Since 2016, I became fascinated about the potential of live coding performance. Live coding is an integrative creative practice, incorporating representation, live design and perception as part of a music performance. “It is a music making practice where a programmer/musician codes, runs and modifies a program live while music (and/or visuals) is generated”. [33] In the words of McLean (2011) this process of progressive bricolage is “A creative feedback loop encompassing the written algorithm, its interpretation, and the programmer’s perception and reaction to its output or behavior.” I became interested in adapting the fluidity of livecoding into my music practice, collaborating with several friends from the Netherlands coding live on performances.
Knurl became a product of creative coding and open source culture: its interface and web platform was designed with the contribution from Netherlands Coding Live members. The motivation for including this practice into my music creative practice became more clear along the course of this project: Live coding is an example of an XXI century integratie performance involving visual representation, performance, audience engagement and music perception. Besides it, it brings the concept of transparency in its motto, sharing communicative tools for audience engagement. Because of its inclusive format, “Livecoding then blurs the distinctions between composing, instrument building, and performing (and composition/instrument/performance) even further, as the computational system or code is no longer fixed once it is designed, but is adapted during the performance” (Baalman, 2019).
During the whole process of Knurl’s development, live coding became my biggest reference, I aimed in the course of this research to develop Knurl as an on the fly instrument, meaning that a musician could run and modify music while projecting code and graphical visualization into the performance circle by its instrument. In addition, it becomes a platform for communication with the audience, since they also obtain the control of music creative choices during its performance.
3.1.2. Practice
For more interesting and positive Live coding practice can offer as a new performance, Live coding can be a controversial practice in current live electronic art. “This act is particularly enraging for advocates of the essential role of the human body in musical expression and interfaces to electronic music” (Nilson, 2007) The high complex tasks that you have to generate in order to play one note seemed in the musician's perspective, a ludic way to make art.
Observing the con and pros of live coding practice, the development of Knurl as an integrative and creative practice was a long process between several trials and projects that were previously described in this thesis. The practice of its integration into a single experience became a single format when Sabrina and I started to rethink the visual projection of the artwork. This isn't explained in the chapter 2.1.1 Shareability. We start to wonder about applying representation statements of Knurl’s interface into the whole project.
In this research application, The main challenges experienced in the Knurl practice were regarding its feedback or representation of events, the application of too complex formats and the misrepresentation of role change were possible to solve when combining the visual projection into the instrument’s performance. Sabrina and I used the format of the performance Within Without as a reference for this research.
3.1.3. Artistic Result
- Antigone
Antigone is a multidisciplinary opera as a memorial for the corona deaths. It was presented in the Westerkerk Amsterdam in February 2022. I received a commission to compose and perform structures of live coding with samples of cultural traditions from 4 regions: India, Indonesia, Mexico and Middle East. This project became a result of the reflections about understanding live coding as a transitional art performance. The code is shared in a VR version (virtual reality) of this production.