I've found live programming during a performance a problem. In recent
experiments I've been preparing some scripts in advance, running them
and then finding myself tweaking variables rather than working the code
in any significant way.
So while I have found live coding to be an inspiring and productive way
of writing music at home and in my studio, the way I'm performing with
these pre-prepared scripts seems a step back from how I was working
before. I've thrown away the user interfaces to reveal the code below,
but am then just editing numbers that are scattered around the screen.
So what I'm aiming for now is to be able to start with a blank text
editor and write code from scratch during the performance. Has anyone
tried this approach yet? I seem to remember you saying something about
pd wars Tom, where the artists compete against each other, starting with
an empty patch and seeing how quickly they can make something good.
I think it could work well. Many times I've spent hours on a problem,
come up with an ugly solution, then re-written a better version later in
a fraction of the time. There are some things, such as chat systems or
website backends that I've made many times over with the same ideas, and
yet they've ended up behaving quite differently for whatever reasons,
each creation satisfying in its own right.
I suppose it lends a certain structure to the performance, starting off
with one very simple element, developing it a little, adding a little
bit of structure until it becomes something like a melody, then starting
up another editor, introducing another simple element, developing that
into a simple rhythm, then coding in some interactions between the two
processes perhaps, and going from there.
Just because code exists on disk after a performance, it doesn't
necessarily mean that it should be run again... It could be thought of
as a kind of fossilised improvisation. Not even a record of a
performance, but a frozen impression of the performance at the moment of
its death.
So I'm collaborating on a set with a drummer at a headphone festival in
london next week (
http://state51.org/placard/). Even though the set
will only be twenty minutes it seems that I'm going to have to try this
out.
I'd better sleep now anyway, apologies for my late-night ramblings! No
conclusions here, just stray thoughts...
alex
--
alex <alex_at_slab.org>
slab laboratories
Received on Thu Jul 08 2004 - 01:25:44 BST