ICLC 2023 Catalogue

Happy Algorave Performance

Niklas Reppel

Was performed at:

Program Notes

“But Algorave is about bringing algorithms a bit more into the foreground, haunted a bit by rave; some promise of less focus on the musician and more on each other, and a serious kind of dedication to having some fun.” - Alex McLean.1

Algoraves were invented, or so live coding lore has it, to take live coding out of an academic context and make it fun for both audience and performer. For me, there’s not much fun in repeating myself, and as a result my Algorave performances are somewhat eclectic. Sometimes they sound a bit like german EBM from the 80s, sometimes like footwork, and sometimes like a free jazz drummer playing on a TB909. Sometimes they contain the occasional cover song, and sometimes they have random animal noises or cartoon quotes sprinkled in (there’s no fun in taking the fun too seriously either).