This book arose as an attempt to collect and collate ideas and problems around notation that many of us have been dealing with on several levels. We have processes of varying complexity, we would like to work out ways to discuss them that move beyond the dichotomy of hand-waving or looking at the deepest level of code. We had many questions: In an interactive situation, how do we discuss the possibilities for interaction and the way a media should be playing, given the actions of visitors? How do we investigate the inner workings of an experience to see whether it makes sense, without building it completely in advance? We want to think of notation as an abstraction, a simplification, and intuitive or studied way of writing something down that succinctly summarises the important points of a given situation, process, object or system? This book and its ideas should help us think, discuss, design, build, analyse and document the systems.

The first comprehensive introduction to the origins, aspirations, and evolution of live coding. Performative, improvised, on the fly: live coding is about how people interact with the world and each other via code. In the last few decades, live coding has emerged as a dynamic creative practice gaining attention across cultural and technical fields—from music and the visual arts through to computer science. Live Coding: A User’s Manual is the first comprehensive introduction to the practice, and a broader cultural commentary on the potential for live coding to open up deeper questions about contemporary cultural production and computational culture. This multi-authored book—by artists and musicians, software designers, and researchers—provides a practice-focused account of the origins, aspirations, and evolution of live coding, including expositions from a wide range of live coding practitioners. In a more conceptual register, the authors consider liveness, temporality, and knowledge in relation to live coding, alongside speculating on the practice’s future forms.