Patterns of Movement in Live Languages

I’m giving a paper at the CHArt conference in Birkbeck tomorrow. I’ll edit it a little after the conference for publication, but here’s a draft of the paper, here’s the presentation (which I’m currently editing) and here’s the abstract:

Programmers do their work by writing — a piece of software is a structure made from words. These structures are generally too big to comprehend in their entirety, so programmers instead focus on small detail and overall plans; zooming in to find parts to combine and simplify and zooming out to find places to build. But this is not architecture: these structures are more like machines than static buildings. A programmer’s work is set in motion by a program interpreter, with information flowing in and around processing units before being directed outward in response.

Usually a programmer will write some text, and then step back to start it up, watch it work and decide upon the next edit. Live coding programmers however work on their software while it is running, as if they were modifying a machine without switching it off first. Because software is built from words, this is done by editing it as text, adding new routines or changing the character of an existing one. Such a change takes immediate effect, allowing fast creative feedback.

Where a written novel exists to describe human activity, written software exists to simulate it. Therefore the live coder can take the role of an artist, constructing simulators in order to generate patterns of movement, either as music, video animation or both. This can be done in front of a live audience, so that the process of writing software becomes the process of improvising music or video in performance art.

Programmers are finally taking to the stage. Introspecting and encoding their musical thoughts before an audience. A tradition of live coding has quickly formed where computer screens are projected, making the programmer’s reactions to their work visible. Questions of authorship disappear; the performance is live, the programmer improvising through the medium of written language.

3 Comments

  1. Although not directly related, your language reminded me of this quote:

    “Pascal is for building pyramids–imposing, breathtaking, static structures built by armies pushing heavy blocks into place. Lisp is for building organisms–imposing, breathtaking, dynamic structures built by squads fitting fluctuating myriads of simpler organisms into place.” — Alan Perlis in the SICP

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