[ISEA2022] Panel: Robin Oppenheimer, Alex McLean, Vicki Moulder & Michael Heidt — Light Shows, Live Coding & Transcoding

Panel Statement 

Remote Panel. June 10

Keywords: West Coast Light Shows, Culture Jamming, Live Coding, algoraves, Transcoding

This panel explores the psychedelic audio visual productions of early Light Shows, the origins of algoraves, as they emerged from an international live coding scene, as well as, events produced by artists who use larger technology infrastructures and networked system(s) to transcode data in public spaces.

By design the audio/visual effects of light shows, live coding and transcoding events have captured the attention of researchers, artists and scientists for decades. This panel summarizes Robin Oppenheimer’s media arts research on the histories of early Light Shows, specifically the psychedelic audio visual productions created in North America. Alex McLean will discuss the origins of algoraves, as they emerged from an international live coding scene as well as its cultural prehistory. Vicki Moulder & Michael Heidt will present works by artists who are transcoding larger technology infrastructures and networked system(s); with an emphasis on data extraction and orchestrating events in public spaces. The complex connections between these art movements and artists exemplify how the roots of electronic arts histories from diverse regions of North America and Europe are interconnected and interrelated in unexpected ways.

  • Robin Oppenheimer (USA) is a media arts historian, curator and scholar who has worked in the field since 1980. She was Executive Director of two media arts centers in Atlanta and Seattle and, until June 2015, was a Lecturer at the University of Washington Bothell, with a PhD in Interactive Arts and Technology. Her areas of research include media arts histories, participatory media, and media activism.
  • Alex McLean is a musician and researcher currently working at org. He is notable for his key role in developing live coding as a musical practice, including for creating TidalCycles, a live-coding environment that allows programmer musicians to code simply and quickly, and for coining the term Algorave with Nick Collins. He is an active and influential member of the live coding community; and is the co-founder of TOPLAP and joint leader of the Live Coding Research Network.
  • Victoria Moulder is an artist, researcher, and imaginative advocate for a better world. She is a pioneer in the field of social art practice and has co-produced events with not-for-profit organizations since 1988 in Europe, Canada, the United States and Asia. Moulder’s research explores narrative design in the context of everyday activism (i.e., the habit of working socially conscious choices into our everyday lives). Moulder holds a PhD, School of Interactive Art + Technology, Simon Fraser University, as well as a BFA, Emily Carr University in British Columbia, Canada.
  • Michael Heidt is an affiliated researcher at GeDIS. He graduated in computer-science from Philipps University of Marburg (DE) with a thesis on self-organising cloud systems. Michael’s current research focus is interactive systems: He has built interactice artefacts for deployment in cultural environments such as museums, at public events, in gallery spaces, and other sites of cultural communication. Michael is especially interested in how to embed practices of computing and code-making into interdisciplinary networks of cooperation within the field of culture.