Tensions and Techniques in Live Coding Performance

A review of live coding techniques and tensions at play in live coding practice, building upon algorithmic descriptions of musical pattern and sound synthesis, to explore how algorithms are made and improvised with in this vibrant community. The five lenses of tensions explored include the consideration of risks during performance; the transparency and immediacy of the public interface; the use of abstractions, models, metaphors, and complexity; the division of attention and maintenance of pace; and the meeting of machinic determinacy and improvisational indeterminacy over a wide spectrum of durations that code puts within our reach.