live coding: sound – gesture – algorithm

Text-based musical live coding (Collins et al, 2003) is approached from the notion of gesture as understood in embodied music cognition and sound-based composition such as to propose a framework for sound, movement and algorithms from a combined embodied-epistemic position. Live coding viewed as an extension of multi-scale studio based sound practices (Roads, 2015) for which human listening and machine listening (Collins, 2015; Van Nort, 2013) are the basis for intervention during the development process; yet positioned within the temporal framework of a performance. The programming language is an interface (Blackwell & Aaron, 2015) to a digital instrumental system that is understood as an epistemic tool (Magnusson,2009) that presumes the potential of various forms of machine agency (Brown, 2016 & 2016b; Bown, 2009) and software agents (Whalley, 2009). The necessary formalism(s) of this digital system sets up the conditions for which human compositional and improvisational actions are complimentary: whatever aspects of the code that are not being improvised in the moment are composed/designed, be it by the performer-programmer(s), or by someone or some software prior. The code that is executed is both descriptive and prescriptive as a score (Magnusson, 2011), while presenting itself for further updates . Bricolage programming describes interactive process of writing and executing code, hearing the output, conceptualizing the next move, and so on, as outlined in the process of action and reaction (McLean & Wiggins, 2010). This understanding of live coding presents a distinct approach to the archetypal notion of sound-producing gesture as grounded in embodied music cognition research and developed in sound-based composition.