The Many Meanings of Live Coding
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Andrew Sorensen,∗ Ben Swift,† and The Many Meanings of Alistair Riddell∗ ∗Institute for Future Environments Live Coding Queensland University of Technology P Block, Level 8, P803-12, Gardens Point Campus 2 George Street, Brisbane, 4001, QLD, Australia [email protected] †School of Computer Science Computer Science and Information Technology Building (108) Australian National University Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia [email protected] ∗Photography and Media Arts, School of Art Australian National University Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia [email protected] Abstract: The ten-year anniversary of TOPLAP presents a unique opportunity for reflection and introspection. In this essay we ask the question, what is the meaning of live coding? Our goal is not to answer this question, in absolute terms, but rather to attempt to unpack some of live coding’s many meanings. Our hope is that by exploring some of the formal, embodied, and cultural meanings surrounding live-coding practice, we may help to stimulate a conversation that will resonate within the live-coding community for the next ten years. Musical meaning is predicated on communication, 1996). Second, meaning is conveyed through the but communication does not entail meaning. run-time computational processes set in action Ultimately, for any communication of musical by the live coder’s manipulation of code. This is meaning to take place between a composer and an the process-task semantics (Smith 1996). Finally, audience, some shared interpretation is required, as live coding’s cyber-physical relationship with the noted by Benjamin Boretz: physical environment results in perturbations in the world (Sorensen and Gardner 2010). These Thus the salient characteristic of an art entity perturbations result in embodied meaning. may, most generally, be considered to be its Meaning in a live-coding context is therefore “coherence”; and the extent of its coherence, multifaceted—a complex interplay of symbolic, and hence of its particularity as a work of computational, and embodied meaning. Further art, may be considered to reside in the degree complicating these relationships is the fact that of determinate complexity exhibited in the they are shared between a live-coding practitioner ordered structure of subentities of which it is a and an audience, each of whose relationship with resultant (Boretz 1970, p. 543). the “meanings” of live coding will be unique. Live coding (Collins et al. 2003; Wang and In this article, we attempt to unpack some of Cook 2004) is a performance practice in which live coding’s many meanings, paying particular meaning exists on a number of different lev- attention to the formal semantics which are so els. First, meaning is inherent in the formal prominent in live-coding practice, with its com- system that defines the programming language mitment to the display of source code and the interface used for live coding. This meaning is importance of algorithms. We approach this ques- known as the program-process semantics (Smith tion largely from a compositional perspective by investigating the structural function of form. We Computer Music Journal, 38:1, pp. 65–76, Spring 2014 acknowledge that ideas of meaning in music (and doi:10.1162/COMJ a 00230 indeed in the arts more generally) have been widely c 2014 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. discussed elsewhere (Meyer 1956; Boretz 1970; Sorensen et al. 65 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/COMJ_a_00230 by guest on 27 September 2021 Goodman 1976; Cross and Tolbert 2009). We also that support an unprecedented spectrum of sonic believe, however, that live coding offers a fresh possibilities. To fully realize the power of these challenge to the interrelationships of meaning in most flexible of machines the live coder must work formal systems and musical composition. To explore within the framework of formal systems. these ideas we expand on the work of our colleagues Formal systems often play a functional role in (Rohrhuber et al. 2007; Rohrhuber and de Campo musical composition and performance as accompa- 2009; McLean and Wiggins 2010; Magnusson 2011a) nists, antagonists, muses, and even conductors, but in the hope of encouraging further discussion of live are usually heavily directed by a human performer coding’s many meanings. (or performers) working through some form of non- formal interface—a keyboard, joystick, monome, microphone, or similar. Musical Formalism In live coding the performance is also heavily directed by a human performer (the live coder), but A core concern of the musical composer is managing in this case the interface is, itself, a formal system. complexity. Musical form, at all levels, requires a What distinguishes live coding from other formal delicate balance of coherence and novelty. In order approaches to music is that the formal system to tame this musical complexity, some composers under consideration can be modified on-the-fly by a have turned to formal methods. The desire to impose human