In the article we establish that a performance is a spectacle that either goes through “composition or facilitation” once live depending on the position an artist places themselves in the continuum between both. Placing live coding into this continuum poses some conceptual challenges, particularly in defining where liveness and instrumental agency truly reside in such performances. Live coding simultaneously embodies real-time composition while relying on pre-existing computational structures that we often practice and reference, which complicate a clear distinction between creation and execution. Reading the opposing perspectives about liveness and performer activity raised in the article further complicates this distinction, as it becomes unclear whether the value of a performance lies in visible real-time decision-making or in the premeditated design of a cohesive audiovisual experience. While the article had a clear preference, I do find myself wondering if one is more valuable than the other or if this hierarchy in itself is a product of traditional assumptions about what counts as an “authentic” performance and what doesn’t. The distinction to an extent feel less like a measure of artistic value and more like a reflection of audience expectations, where immediacy is equated with authenticity. I do agree though that revealing the process through the display of the code and the inner workings of the performance as it is being created does create a sort of connection with the audience even if they do not fully comprehend the technical language being displayed to them. This visibility reinforces the perception of real-time decision-making, aligning live coding more closely with traditional notions of liveness as active creation rather than mere execution.

To me the most interesting part of the text was the assertion that live coding is a more traditionally inclined musical performance mode than EDM/DJ-ing. I agree with the assessment that watching an artist write out lines of code on the screen is similar to watching a guitarists fingers glide on the fretboard or a pianists hands flourishing over the keys. A counter could be raised that the act of coding music is not as intuitively recognized as using traditional instruments. However, one must consider that novel instruments are always enigmatic when they’re introduced. In fact even instruments with long legacies like accordions, oboes, even pianos have mechanisms that are not understood by the lay person. So in a similar line of argument, one must treat the live coding GUI with similar grace. However, the author’s comparison of live coding to Derek Bailey’s improvisation on a physical instrument is a little misleading. Even though Live Coding environments are traditionally very experimental and pliable, it’s difficult to achieve true ‘freedom’ of expression. For example, Derek Bailey can very well start punching his guitar strings or cut them with a wire cutter to add unorthodox elements to his performance. But for in a live coding environment, there are still rules that have to be followed, functionality that is allowed and syntax that needs to be respected. In fact at one point the author says “live coding is, in other respects, not the “free” improvisation” referring to live coders “respecting the beat” or in other words following musical conventions. Still, I really enjoyed how the author takes the reader on this thoughtful investigation on how to exactly categorize live coding in the larger musical world and how big name artists fit into the world of live coding.

The most interesting move in this paper is that Parkinson and Bell refuse to make Deadmau5 the villain. They take his “we all hit play” blog post seriously as a philosophical position, and when you do that it actually gets complicated, because his argument is not obviously wrong. He is saying the compositional labor already happened in the studio, and the live show is something else, a collective ritual where the spectacle and the crowd are what constitute the “liveness.” The weird implication the paper sort of stumbles onto is that this puts Deadmau5 closer to Francisco Lopez, who performs in a pitch black room with zero performer visibility, than either of them would probably be comfortable admitting. Completely opposite aesthetics, same underlying logic: the music exists independent of real-time human gesture, so stop pretending otherwise.

What the paper is really asking, even if it dances around a clean answer, is what audiences are actually tracking when they call something “live.” Bailey’s answer is that the music is being made right now in response to this specific moment and you can feel that. Deadmau5’s answer is that the crowd energy and spectacle are real regardless of what the laptop is doing. Live coding tries to split the difference by projecting the screen, making the compositional labor visible in real time, which is genuinely strange when you think about it. You are watching someone think. The paper’s sharpest observation is actually about virtuosity and the body, that traditional instrumental skill is legible because audiences share a human body with performers and intuitively understand physical limits. That legibility simply does not exist for typing, and the paper admits it without fully resolving it, which I think is where the most honest and interesting tension in the whole argument lives.