"Show us your screens." 💻🔊 — The Live Coding Revolution
Session #02 of Audio Buffer London. This month, we moved from the solitary "black box" of audio dev into the radically transparent world of Live Coding.
Using generative and chance processes to make music has been the interest of composers and artists even before computers allowed a huge increase in scale, speed and possibility. From the early 2000s, communities such as TOPLAP began exploring how algorithms could write live, in full view of the audience as a performance.
By 2011, UK musicians merged this hacker philosophy with rich club culture to birth the "Algorave" — a global phenomenon where the solitary, frustrating act of programming is transformed into a vulnerable, shared, and radically transparent stage performance.
In this session, we discussed the philosophical pillars that make this scene so compelling: why process trumps product, how compact instructions generate complex sonic events, and how the "Zero-Installation" power of modern web APIs has turned the browser into the ultimate, highly accessible live coding environment.
Part One welcomed guest presenters Louis McCallum, Senior Lecturer for the MSc Applied Machine Learning for Creatives at the Creative Computing Institute, UAL, and Guillaume Piccareta, Developer at IRCAM Innovation and Research Means department, Paris — both actual performers of Live Coding, exploring generative algorithms and process-based aesthetics through their performances.
Part Two was dedicated to Student Prototypes: Under the Hood Live "Code & UI" reviews. Adrian Lam (QMUL) presented StellaVerb, a convolution reverb plugin that transforms astronomical data into reverberation textures — diving into the engine and the logic beneath the surface.
Senior Lecturer, MSc Applied Machine Learning for Creatives · Creative Computing Institute, UAL
"Live Coding — Generative Algorithms & Process-Based Aesthetics"
Educator and live coder exploring generative algorithms and process-based aesthetics through performance. Senior Lecturer for the MSc Applied Machine Learning for Creatives at the Creative Computing Institute, UAL.
Developer · IRCAM Innovation & Research, Paris
"Live Coding · Guillaume Piccareta"
Developer at IRCAM's Innovation and Research Means department in Paris, and active live coding performer exploring generative and process-based music-making.
Student Prototype · Queen Mary University of London
"StellaVerb — A Convolution Reverb Plugin Using Astronomical Data"
QMUL student presenting StellaVerb, a convolution reverb plugin that transforms astronomical data into reverberation textures — a live "Code & UI" deep-dive into the engine and logic beneath the surface.
Audio Software Developer & Composer
"Code & Art — Intro Talk"
Founder at sonicPlanet Ltd, UK — building experimental synthesizers and audio processors at the intersection of art, science, and code.
