ManifestoDraft

'Original' TOPLAP draft manifesto (with focus on music performance)

We demand:

• Give us access to the performer's mind, to the whole human instrument.
• Obscurantism is dangerous. Show us your screens.
• Programs are instruments that can change themselves
• The program is to be transcended - Artificial language is the way.
• Code should be seen as well as heard, underlying algorithms viewed as well as their visual outcome.
• Live coding is not about tools. Algorithms are thoughts. Chainsaws are tools. That's why algorithms are sometimes harder to notice than chainsaws.

We recognise continuums of interaction and profundity, but prefer:

• Insight into algorithms
• The skillful extemporisation of algorithm as an expressive/impressive display of mental dexterity
• No backup (minidisc, DVD, safety net computer)

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.
• Live coding may be accompanied by an impressive display of manual dexterity and the glorification of the typing interface.
• Performance involves continuums of interaction, covering perhaps the scope of controls with respect to the parameter space of the artwork, or gestural content, particularly directness of expressive detail. Whilst the traditional haptic rate timing deviations of expressivity in instrumental music are not approximated in code, why repeat the past? No doubt the writing of code and expression of thought will develop its own nuances and customs.

Performances and events closely meeting these manifesto conditions may apply for TOPLAP approval and seal.

Hacking Choreography draft manifesto

By Kate Sicchio

We demand:

• The code allows the audience to view the choreographer and the performer’s mind, process and interpretations. Not just their bodies.
• Code is visible on stage to the audience, not just performers.
• The dancer always has the ability to change the program, ignore the program, or subvert the program.
• Choreography transcends dance. Artificial language is one way.
• Code is seen as well as the visual outcome of the choreography.
• Dance technique is a tool. Choreography is thought and sometimes harder to notice than dance technique.

We recognise continuums of interaction and profundity, but prefer:

• Algorithms are insight into the choreography.
• The decision making process of the dancer is on display as part of the choreography.
• The show must go on. If there is no score the dancer creates the score. But it is still generated in the performance.

We acknowledge that:

• It is not necessary to know the choreographic score to appreciate a dance.
• The live coding of dance may be accompanied by typing or other forms of gesture to convey the movement choices. This writing of code is not the dance itself but a way of expressing choreographic thought.