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Dr Anna Xambó will be giving a keynote on Wednesday 28 May 16:30-17:30 on “Liveness as an open work: an ongoing live-coding algorithmic journey” at the International Conference on Live Coding (ICLC).
Abstract: This talk will present a personal journey reflecting on liveness that started in the early days of live coding in Barcelona as part of a community of makers connected to an international network of DIY artist-coders. Narrated as an open and undetermined work, this presentation will discuss liveness through examples that move from physical to digital places, from tangible to intangible matter, and from human to non-human actors. The attempt will be to understand the role of liveness in live coding in a century of exponential growth and complexity.
On Thursday 29 May she will also deliver the co-authored paper Xambó & Roma “Building a Dataset of Personal Live Coding Style Using MIRLCaProxy - A Journal of Creative Sonic Exploration under Constraints and Biases”.
Abstract: This paper presents the technical and creative process of building a dataset of a personal live coding style using MIRLCaProxy, a custom SuperCollider class built on top of the MIRLCa extension. MIRLCa enables real-time sampling of sounds from Freesound with the assistance of machine learning using FluCoMa. We designed an environment that captures eight methods for retrieving sounds from the MIRLCa language, recorded through a live-coding journaling approach. Throughout the dataset creation, the required number of actions led to unexpected creative discoveries, transforming the process into a space for sonic exploration under constraints and biases. This paper reflects on how the training process becomes a rehearsal space that supports the development of a personal style through constraints. It also explores the role of biases in this context.
On the same day, she will perform in the evening the live-coding session “Sensing the Alice Holt Forest”.
Program notes: This data-driven live coding performance explores natural soundscape recordings from the Alice Holt Forest, UK, captured continuously over the course of a year via a custom-built audio streamer and uploaded to the Freesound database. The central enquiry is whether patterns in forest soundscapes can be linked to climate change, using acoustic ecology and live coding to highlight their interconnection. Are species’ sounds diminishing? Do environmental noises dominate? Are there other acoustic markers tied to climate shifts? The performance uses MIRLCa, a self-developed SuperCollider extension that combines AI and music information retrieval (MIR) techniques to retrieve and manipulate sounds from Freesound in real time.
For more info visit: https://iclc.toplap.org/2025/