Live Coding Study Day

Location, date, time

Illustration: Rémi Georges.

The seminar takes place on the 23th April 2024 at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Paris Nord (20 avenue George Sand, 93210 Saint-Denis). There will be two academic sessions (09:00 AM - 05:30 PM) followed by an artistic session (08:00PM - 10:00PM). Inscription to the seminar is considered as an all day pass.

General information


Just in time programming (or: conversational programming, live coding, on-the fly-programming, interactive programming) is a paradigm that includes the programming activity in the program’s operation. Here, a program is not taken as a tool that is made first to be productive later, but instead as a dynamic construction process of description and conversation. Writing code becomes an integral part of musical or experimental practice. (Julian Rohrhuber - JITLib Documentation)


The recent (~2020) emergence of a French live-coding scene has made apparent that a local academic initiative on that subject was way overdue. While international networks centered on live-coding have been established for nearly 20 years through the TOPLAP collective, no academic event has ever taken place in France on this theme. The goal of this study day is to put in motion a national research network connected to its broader european and international counterparts. Through this event, we are trying to bridge the local scene with the international network and shine a light on its vitality. In doing so, we hope that it will nourish the global conversation of the discipline.

Live-coding is a research and art field uniting artists, researchers and enthusiasts from diverse walks of life around a common practice. Live-coders see manipulating source code as a creative, artistic gesture. Live-coding consists in improvised, on-the-fly programming, often performed in front of an audience or as a way of exploring a musical/visual system and its properties. From the practice of live-coding arose the phenomenon of Algoraves (~2012, algorithmic rave parties), one of its most popular form. It also has its place among the New Instruments/Interfaces for Musical Expression that arose in the XXIth century. As such, this technique is naturally used in the field of experimental, electroacoustic and electronic music, but can also be found in other branches such as visuals, choreography, etc.

The dedication of MSH Paris Nord to transdisciplinary research makes it the ideal location for such an event. Thanks to funding from GRAME and the Association Francophone d’Informatique Musicale (AFIM), we are able to offer a double event, featuring both academic and artistic sections. Through a happy coincidence, we are organising this seminar on the year of the 20th aniversary of the international research network that arose from the Changing Grammars seminar which took place at Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg from 12 to 14 february 2004. Our event also takes place a few days before the International Conference on Live Coding which will take place this year in NYU Shangai (30 may - 1st june).

Thematics

This seminar invites its presenters to reflect upon the following themes: