('binary' encoding is not supported, stored as-is)
Yeah, I had fun at placard (shame I couldnt stay longer),
I didnt start from scratch though (boo, hiss etc),
But decided instead to do some on the fly recoding of some semi-complete
patches.
It got a bit hectic at one point, when I was running about 3 instances of PD
and managed
to code in an infinite loop... oooops, things got a bit locked up and a nice
screaming feedback
made some peoples ears hurt, I kind of lost direction after that..
Saw alex's set too, and a few other really interesting things...
made me think of a couplke of things though..
1. Would a group livecode set be more rewarding than a solo one..
Alex and alex worked well together, because I think that the speed of
development was
quite well matched. Your familiarity with your environment (software) and
the ease of that
environments use obviously effects the speed of performance development.
With multiple
performers working together these development instances would be staggered
and possibly
lead to a more organic and freeform development (often devlopment stages are
tied down to the
final line return or execution command,particularyl in command line based
systems)
2. Alex was calling routines with argument sets to create various arpeggios,
rhythmic structures and so on.
this was interesting to see (I agree about the projector though) but still
remains quite a closed
box to most viewers (unlike alexs flower app). Its hard to see the source
material and relate sonic changes to
visual changes in this material.. I suppose one advantage of ableton etc is
that you can see the samples and their
postions etc.. I'm not sure exactly what I'm trying to say but I would have
been intrigued to see some wavetables
or sample data somewhere, or some other forms of representation/interaction.
This is of course a personal taste thing though..
3. text interface. although above i was being keen on different form of gui
and representation i think that text can be a very powerful
method of interacion and display. Theres something that seems more permanent
in a text phrase than an icon.
and text interfaces can also represent the history of a performance in a way
icon/gui based work cant..
revisions are easier to see and theres a closer allusion to poetry and the
elegance/efficiency implied
mmmmmm anyway, lots to think about as usual, well done all the placard team!
Tom
http://www.nullpointer.co.uk
http://www.r4nd.org
----- Original Message -----
From: "alex" <alex_at_slab.org>
To: <livecode_at_slab.org>
Cc: "Alex" <alex_at_idoia.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2004 1:39 AM
Subject: Re: [livecode] re: coding from scratch
> On Mon, 2004-07-19 at 16:26, Dave Griffiths wrote:
> > I had fun, a slight panic with a dodgy mixer, but after that I got into
> > it.
>
> Sorry about that - the problem wasn't with the mixer in the end but with
> my dodgy soldering further along the chain... With all the problems
> that had caused the projection completely escaped my mind.
>
> > The whole thing was improvised, live coded from scratch (still not
> > sure if my lsystems rule writing really counts as code). I found that in
> > the heat of the performance I actually had a lot more time to do things
> > than I had imagined.
>
> I was really pleased with my live coding, it was much more fun
> programming from scratch than using the "one i'd made earlier"
> approach. The results were quite simplistic, mainly building rhythms
> out of modulos and sinewaves... But as a first (and second)
> from-scratch live programming performance, it did feel like a whole new
> world opening up.
>
> It was a lot of fun performing with french Alex, we'd been practising
> together for a while until I made the sudden decision to stop using
> pre-prepared code. The following (and final) practice session was far
> better than the previous ones. I was able to react to what he was doing
> in a far more satisfying way than before. We did four run-throughs in
> that session, each one being really quite different.
>
> French Alex is actually more of a pro bass player I believe, it was the
> first time he'd played drums in front of a live audience. He was
> sampling and processing his drum hits with max/msp, and as a side effect
> we stayed in perfect sync (when we wanted to).
>
> > I failed, however, to get my screen projected - too much else to worry
> > about I guess. Next time.
>
> Sorry for my part in this - had had a lot of problems with missing
> channels in the first few performances which we traced to my dodgy
> soldering which had deteriorated since last year!
>
> > A mate of mine recorded the gig, am I allowed to upload it Alex?
>
> Of course - they're your recording rights! To be honest I took a
> recording too, I have the entire festival (apart from some bits lost
> through a couple of power outages) as uncompressed wavs.
>
> Sadly I was running about too much to listen to your set properly,
> although I listened to it today. Ace! A few of the others at state51
> paused from their work to listen, raise their eyebrows and mumble
> approval too.
>
> I listened to your set too Tom, it rocked out, and I enjoyed that
> infinite loop you mentioned...
>
> There's still a couple of weeks left of the placard festival, maybe we
> should make a live coding placard session before its over? Linked via
> the Internet, with toplap-ratified video streams of our desktops. More
> info at http://placard7.ath.cx/
>
> > I dunno much about it (and would have to get time off work, which might
> > be tricky then) - really got the live performance bug now though so....
>
> The runme/dorkbot citycamp is 25/26/27 august in Aarhus, Denmark. It'll
> be a nice three days of workshops, presentations and performances. The
> two days before, the 23rd and 24th, will see the readme software art
> conference, more of an academic conference with presentation of papers
> including the TOPLAP one. They are like two parts of the same thing
> with a lot of crosstalk, but I guess a lot (most?) people will not
> attend both. The free accommodation is officially full up but there may
> be a chance to fit you in - let me know asap if you want me to ask on
> your behalf. Likewise I think that the travel funds are used up but
> there's no harm asking.
>
> More info at
> http://readme.runme.org/
>
> > I find the keyboard/mouse combination pretty useless for expression
> > personally, although I am stuck with it. I also think they make it
> > difficult to express process to an audience. I'm really interested in
> > moving code away from text (or boxes and wires) and into more immediate
> > forms.
>
> On the other hand I think text has some advantages that other forms
> might not. Text can be startlingly evocative, and have a rhythm and
> structure that relates well with music. It can be as precise or vague
> as you like, and the different extremes may be traversed with the
> introduction or omission of a single word.
>
> But yes, as far as writing text and in particular code is concerned, it
> is rather slow. I'm a really slow writer. The Perl language is a lot
> faster than many computer languages to use, but even so, typing an
> algorithm to make a rhythm can be a lot slower than hitting it out a
> drum. However by writing that text you're invoking actions that are
> much faster than a drummer.
>
> One way of looking at it is that writing code is an extremely fast form
> of expression, it just has a lot of latency!
>
> > I have some embryonic ideas of a system where you would set up chain
> > reactions with big primary coloured lego blocks (a bit like a build your
> > own mr driller level):
> > http://digilander.libero.it/calimerosegg/gallery/gbadvance/mrdrill2.gif
> >
> > Would such a thing still be code? What does "code" mean? A turing
> > complete language?
>
> I read somewhere recently (probably wikipedia) that turing complete
> computers are impossible to build because they require infinite memory.
> In any case, turing completeness seems an arbitrary constraint.
>
> I think our earlier discussions led us to realise that it is probably
> not possible to strictly define the scope of toplap code. So we have to
> content ourselves with defining live coding as working closely with the
> composition of the music, rather than being almost completely abstracted
> away from it by consumer software.
>
> There were a lot of ableton live performances at the london placard.
> Because the performances were back to back and only 20 minutes long, we
> had four stages, so up to three acts can be setting up while the fourth
> person plays. At one point all four stages had laptops running ableton
> live!
>
> See ya,
>
> alex
>
>
>
Received on Wed Jul 21 2004 - 09:33:15 BST
