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DJs of the Future Don't Spin Records--They Write Code


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Joanne Armitage (left) and Shelly Knotts of Algobabez perform on the first night of Algorithmic Art Assembly.

Electronic music artists are performing live-coding shows in which they program software algorithms to create new forms of music.

Credit: Mariah Tiffany

Artists in the underground electronic music culture are performing live-coding shows or "algoraves," in which they program software algorithms to create new forms of music.

Musicians synthesize individual sounds on their computers, then direct the software to string those sounds together based on a set of predefined rules; the end product has the artist's signature, but is algorithmically sculpted.

When the same routine is run again, the song will sound familiar and contain the same elements, but the composition will be structured differently.

Performances often are enhanced with screens displaying the running code as trippy visuals.

A popular venue for this emergent art form is the Algorithmic Art Assembly, a two-day festival in San Francisco.

From Wired
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Abstracts Copyright © 2019 SmithBucklin, Washington, DC, USA


 

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