ToplapUKPress
"Live coding has so far flourished, but under a bushel. Perhaps it's time the rest of us got a look in." - The Wire magazine, June 2008
Experimental musicians have long written music in the form of rules and algorithms, but live coders take this to further extremes by treating algorithms as live artistic material. They write and modify algorithms while the computer runs them. Rather than using software, they create it, improvising with code before an audience. The code generates music -- live coders improvise music through code. Think of musicians burrowing around within the innards of computer music and you get an idea of the sorts of truly live activity that live coding covers.
TOPLAP ( http://toplap.org ) is the Temporary Organisation for the Promotion of Live Algorithm Programming, formed in 2004 to bring together live coders of all backgrounds, musical genres and programming environments, and further to encourage wider adoption of live coding techniques. TOPLAP UK is the UK base of TOPLAP, meeting regularly for live coding events from ad-hoc group improvisations (laptop drumming circles) to larger gigs, as well as hosting international festivals.
TOPLAP UK ( http://toplap.org/uk/ ) consists of eleven people actively organising events, leading workshops, developing live coding environments and languages and of course performing live coded music.
TOPLAP UK members have live coded performances widely including at Ars Electronica (slub, 2003). Sonar (slub, 2005), Transmediale (TOPLAP supergroup 2005), International Computer Music Conference (yee-king, 2008) and NIME (nilson, 2007). TOPLAP UK have become increasingly active in the past few years. 2007 was marked by the release of a successful CD compilation and organising the "LOSS Livecode" Festival with Access Space in Sheffield (supported by the PRS Foundation and ACE Yorkshire). 2008 featured TOPLAP UK presentations and workshops at the Secret Garden Festival, the SuperCollider summer school at the University of Westminster, the Thursday Club at Goldsmiths College, the Computer Arts Society, the Make Art festival in Poitiers, and an off-conference live coding concert at the International Computer Music Conference in Belfast.