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Algoclub: Light Mode/Dark Mode Exhibition

by LiveCode.NYC

Algorithm + Rave = Algorave
Algorave + Club = Algoclub


Clubs and venues serve more than just spaces where people gather to perform, dance, and party. For the time that they exist, they serve as a persistent physical manifestation of vibes, experiences, and movements. The unfortunate reality is that these spaces can’t be around forever. However, they are kept alive in the memory, ephemera, and documentation from the experiences they create and movements they birth, inspiring newer clubs along the way.

The algorave movement views performances as a feedback loop. Livecoding musicians and visualists improvise code -> the audience experiences the code and dances, cheers, expresses themselves -> livecoders respond to the audience reaction by modifying the code and the cycle begins anew. In a similar way, clubs and movements are connected by a feedback loop, where the club creates an environment that cultivates a certain type of experience or movement, and the movement sustains and influences the club.These feedback loops leave behind a trail of ephemera that documents events. The algorave movement is unique in that one piece of ephemera it produces is code. This code is more than just the product of the performances, but a record of the performers’ creative process and the vibe of the event. This code can be shared between performers to learn from, remix, and use to improve performance tools. In this way, the algorave movement has a living history that is passed down through its performers, audience, code, and tooling.

Past clubs have an ancestry that our exhibition will pay homage to through livecode performances and workshops, as we contribute our own feedback loop to the lineage.

Documentation:

Workshops:

Sound as Collage: Mixed Media Zine Making – Sabrina Sims
Intro to Digital Video Synthesis with Hydra – Cameron Alexander
Beatmaking w/ Sonic Pi – Roxanne Harris 
Enough Music Theory For Live Coding by Azhad Syed
Intro to Shaders for Programers – Char Stiles

About the Artists:

LiveCode.NYC is a New York City-based collective that gathers to discuss, promote, and explore real-time programming.

Their members include artists, engineers, actors, designers, educators, musicians, game developers, and writers. They view live coding as a methodology and not specific to a particular medium or language. Their work has been featured in The New York Times, VICE, and The Financial Times.

Their regular meetups occur every few weeks and are open to all. There is no specific format or prescribed agenda, members freely share ideas, cowork, collaborate, listen, and demo. Sometimes there are three people at a meeting, sometimes there are twenty. Their only rule is that the date for the next meetup is set at the end.

They also host periodic workshops, performances, talks, and festivals. They organize these events out of love for making cool things with code, working with what limited time and resources they have available.

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