Author: Uditi Sharma

I researched P5LIVE, a collaborative live coding platform for p5.js that runs in the browser. Live coding is an art practice where the process is the performance. You write and change code in real time, and the visuals update immediately, often with the code visible too. P5LIVE was created by Ted Davis, a media artist and educator in Basel, originally for a Processing Community Day event where people wanted to live code visuals during a DJ party.

What I like about P5LIVE is that it treats live coding as a social activity. It lowers friction by running in the browser, and it makes collaboration feel natural through links and shared rooms. It is not just an editor. It is a space where teaching, performance, and experimentation overlap. Instead of coding being private and finished, P5LIVE encourages coding as something collective and ongoing.

P5LIVE’s key feature is COCODING, which works like Google Docs for code. You create a room link, others join, and everyone edits the same sketch together in real time while the visuals run locally for each person. It also includes classroom and performance features like lockdown mode, chat, and SyncData, which lets people share live inputs like MIDI or mouse data with the group. In my demo, I will show the instant feedback loop and a basic COCODING session.

What I found most interesting about this reading was how much weight it gives to really small things. Tiny timing shifts that are almost impossible to notice unless you are listening closely. The idea that a groove can feel expressive not because it changes dramatically, but because it is slightly off in very specific ways, made me rethink what “emotion” in music actually looks like

I also liked how the text treats musical communication as something that does not need to say anything clearly or directly. It feels more like people getting in sync with each other than sending messages back and forth. Groove becomes a shared sense of time, where musicians are constantly adjusting to one another and responding at a level that is felt more than understood

The discussion of microtiming and the body stood out to me too. A perfectly quantized beat can feel strange because it removes the trace of a human presence, but the reading also makes it clear that this absence can be intentional and meaningful. What matters is not whether a rhythm is human or electronic, but what kind of relationship it creates with the listener.

Overall, the piece made me more aware of how much expression lives in small imperfections, and how being slightly off can be what makes something feel alive in the first place