In this Open Lab, composer, sound designer and Toybox Audio founder David Alexander will present the ideas behind LiveCore, a live coding environment for Reaktor core that blurs the line between sound design and composition.

In LiveCore, Reaktor Core has been modified for added ‘liveness’, maintaining the state of the performance between compilations of the low-level DSP code. Improvisations can get lost in complex feedback paths, resulting in dissonant grinds and splutters that at times can feel more organic than digital. This manhandling of the basic CPU operands in a low-level visual dataflow environment can be compared to analog circuit bending or guitar pedal mashing. External inputs and audio can be piped into the equation for more collaborative investigations.

Links:

• LiveCore publication: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3356590.3356632
• Toybox Audio on Create Digital Music: https://cdm.link/2020/08/free-modules-for-reaktor-blocks-from-toybox/
• Toybox Audio on Native Instruments: https://blog.native-instruments.com/live-coding-and-free-blocks-with-toybox/

In addition, we will be tuning into the live stream of the final session of the Life Perceives symposium.

Life Perceives is a symposium bringing together scientists and artists for an open exploration of how “perception” can be understood as a phenomenon that does not only belong to humans, or even the so-called “higher organisms”, but exists across the entire spectrum of life in a myriad of forms.

See the full programme here: https://lifeperceives.org/programme