I read Artist-Musicians, Musician-Artists and I like how it traces something that feels obvious now but apparently took a century to become normal.
I think the part that resonates most with me is the computer era section. When techno and house came along, the machine just didnot care what you were. You could make music, make visuals, run a label and design the artwork all from the same tool. The software doesn’t ask if you’re a musician or a visual artist. You just open it and start.
The article goes through all these earlier movements like Fluxus, punk, the Factory scene and they are interesting, they feel like people consciously pushing against something, making a statement by crossing disciplines. What I find more compelling is when it stops being a statement and just becomes how you work. The computer made that possible in a way nothing before really did.
I think that’s where we are now. Nobody finds it strange if someone makes music and visuals together. The article frames it like a long historical liberation, but honestly from where I’m standing it just feels like the obvious way to work and I’m not sure we even notice it anymore, which is kind of the point.
Group Jam 1:
Group Jam 2:
My cursor was in the corner in this video but I was running the visuals in the top left corner (I dont know why but you can see flickers of me running the commands)
Solo Jam 1:
Solo Jam 2:
Group Jam 1:
Group Jam 2:
Solo Jam 1:
Solo Jam 2:
I did not expect a paper about shamanism to make me think about my Hydra and TidalCycles setup, but here we are. Shanken’s framing of technoshamanism as a merger of ancient tranceinducing technologies with digital tools actually relates onto what live coding feels like from the inside. There is something about writing patterns in real time and watching sound emerge from syntax, that feels less like programming and more like tuning into something. You are not always fully in control and that is kind of the point.
The part that stuck with me most was Pauline Oliveros. Shanken describes her relationship to music as bodily and preconscious, and her ideal AI chip as something that could “perceive the spiritual connection and interdependence of all beings.” That is a wild ask for a piece of hardware, but I think I get what she means. Deep listening is never passive but a practice of expanding your attention until the boundaries between you and the sound start to blur.
What I am still sitting with is whether the technology actually enables that expanded consciousness or just simulates it. I am curious and that gap feels worth exploring more.
Group Jams:
Solo Sessions:
I think the Deadmau5 vs Bailey comparison is a really clever way to frame what live coding is. He is being honest about something that a lot of performers pretend is not happening, and I think there is something refreshing about that. For me the whole point of live coding is that something could go wrong, and that tension is what makes it feel alive. A perfectly pre planned show with synced lights and video is impressive in its own way but it does not give me that feeling.
The Bailey section hit different because I actually feel like that philosophy is closer to how I think about using Hydra and TidalCycles. I do not always know what a pattern is going to sound like or what a modulation value is going to do to a visual until I try it, and I think that exploratory quality is what makes it feel like playing an instrument rather than just operating software. I have had some of my best moments in live coding sessions when the code did something I did not expect and I just leaned into it instead of fixing it.