An algorave (from an algorithm and rave) is an event where people dance to music generated from algorithms, often using live coding techniques.
Description
Algoraves can include a range of styles, including a complex form of minimal techno, and the movement has been described as a meeting point of hacker philosophy, geek culture, and clubbing.
Although live coding is commonplace,
any algorithmic music is welcome which is "wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive conditionals",
which is a corruption of the definition of rave music (“wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats”)
in the UK's Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. Although algorave musicians have been compared with DJs,
they are in fact live musicians or improvisers, creating music live, usually by writing or modifying code, rather than mixing recorded music.
At an algorave the computer musician may not be the main point of focus for the audience and instead attention may be centered on a screen that displays live coding, that is the process of writing source code, so the audience can not just dance or listen to the music generated by the source code but also to see the process of programming.
History
Algorithmic approaches have long been applied in electronic dance music from the 1970s when
Brian Eno established randomised musical practises which evolved into
generative music over the course of his long career. This, in turn, influenced
rave culture and
techno of the 1990s by
Farmers Manual,
Autechre, and
Aphex Twin. The
Anti EP was an explicit response to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 - specifically the track "Flutter" as a means of creating "non-repetitive beats" at raves which had been outlawed by the wording of the Act. The
snare rush famously featured on the
Girl/Boy EP of 1996 is an earlier form of digital algorithmic coding and featured in drum and bass influenced electronic music of the early to mid 1990s, this approach later evolving into glitch music. Traditional use of algorithms include
Maypole dancing, where they are applied to the dance itself as a form of Algorithmic Choreography and
bell-ringing. The first self-proclaimed "algorave" was held in London as a warmup concert for the
SuperCollider Symposium 2012.
However, the name was first coined in 2011, after live coders Nick Collins and
Alex McLean tuned into a
happy hardcore pirate radio station on the way to a performance in the UK.
Since then, algorave has been growing into an international movement, with algoraves having been held mainly in Europe and Asia;
and few events in Australia
and
North America.
Community
Algorave can also be considered an international music movement with a community of electronic musicians, visual artists and developing technologies. See
the Algorave category page.
External links
