@Baltan. A meetup with a Strudel workshop and from-scratch session
Join us for a live coding meetup, co-organized with Baltan Laboratories (located in the historical Natlab building) in Eindhoven. We’ll have a special evening with guest Alex McLean, the developer of the live coding language TidalCycles and Strudel. He will give an introductory workshop in using Strudel (more info below). At the end of the meetup we’ll have an open stage from-scratch session where everyone can improvise music or visuals with code in short 9 minute slots.
In this workshop Alex will introduce the free/open source, Strudel live coding platform that he co-instigated, translating the “TidalCycles” system to the web. It allows strange, complex musical rhythms and patterns to be created and explored with super simple code. The workshop will therefore be suitable for beginners with no experience of coding or music-making, exploring patterns by listening to and adjusting just a line or two of code. At the start of the workshop, Alex will ground understanding of algorithmic pattern-making to other pattern-based practices, including weaving and the South Indian Carnatic practice of Konnakol.
Participants should bring a laptop (or similar device with web browser - as long as it can make sound with https://strudel.cc/), and if possible a pair of headphones.
Alex McLean is a researcher based in Sheffield UK, working on “algorithmic patterns” including in music, textiles and dance. He has been working professionally in creative technology since the year 2000, including as live coding musician and software artist, crowdfunded free/open source developer, festival curator/producer, and through research fellowships. Alex created the popular free/open source live coding environment TidalCycles, and co-founded the TOPLAP live coding and Algorave movements, and the AlgoMech festival. He also co-edited the Oxford Handbook on Algorithmic Music, and co-authored Live Coding: A User’s Manual, published by MIT Press. He now holds a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, hosted by nonprofit independent lab Then Try This.