“Live coding is a way of improvising music or video animation through live edits of source code, using dynamic language interpreters.”

Is this a universal definition of live coding? Is it a new discipline at all? I found this cool website that talks about the history of live coding and performance.

One resonating idea throughout the reading — to what extent a human is a real artist in computational creativity? What would happen if an A.I. algorithm were to replicate a human in a live coding performance? Has this been done before?

What in my opinion live coding embraces greatly is the affordability of mistakes. It is the spontaneity that is born with experimentation on the spot and embracing imperfection that gives a unique spike to each performance.

There is no such confusion with live coding, there is a human clearly visible, making all the creative decisions and using source code as an artistic medium.

A programmer making generative art goes through creative iterations to, only after each edit they have to restart the process before reflecting on the result. This stuttering of the creative process alone is not enough to alter authorship status.

What live coders themselves have to say about their art is what’s the most interesting in the reading. One can infer a great deal about their bold character and adventurous work style has given many rounds of iterations, experimentations, and failing that they have to go through before giving THE performance.

What has been said about personal style and the design process of their own language reminds me of what Richard Hamming says about style in his “Learning to Learn” lecture:

“There is no one style which is successful. Painters paint many different styles. You have to find a style that fits you. Which means you have to take what fragments you can from other people, use them and adapt them and become yours.”

What I am taking away from this paper: Live coding means that there is beauty in imperfection that is born on stage during the performance. Live coding music ⇒ music that “could be understood in a novel way”. This is not electronic music, neither it is music created by an algorithm; it is a collaboration of human, chance, and code.