Was presented at:
How can we build more intuitive, responsive and playful interfaces for performing real time graphics? How can we create live computational performances which make computation visible other than literally showing the code? How can we do this in a way that educates as well as delights the audience?
I am developing a series of Fantasy IDEs to perform writing live coded visuals, to investigate these questions. Over the duration of the performance the characteristics of the IDE will unfold slowly. Starting with a blank screen, windows from the IDE's windowing system will, one by one, spawn to populate the screen each window with a custom pre-made shader in each one. Each window can be made fullscreen for me to write the shader code. As the performance goes on, a chatbot is introduced (via QR code scanned by their phones) for the audience to converse with, in a big group chat with other audience members. The chatbot, named charbot, is a cheeky take on the current raging trend of including AI based agents in software engineering IDEs. Charbot can do such things like answer questions about the code in english, give you the track ID for the current song (if I am the one DJing) or it can just enjoy the algorave with you.
This performance aims to show how IDEs are expressive mediums of creative expression. Typically in creative coding, IDEs are either made to be as simple as possible, or are completely transformed into node based programming to be more inviting to non-programmers. On the other hand, creative coders who prefer not to use these friendly editors, have to resort to IDEs designed for engineering. Through this performance, I explore the creation of an IDE designed to be more fun and creative as its foremost priority.