The Live Coding and Collaboration symposium we ran in collaboration with the Department of Music in Birmingham went really well. The event started with a doctoral colloquium where researchers presented their work in progress, often challenging and expanding common definitions of live coding. The event involved a planning session for the International Conference for Live Coding which will take place in the University of Leeds in July, 2015. Some great ideas were presented, involving unconventional conference sessions and a good focus on quality food and beer (and let’s not underestimate live coding’s relationship with beer, in particular as we were in Birmingham).
The Friday symposium included a great paper session with presentations by Tom Hall on live digital notation, Scott Wilson and Norah Lorway on live coding networked music, Alex McLean on collaboration, André Damião on streaming objects, the impressive team behind the Cambridge based Sonic Pi research project (Pam Burnard, Franziska Florack, Alan Blackwell and Sam Aaron), and Sang Won Lee on models of networked live coding. We had live sessions on live coding without computers, and after a fruitful closing discussion, planning the future, the day ended with the first performance of the Network Music Festival, set in Birmingham Music Department’s beautiful circular multichannel dome.
