These artists blend music and coding for a live audience
TROY, N.Y. — In the several years that Shawn Lawson has been performing live-coding in front of an audience, he's only had one "catastrophic failure" where the computer crashed and the show couldn't go on without a delay.
"There's always the chance that everything will totally collapse and crash because I write the wrong thing," said Lawson, who has performed under the pseudonym Obi-Wan Codenobi. "It can take minutes before the machine comes back and the show can continue. So there's sort of that edge of danger on it that makes it exciting."
Lawson is part of a group called Liveware, which includes fellow Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Arts Department professor Michael Century. Lawson handles the visual arts, animation and live-coding, and Century does the sound and music.
Liveware's "audio-visual three-ring circus" includes changing graphics projected onto a large screen that's directed by Shawn Lawson's live-coding. Video by WMHT
The group's name, Liveware, is a sarcastic play on software or hardware, Century said, adding that "liveware" is the slang term for the human factor in art and technology.
"I want people to experience beauty, surprise and a little bit of provocation," said Century about their performances.
The events are very much "on the fly" and Lawson likes to make sure the audience can see all the coding and communicating with the computer as it is taking place. He compared seeing the code and live computer programming to visual or literary art.
"It's sort of an audio-visual three-ring circus of expanded instruments, live-coding, machine learning, sort of all coming together in this big multi-modal experience sort of assaulting both your eyes and your ears from all angles," Lawson said.
This report originally appeared on WMHT's "AHA! A House for Arts."
Support Canvas
Sustain our coverage of culture, arts and literature.
The holiday, which serves as a nationwide communal event reinforcing self-determination and unity in the face of oppression, spans seven…
The Library of Congress announced the 25 films that made it into this year's National Film Registry. The registry, started…
Zakir Hussain, one of India's most accomplished classical musicians who defied genres and introduced tabla to global audiences, died on…
The newest world chess champion is also the youngest ever to claim the title. Eighteen-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju, who defeated defending…
She has painted portraits of Michelle Obama and Breonna Taylor. But much of Amy Sherald's work is about filling in…
The animated PBS Kids series, "Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum," follows Xavier as he, his sister and friend meet…
Bryan Stevenson, the prominent lawyer and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, has blazed a trail representing the poor,…
Longtime court sketch artist Bill Hennessy, who captured history with his sketchbook for more than 40 years died on Monday…
Nikki Giovanni, a fierce and lyrical voice of the Black experience, has died. Giovanni's work illuminated love, liberation and the…
Author of more than 25 books, Giovanni was a born confessor and performer whom fans came to know her well…
A tried and true program in East L.A. helps former gang members, drug users and those leaving incarceration build a…
The nominations for Globes, which will be televised by CBS and streamed on Paramount+ on Jan. 5, were announced on…
After more than 150 shows across five continents over nearly two years, the global phenomenon that is Taylor Swift's Eras…
"Polarization means division, but it's a very specific kind of division," said Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster's editor at large, in an…
In 1958, when John Cruitt's mother died, his third-grade teacher made a small gesture of kindness that meant a great…