
faces are funny at best.
also a laptop cannot be a fallus symbol, the way a guitar can be ;)
allthough the manifesto is (meant to be) a bit tongue-in-cheeck, it
could be a good thing to bring the serious points about. i think one
main point is, that we are not 'laptop-djs', and to communicate that
to a public can be quite important. there's a difference.
just my thoughts :)
adrian
pbup.goto10.org
Received on Sun Apr 16 2006 - 14:34:00 BST