In June 2024 I attended ITP Camp, a month-long “unconference” for people interested in creative applications of technology. ITP camp is an offshoot of the ITP master’s program at NYU and is hosted in the same NYU building in downtown Brooklyn. ITP Camp is a loosely structured space given life by it’s participants, who contribute workshops and talks and support each other towards and end-of-camp final show and performance night. I contributed a workshop on live-coding, a collaborative live-coding performance and an interactive installation at the final show.

Workshop

In the workshop, I introduced the basics of the TidalCycles live-coding environment and facilitated live experimentation with different aspects of the language from participants. I found introducing small concepts and allowing participants time to experiment with each concept was an effective structure to promote engagement with the content. I provide the worksheet and slides here for future reference.

Performance

I collaborated with two other camp attendees to perform a fully improvised live-coded performance, using the collaborative online environment Estuary. One of the performers who was using TidalCycles had learnt it at my workshop a few days prior!

Installation (power tools)

For the final show, I built a site-specific interactive musical installation (power tools) in the main ITP workspace. I attached distance sensors connected to an arduino the ends of power bricks on coiled extension leads hanging from the ceiling, which were already built into the space. These controlled two parameters of a simulation of a theremin running on a laptop, which played back on two pairs of bluetooth headphones hanging from the power bricks. The installation invited participants to consider a familiar and everyday part of the indoor environment afresh.