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Live Writing: Web Based Text Editor for Asynchronous Playback of Live Coding and Writing

Sang Won Lee and Georg Essl

We introduce Live Writing, asynchronous playback of a live coding performance or, more generally, writing. The concept of Live Writing is realized in a web-based application which logs every keystroke that a writer makes and let the writing later playable by the audience or the readers in real-time. The goal of Live Writing is twofold. One, it aims to support collaboration between musicians by reproducing a live coding performance based on keystroke data logged in the platform. This offers a new way for a live coder to archive live coding music and to communicate with others in asynchronous fashion. Two, it aims to transform written communication into a real-time experience so that a writer can display a writing to readers in a real-time manner as if it is being typed in front of the readers. We explain the design and the implementation of the system and demonstrate two different use cases of the system: live coding and writing.