Theorising live coding: literacy, defamiliarisation and voice

Live coding is not merely a technique; it is a cultural practice that carries aesthetic and political stakes. A performer projecting code at an algorave makes algorithmic processes visible to an audience that is otherwise saturated with opaque recommendation engines and automated feeds. Understanding why that visibility matters — and how to articulate a personal position inside that context — is the goal of this module.

The capstone is a short critical statement, essentially a composer’s note scaled to the complexity of theory. It is a whole authentic task: you must argue a position, not merely describe a practice. Every required atom gates that argument directly.

The arc begins with two complementary lenses on transparency. Shklovsky’s defamiliarisation, as applied to code projection, explains how making the generative act visible restores conscious attention to automated digital sound. The algorithmic-literacy atom extends this civic: rather than fearing algorithms, algorave audiences can start to read them. Together these two concepts anchor the first third of your capstone argument.

From there, the module widens the frame. Actor-network theory dissolves the idea of a unified “scene” into a web of actants — languages, venues, communities — whose shifting associations explain why live coding looks so different across contexts. The micropolitics atom (drawing on Certeau and Deleuze) gives tactical language for how ephemeral, context-dependent interventions can register as critical acts without requiring institutional permanence. These two frames let you position a specific performance — yours or another artist’s — inside a broader power map.

The final required concepts address practice from the inside. The hylomorphism critique reframes the live coder as someone following the material rather than specifying outcomes, while the punk-process atom names the community’s deliberate indifference to recording and song structure as cultural stance, not deficit.

Supporting atoms enrich the argument. The algorhythms concept links tactical media to hardware’s physical substrate; machine improvisation and mirror-neuron reception research add depth to audience theory; noise-as-political-strategy extends the tactical-media lineage. None of these is required to complete the capstone, but each opens an additional line of argument for the writer who wants one.