The Arctic Monkeys are good at what they do, but at my age I need be home by 9.30pm with Richard Hawley on the player and Horlicks in hand. If I find myself staying up late, I need to have some Special Brew and banging techno. So it was, on Saturday 21st July, following two days of being introduced into live coding.

ABOUT LIVE CODING:

Live coding is the modification of software while it is running by enacting sourcecode edits. This is analogous to working on a live electric circuit, or playing a live musical instrument - changes may be felt immediately. This allows code to be developed with immediate feedback, perfect for tasks without pre-defined goals such as improvising live music or video. There is also a connection to usage of ‘live’ in performance arts - live coders may perform before audiences, projecting their screen so that the development of their code is visible. Live coding is not only concerned with performances however, indeed some live coders reject traditional modes of performance completely. Live Coding began during the 1980s, primarily with FORTH and Lisp. In recent years new live coding environments and languages such as Chuck, Fluxus, Impromptu and SuperCollider 3 have appeared, with enthusiastic communities growing around them. Live Coding performances have also used PureData, Scheme, Perl, Haskell, Ruby, Python… For more about live coding visit  http://toplap.org/index.php/Main_Page, an informal community of live coders formed in 2004.

ABOUT ACCESS SPACE:

Based in Sheffield, Access Space is the UK’s first “Free Media Lab” - a community space equipped with locally recycled computers running free, open source software. It provides a framework, resources and support for self-directed learning, arts and creativity. Taking part is totally free, and anyone can walk in and contribute:  http://access-space.org/

SPECIAL BREW:

So, there we find ourselves in the rooms of the old Northern Media School (under the Workstation), the bleeps start to build a pace and people gather under one of the 4 projections to watch the coding that is making this pleasant noise coming into the space.

The brew goes down well and the coding builds into some very mellow moments, then all changes - the screens become full of silent movies and we are treated to a sample about the history of art, along with more bleeps and fucked up noise coming from the speakers - it builds and the screen fades into nothing.

FUCK THE ARCTIC MONKEYS (GIVE US THE ANARCHO-SIMIANS):

This is the same weekend of Washstock so it might give some room as to why there is only 50 people, or could it be that the people of Sheffield have never got their heads round all of this. It was much the same as when Cabaret Voltaire played the same space when it was an old car showroom (named Kennings, selling Rolls Royce and Bentleys), now we have The Workstation, The Showroom, Red Tape and of course SIF (where I first watched Chora blow the fucking roof off as the people just sat, clapping politely).

Much the same on Saturday 21st July, as the bleeps and noise build into a full on Spiral Tribe moment, the passive consumers just clapped politely at the end. But I bounced about shouting: “make some fucking noise!” Now, if you want hear just that, then check out live coding. There are plans to put more of the same on again in Sheffield. Info and tunes from Rare And Racy ( http://myspace.com/rarenracy)

We are also planning to put on more improvised music sessions. If all of this is your bag, check out: freenoise.co.uk and follow the links (and your nose). Bar Abbey seems to be a new home, come check out something more than The Arctic Monkeys and all the bland background noise in most venues. The smoking ban is welcome, now let's ban bland music shall we?

Make some fucking Noise.

Images from The Weekend (so far)

 http://spacers.lowtech.org/wiki/doku.php?id=livecode:livecodegal1

 http://spacers.lowtech.org/wiki/doku.php?id=livecode:livecodegal2

 http://spacers.lowtech.org/wiki/doku.php?id=livecode:livecodegal3

A few more over here. http://flickr.com/photos/tags/losslivecode

Comeing soon download the code the music at  http://livecode.access-space.org
we are planing more of the same next year and open soon will be a new hack lab.

more at  http://pretentiousartist.com/