Bluedot with OVO Energy is an award-winning festival of discovery at the grounds of a deep space observatory. Set against a backdrop of the iconic Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank, bluedot combines a truly stellar line-up of music with a ground-breaking programme of live science experiments, expert talks and immersive artworks.
An Algorave is a party where electronic music is generated live from algorithms. The word was coined around 2012, initially as a kind of joke, but has since taken hold with Algoraves taking place in over 40 cities around the world.
At an Algorave, the creation of algorithms are brought into the experience of the music itself. This process is opened up by projecting the code on screens in the venue, so audience members can see how the music they hear is being made. This is often complimented by algorithmically generated visuals projected alongside the code.
‘Thinking Out Loud’ is the fifth Data as Culture art exhibition at the Open Data Institute. The exhibition is built around the practice of the 2016 ODI Sound Artist in Residence, Alex McLean, with a group of artists, designers, makers and musicians that he has collaborated with. Openness and processes of making – where any end results are left partly undone – are at the heart of many of the projects on display. The exhibition draws connections between the ways in which humans have captured, encoded and distributed data, and made it meaningful through pattern throughout history. From pre-Columbian Quipu and the ancient art of weaving to computer software environments, it introduces us to creative notions of code, and the ways in which it can carry both language and thought.
The exhibition features artists and makers who are driven by radical intentions to expose the inner workings of the systemic structures we live with. We are encouraged to engage with these ourselves through art, software, folk songs, glitch aesthetics, chance encounters and knitted jumpers.
Artists: Felicity Ford, David Griffiths and Julian Rohrhuber, Ellen Harlizius-Klück, Dan Hett, David Littler, Alex McLean, Antonio Roberts, Sam Meech, Amy Twigger-Holroyd
At AlgoMech 2017 we aim to take Algorave to the next level, bringing together some of the best algorithmic (and mechanical) dance music producers and VJs, playing over Sheffield’s fiendish DangerNoise soundsystem, with immersive projections covering the walls of Millennium Gallery. As with the rest of the festival we’ll be mixing mechanisms with the algorithms, showcasing repetitive dance music made from handmade robots as well as live code.
Join Vivid Projects on Friday 02 May, 6 – 9pm for a special Black Hole Club Social as part of Digbeth First Friday.
The Black Hole Club is a lively, daring space for all kinds of creative people to share ideas. Join us for a social evening of visuals and sonics from club members. Expect beer, music and conversation, which journeys from David Lynch to Oculus Rift!
Digbeth comes alive on the first Friday of each month with exhibitions, late-night openings, special events, culture in unexpected places, live music, street food and more.
With different things to see and do each month, anything could happen on a first Friday night out. Grab a Disloyalty Card from participating venues and collect stamps to trade for treats as you sample the great independent culture Digbeth has to offer.
Digbeth First Friday launches Friday 02 May, 6pm – late, Digbeth First Friday and continues 06 June, 04 July, 01 August, 05 September and 03 October 2014.
The live-coding future fun has so far shown up in places such as Tokyo, Barcelona, Sydney, Sheffield, Toronto, London, Amsterdam and Porto. Come the end of the month, some of the scene’s main proponents will converge on the Old Police House in Gateshead.
There’ll be other things popping off around the house too.
I took part in Algorave in Gateshead on 26th April. Apart from being incredibly awesome it was my first time live coding – or rather live patching – visuals in Pure Data from scratch. I emphasise from scratch because nearly all of my performances involve me modifying patches, but never starting with a completely blank canvas. I also occasionally used the HSS3jb as a texture for objects, but never on its own. It’s also great for when crashes occur, which is/was often ;-). Here’s a few sampels of my visuals. Videos by Mariam Rezaei:
I learnt a few things about Pure Data that night, and my general opinion is that it isn’t that great as a live coding visuals tool.
One of first issues is encapsulation of objects. This can be done quite easily but it’s a manual process which would involve cutting all cords and reconstructuring a patch. That is, you would have to cut the selection of objects, paste them into a sub patch and then reattatch it. By way of comparison, Max/MSP has this as a feature already, whereas this isn’t mentioned at all on the bug tracker Feature request is now on the bug tracker. Not being able to auto encapsulate objects makes reuse a bit more difficult and cumbersome, which resulted in some really messy patches from me on the night.
This also relates to another issue of object insertion. When I was building my patches I would often have to preempt what I would need. I nearly always started with [gemhead]-[translateXYZ]-[rotateXYZ]-[repeat 10]-[rotateXYZ]-[translateXYZ]-[color]-[cube]. Inserting any additional objects required me to cut the cord and therefore the screen output. This would be solved if there were, for example, a method whereby if two objects were selected, the next object was inserted in between them. This is obviously an over-simplified specific use case which would need more thought behind it. Again, no mention of it on the bug tracker. Feature request is now on the bug tracker.
There were other thoughts I had on the night, such as the incosistencies and clumsiness of using the [repeat] object, the lack of a snap-to-grid option for aligning objects, the tiny size of inlets and outlets – even when the ojbects themselves may be huge, which is only exaggerated when using a 13″ 1080p screen, and the lack of a toolbar (yes, I am aware of GUI plugins), but these are the two which I felt would’ve helped me most.
Has much else been written about the use of Pure Data for live coding visuals?
On June 13th I provided visuals for Com Truise‘s gig at Bull’s Head in Moseley, Birmingham. Aside from a few technical errors (I am a glitch artist afterall 😉 ) the gig went really great! Here’s a render of some of the visuals I did set to Terminal and Air Cal from his debut album, Galactic Melt
(Sorry about some of the freezes in the video. It seems VJing and recording the video at the same time causes Pure Data to slow down a bit)
It was a great night and thanks to This Is Tmrw for having me do visuals for such a great musician!
On Thursday 17th March from 8pm I’ll be providing visuals for BiLE (Birmingham Laptop Ensemble) at SOUNDktichen Balkan Fusion at the Hare and Hounds
BiLE are a collaborative group of composers (instrumental and electroacoustic), performers and programmers who are all active members of BEAST (Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre). The core group of six artists were brought together through their shared interest in live performance and desire to perform and improvise together in an interactive ensemble.
This will be my first foray into the land of live visuals and certainly not my last. I’m really excited about this as long as my computer doesn’t crash it’ll be an awesome set! Get your tickets here.