operator. In most traditional formal systems order on the musical chaos of the times has found contexts (e.g., GenJam, cf. Biles 2007) the rules and voice from antiquity to the present day (Loy 1989; axioms are unalterable, once the system is defined Essl 2007; Edwards 2011). For instance, Johann it cannot be altered in playback. Live coding breaks Joseph Fux, writing in 1725, objected: from this rigidity by supporting a human composer who operates “above-the-loop,” in that live coding at this time when music has become almost allows for the run-time modification of the system’s arbitrary and composers refuse to be bound axioms and rules. By incorporating a formal language by any rules and principles, detesting the very interface into a real-time system composed of both name of school and law like death itself (Fux sensors and actuators, live coding enables composers 1965, p. 17). to modify automatic formal systems designed for Order, or coherence, in music is multifaceted. One music production, and to do so in real time, at run important distinction in this regard is the distinction time. between structural and cultural coherence. That structural coherence in music would be amenable to formal processes is largely self evident, form Token Meaning and Embodied Meaning and structure being almost synonyms from a compositional perspective. Cultural coherence, Although many computer music composers are on the other hand, appears to be considerably comfortable with formal languages (particularly more difficult to formalize, and is perhaps best computer programming languages) the relationship tackled “with that particular kind of exploration between these formal systems and the musical that systematically extends perception; a kind of abstractions which are built upon them are complex exploration called ‘play’ ” (David Keane, quoted in and often unclear. Emmerson 1986, p. 111). John Haugeland (1981) describes the computer’s Live coding meets both structural and cultural cri- central processing unit as an automatic formal teria by supporting structural development through system (AFS) that inputs, stores, manipulates, and formal methods, at the same time supporting the outputs meaningless tokens. These tokens are systematic extension of perception through play. non-symbolic (in a Fregian sense; see Eco 1979) For the live coder, the digital computer supports the in that they lack referents. An algorithm—a set construction of sonic micro-worlds—creative spaces of instructions or “recipe” for manipulating these 66 Computer Music Journal Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/COMJ_a_00230 by guest on 27 September 2021 Figure 1. A simple ixi lang code example, playing the four beat pattern: kick, snare, kick, snare. tokens—is a formal system that is defined in terms of manipulations of these tokens, a representation without any external reference. This is not to suggest that these meaningless is interesting within a computational context, be- tokens are meaningless internally. Within the cause the strong “cultural unit” (Eco 1979), which formal system tokens must have a consistent helps to form the frog concept, is only valid so long semantics to support interpretation by the AFS. In as a pragmatic relationship with the concept remains other words, they must have a syntactical meaning. valid. In other words, if the programmer uses frog What makes an AFS such a powerful tool is that as the name of a variable representing an animated these internal semantic engines can be layered on character, and a robot (rather than a frog) is drawn top of one another, operating at increasingly high on the screen, the linguistic identity of the symbol levels of abstraction. This allows programmers to frog is challenged, and a new sign production takes create new conceptual worlds that obey laws that place. are independent of the platforms on which they are The “indexicality” of this sign relation, between built. the frog and the computationally driven robot This suggests that semantics can operate at many animation, points to a powerful attribute of live different levels, but raises the important question of coding—its “cyber-physicality.” By this we mean how meaning crosses semantic borders. According to that symbols in the formal system have both a Charles Morris (1938), semiotics be can broken into “computer world” (syntactic) meaning and a “real three fields: pragmatics (the relationship between world” (pragmatic) meaning through their output signs and interpreters), semantics (the relation on the screen. In live coding, these two meanings of signs to objects), and syntactics (the relations are open to consideration and modification by the of signs to one another). The distinction between programmer, but not necessarily in a way which these three fields can be expressed in terms of the keeps these meanings “in sync” in all senses. relationship between the semantic levels they are Consider the token random(). Within the context concerned with: (interpretation) of sound, meaning can be ascribed to this symbol, forming a mental conception of white Syntactics becomes relations within one level, noise.