Obscurantism Is Dangerous: Live Coding and the Practice of Digital Independence

Live coding is a performative practice where artists write code live. They use code as an interface to create music, visuals, and sometimes as a basis for poetry or dance. Live coding performances usually display the code on a big screen, so that the process is also shared with the audience. It involves writing and modifying code on stage, changing the program while it is running, so, in a way, it is like changing the rules of a game while the game is already happening. The same way you can see a musician playing an instrument without knowing how to play that instrument, you can see how the code is being executed without knowing programming. These principles are gathered in the TOPLAP draft manifesto from 2004, where you can read sentences like: "show us your screens, obscurantism is dangerous, or give us access to the performer's mind, to the whole human instrument." These ideas emerged in response to the closed processes of computer music performances, where you could see someone performing in front of a laptop without knowing if they were making the music live or checking their emails.

Rules of the Common

It's worth noting that the manifesto has stayed a draft since 2004, and deliberately so, because it is supposed to be changing over time. The refusal to ever finalise it is, in a way, the whole philosophy in miniature: a shared reference point that everyone can read, but that nobody owns. Funny enough, the manifesto hasn't been touched since then, despite many attempts; for some live coders, it is seen as a long-standing joke, and certainly some ideas don't apply any more, or never did. The manifesto is ambiguous, but its catchy phrases still shape the community.

TOPLAP is an international organisation about live coding; the acronym has many interpretations, including Temporary Organisation for the Proliferation of Live Algorithm Programming, Transdimensional Organisation for the Purity of Live Audiovisual Programming, or Terrestrial Organisation for the Permanence of Live Audiovisual Programming, among others, showing how variable and ambiguous the name itself can be. This is what makes live coding a useful case study for digital independence; live coding is not a single tool or a single rule, but it works as a model of decentralised cultural organisation, where a few shared principles hold across very different local scenes, instead of one authority enforcing a standard.

Between Digital and Physical

Live coding is not a musical genre; live coding sessions and concerts can range from ambient or drone sounds to dance parties. The latter are usually called Algoraves, where you can expect an underground venue with smoke and repetitive music. Usually, an Algorave has several performances one after the other. Algoraves also have guidelines that help organisers create their own, including phrases like "collapsing hierarchies", "diversity in line-ups and audiences", and "be wary of institutions.”

In the Algoraves organised by TOPLAP Barcelona, we usually promote the event using the Algorave name itself; with the name, people already know they're going to have fun, they are not coming for a headliner or even a specific performer. In the poster, we list all the names in the same font size, and we put a lot of effort into making a nice poster that makes you feel you have to be there. The order is sometimes chosen randomly, while at other times it depends more on the mood of the music to maintain a certain flow. We let the audience know the time slots and the order at the venue itself, so they don't prioritise what they already know.

Another type of common event in the TOPLAP Barcelona community is the from-scratch session, an improv session where every live coder has 9 minutes to perform, starting from an empty screen. The format itself started in Mexico, where live coders took the idea of writing everything from scratch seriously and turned it into sessions of under 10 minutes; this format was later known as the Mexican style. Years later, TOPLAP Barcelona adopted it as a method to start and maintain its own community. In Barcelona, the from-scratch sessions are always the last Thursday of every month, and include a rule for the audience: they must clap at the end of the 9 minutes, no matter the result. The sessions always happen; it doesn't matter if there are three people or a hundred, and it's about sharing and exploring together, so we encourage trying new tools and experiments without any pressure. This is a concrete example of how a shared technique moves between nodes and becomes locally rooted. The format is now also used in other nodes, such as TOPLAP Slovenia and The Netherlands Coding Live, which added the rule to also clap after the first sound or the first image.

These communities, as mentioned before, are called TOPLAP nodes and are usually connected, learning from each other. Live coders have the opportunity to meet each other and perform in different cities in Europe thanks to the connections between the nodes. Most events are self-funded, with no sponsors, no institutional backing behind the scenes, and they vary a lot depending on the city. In Lyon, there's a 12-hour Algorave, with over 200 attendees in an underground venue—a completely DIY event. In the Netherlands, you can take part in public events like Museum Night, drawing a very different, broader crowd, or you can find yourself performing in a dance rehearsal space in Berlin with people sitting on the floor.

Some of those connections have been built deliberately. TOPLAP Barcelona itself was born at Hangar, an art production centre that supports collectives through residencies. The curiosity about how other communities work led to the on-the-fly project, a European exchange between nodes that helped the community consolidate and open new lines of communication; several new TOPLAP nodes appeared during and after it. That exchange continues around every ICLC (the International Conference on Live Coding): nodes organise satellite events in their own cities around the dates, so a touring live coder can ideally build their own itinerary by following the network.

Turbulente and Linalab, live coding performance at BAW! festival, 2024 — © Brava arts