In what sense is live coding “live”? Live coding is live in that it is an active conversation between the coder, the machine, the audience, and everything else that surrounds and permeates the setting at hand; live coding is live in that it proceeds in a constant state of spontaneity and is characterized by its resistance to being defined and boxed. Live coding is an amorphous creature, very much alive in that it is never stagnant and craves change. It materializes not just as lines of code or musical notes; live coding is a representation of the relationships that manifest between everything that is present and around the performance itself.

As described in the excerpt, live coding by nature resists a singular definition—and in turn, a singular liveness. It thus demands a nuanced understanding that takes an array of perspectives into account: “The interdisciplinary nature of live coding . . . requires that its very liveness be understood from more than one epistemological and ontological perspective” (159). Live coding is unique in that it transcends spatiotemporal conventions. A performance may exist and be experienced in the present, but certain sequences and samples may be prescripted and prerecorded. Then there is the concept of the undetermined future, which live coding embraces in all its uncertainty. Live coding also creates a platform upon which the physical and digital coexist; it lives in the in-between. 

What emerges from a live coding performance is vastly different for each individual that experiences it, whether they be the live coder on the stage or a member of the audience. Live coding is thus an indeterminate manticore that assumes a different form to all and can only be defined through this ambiguity. Live coding is alive, thriving and pulsating in the bricolage of the predetermined and the yet-unborn.