ok, you got me, this isn’t a thread at all but a blog post…
Well, anyway, I wanted to list some people and express gratitude for who they are.
Let’s begin…
thanks yaxu
I’ve said this before but probably the person I owe most to in live coding is Alex McLean (pronounced mclain or if you’re gaelic speaking something else).
Alex has put a lot of energy into putting on events, rallying support, building community, creating and maintaining TidalCycles which is used so widely in the UK (alongside its twin Strudel).
Although there have been many people involved in live coding going back decades, it’s hard to imagine the scene as it is today without Alex.
TOPLAP and social.toplap.org too.
Heavy Lifting
An appropriate artist name for sure, Lucy is a kind, sweet and humble person who has been extremely helpful and supportive of my journey into live coding and running events. Also brings awesome energy and ideas to events. She refuses to acknowledge this but I wouldn’t have done half or even any of the events I’ve taken the lead on here in London without Lucy’s support
Todepond
I can remember seeing this person online and I was like who is this person? Then I saw the Clojure talk and was like, oh right, cool!
Then Lu wrote a blog post called “I went to an algorave and it changed me forever” - an algorave that I led into being (I promise this post isn’t about my ego - the context is that I was really happy to see the impact the event made)
Then Lu came to a meetup and jumped right in - ‘getting it’ straight away.
Lu has infectious enthusiasm, a touch of mischief and does a lot to help live coding thrive in London. Like a LOT. Also has done a lot for collaborative jamming via the flok fork nudel.cc and the unknowable phenomenon #pastagang.
mah[alias]
Mahalia was the first person to help me get a foothold in the London scene, by chatting to me at a Corsica Algorave (two in fact) and listening to my ramblings as well as encouraging me to get involved. She also has guest hosted a meetup and did a great job. As well as being a lovely person and hugely talented.
hellocatfood
Antonio has done all the posters for our algoraves at Corsica studios, and brings awesome energy to performance as well as being the busiest live coder in the uk. And deservedly so. Antonio always brings others up, most notably through leading the (Algo|Afro) Futures mentoring programme, which has spawned a lot of great talent into the scene.
monz
Stephen gave lots of advice and support which helped in running algoraves, also has put a lot of time, energy and money into running fake[dac~] events. Stephen can be a pain sometimes hehe but always brings lots of ideas and passion. Also helpfully created the algorave_london insta.
Corsica Studios and The Carpet Shop
The lovely people who run both of these venues have been very supportive and all the staff are extremely lovely. It can feel like a family being part of the events.
The Sekforde
A lovely venue who have let us make weird noises in their beautiful basement room for free, and been really nice about it too.
portal_.aura
Laura brings awesome energy and enthusiasm to everything and is never afraid to jump right in the deep end and make stuff happen! An extremely talented artist as well as being very clever too, will always surprise with the latest innovation of hers. Also been to lots of meetups and shared cool projects.
boggo
Boggo very quietly does amazing things with code, from 3D live coding to heavy metal with Strudel, boggo supports a lot of events and always has some cool ideas to share. An inspiration.
collapse
James puts a lot into Pattern Club and was supportive of getting the live code meetups going.
Marysia
Also keeps Pattern Club going, which is a nice welcoming space providing something different and very cool. And supports a lot of events.
eggg
for volunteering to run Syntə on other machines and giving helpful feedback 🙏 and coming to events.
greg
for giggles and breaking the rules at my birthday party :) also does really cool stuff with trane, great performer.
claude
for always contributing to open source, listening patiently to my ‘dumb questions’ and supporting events. Hugely technical but in a really nice way.
digital selves
Lizzie was the first person to pay me for photography (at the camberwell algorave last year) and has also got the bbc involved in filming at a future AlgoRhythms. Lizzie also has done a lot for the scene running events and meetups.
mickey
mickey was the first person to buy my music and supports a lot of events as well as co-running the creative coding book club which is really nice and something different
Luis
is the other half of creative coding bookclub and also supports many events including the meetups. Also kindly looked after my hat for a few weeks.
EverySongIOwn
Louis ran the Low Stakes | High Spirits event last year and also supports a lot of events despite the demands of family life
Evan
is an OG live coder and puts on events despite having a young baby, is enthusiastic and very chill.
noughty fingers
everyone involved in bringing something different and super cool, also for giving me my first booking as a live coder (the rest were my own ‘vanity’ events and EMOMs)
Nū
Fetle is soo awesomely talented and a true asset to the international scene
alsoknownasrox
Rox is an awesome force, providing great energy and even writing a framework within SonicPi. Probably the ‘best’ live coder out there 😎
James Holden
for very kindly supporting events and buying my music, it really means a lot
Sideb0ard
for doing a really cool radio show podcast, and playing one of my tracks and saying nice things about it https://highpointlowlife.com/
rory
for taking over the running of the algorave_london instagram account and doing an amazing job. Thanks!
Ed
for helping me out with computers and coding over the years.
a pale slim ghost
for bringing enthusiasm and cool vibes to emoms and meetups. Hugely talented and really cool projects too
V
for awesome technical and creative powers, v did two amazing AlgoRhythms posters and thank you for once telling me to shh - that is sometimes necessary!
every artist who’s performed at AlgoRhythms or Corsica and everyone who attended
You’re all extremely cool
myself
I appreciate my patience and perseverance, forgiving my errors (which are many) and doing some really bad code that I love. Thanks me.
note
this is not a ranked list, well I hope not as I’m at the bottom. I suppose you could say it vaguely goes from obvious to less obvious personas?
Anyway, thanks for listening - if I forgot to add you it doesn’t mean I hate you, you’re probably on it under ’everyone’ anyway.
Also, this is my perspective - there are many perspectives!