GenericSubmission
Note to jury: If you do not like this application, please edit to your tastes.
Recommended accompaniment: Please listen to Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance (or any other locally pertinent heart swelling jingoism) whilst reading this application gumpf.
Some computer languages allow a programmer to change a running process on the fly by rewriting the code that defines it. If the output of that code is a process being revealed to human senses, an interactive performance is possible. Applied to live computer music this means sound compositions can be heard as they form, and musical algorithms adjusted while already playing.
TOPLAP is the Temporary Organisation for the Promotion of Live Algorithm Programming, set up to explore the application of live programming to composition and performance. TOPLAP advocates treating algorithms as live artistic material, allowing them to be written and manipulated while they create music or video, perhaps in front of an audience.
The interests of the TOPLAP membership encompass live coding performances with output in both audio and visual modalities, the possibilities of immediate feedback given by prototyping compositions in interpreted programming languages and new languages for on-the-fly programming. This international organisation is gathering membership and profile. Recent performances and demonstrations have taken place in Japan, USA, Sweden, Germany, England and Denmark.
Further information on TOPLAP artists, events and theory is available at:
The site contains links to archived performances, papers on live coding practise and history as identified by the group.
For any possible award TOPLAP submits itself. In particular, we would like to highlight the L