What now, what next—kairotic coding and the unfolding future seized

Cocker, E. ORCID: 0000-0002-2985-7839, 2018. What now, what next—kairotic coding and the unfolding future seized. Digital Creativity, 29 (1), pp. 82-95. ISSN 1462-6268

[img]
Preview
Text
PubSub9637_update_Cocker.pdf - Post-print

Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Drawing on my experience as a critical interlocutor within the AHRC research projects Live Notation: Transforming Matters of Performance (2012) and Weaving Codes | Coding Weaves (2014–2016), in this article, I propose a conceptual framework for considering the challenges and opportunities for kairotic improvisation within live coding, conceived as an embodied mode of imminent and immanent intervention and invention-in-the-middle, a practice of radical timing and timeliness. Expanding my previous reflections on kairotic coding [Cocker, Emma. (2014). "Live Notation: Reflections on a Kairotic Practice." In Performance Research Journal, on Writing and Digital Media, edited by Jerome Fletcher and Ric Allsopp, 18 (5), 69–76. London: Routledge; Cocker, Emma. (2016). "Performing Thinking in Action: The Meletē of Live Coding." International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media 12 (2): 102–116. Cocker, Emma. (2017). "Weaving Codes/Coding Weaves: Penelopean Mêtis and the Weaver-Coder's Kairos." Textile 15 (2): 124–141], in this article, I address the kairotic liveness within live coding's improvisational performance by identifying two seemingly contradictory tendencies within this burgeoning genre. On the one hand, there is a call for improved media technologies enabling greater immediacy of semantic feedback supporting a faster, more fluid—perhaps even virtuoso approach to improvisation. Alongside, there remains interest within the live coding community for a mode of improvisational performativity that harnesses the unpredictable, the unexpected or as-yet-unknown. Rather than regard these two tendencies in antagonistic relation, my intent is to invite further debate on how the development of intelligent machines might better facilitate improvisatory flow, without eradicating the critical intervals and in-between spaces necessary for creative invention and intervention, without smoothing away the points of technical resistance and intransigence which arguably form a part of live coding's performative texture.

Item Type: Journal article
Description: Published in a special issue on Improvisational Creativity
Publication Title: Digital Creativity
Creators: Cocker, E.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Date: 2018
Volume: 29
Number: 1
ISSN: 1462-6268
Identifiers:
NumberType
10.1080/14626268.2017.1419978DOI
Divisions: Schools > School of Art and Design
Record created by: Linda Sullivan
Date Added: 26 Feb 2018 11:29
Last Modified: 22 Aug 2019 03:00
URI: https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/32798

Actions (login required)

Edit View Edit View

Views

Views per month over past year

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year