Some of the most interesting artistic experiments exist at the intersections of various disciplines. The very recognition of traditional fields of expression is increasingly blurred, but the resulting disorientation fuels curiosity, confronted by the unrestrained expression of contemporary creativity. Science itself is now a hub of intellectual cross-fertilization, providing tools, stimuli, and perspectives to seemingly distant fields of study and speculation, including the arts.
In reality, upon closer inspection, human research and expression often employ tools and technologies that operate in parallel, if not in the same field. The current digital world, if only because of the fragmentation of the universe into “bits and pieces,” is the most current testimony to this.
Timo Hoogland is a Dutch artist whose work spans electronic music, audiovisual programming, performance, and teaching. One of his most frequent activities involves “live coding,” an artistic practice where the instrument is the computer, the “score”—or rather, the “rules of engagement”—are the program that governs it, and the operator is the person who uses the program in real time, interacting with it live.
In the common experience of concerts, we often find ourselves captivated by the virtuosity of the performers, whether they move within the framework of the score or outside of it. When the instrument is a machine, specifically a computer, one is reasonably a little disconcerted. But there are many similarities between “representation” with traditional instruments and that with a computer. And the relationship between what is “programmed”—in the strict sense—and what is spontaneously generated live is constantly evolving.
But there are several factors to consider here, some of which are particularly intriguing, considering the actors involved. First, the exchange between “machine” and “human” can be layered and intertwined, and the “dialogue” that develops, if you will, between the operator and his “translated,” organized thought is curious. These are themes that pave the way for broader investigations, which, in recent years, inevitably involve the reflections that arise in relation to artificial intelligence.
A vibrant and diverse scene, “live coding” brings these questions to the forefront, where the contiguity between art and science is evident. Hoogland is one of its protagonists, extending his research to the audiovisual field, to the creation of hardware and software (the “Mercury” program—a tribute to the planet that “governs the creation and expression of our mental processes,” as well as a “winged messenger,” of course [https://mercury-playground.cc/) geared toward accessible, possibly widespread, use.
But the contexts in which the Dutch artist operates are broader, and demonstrate a particular sensitivity. A performer at various festivals, organizer of “live coding” meetings, and leader of the “Netherlands Coding Live” community, he is also a teacher and educator, leading outreach workshops attended by people with or without specific IT backgrounds. Artistic research, on the other hand, also engages with installations that intensify synesthetic engagement (e.g., “Diffract,” an audiovisual performance in collaboration with Eerie_ear, which combines various fragments in an immersive sound environment).
Performance credit by Pauluz
This sensitivity is also demonstrated by a spirit of sharing, manifested in the need to reach out to the public—be it the audience at a concert, students at a workshop, or the curious who are invited to “get their hands dirty” and experiment with technology—and in the idea of community—technologists, scientists, artists, etc.—that grows through mutual contribution.
The interview with Timo Hoogland was conducted during the SEEYOUSOUND Festival, held in Turin, which explores the various aspects of the relationship between cinema and music.
Q: How can you summarize your commitment to music?
A: I started out a bit with the things I do now. I work mainly with electronic music, but I also play drums and have a background as a drummer. I started playing percussion and learning to play drums when I was 11 or 12, then I continued studying at a sort of conservatory. In the Netherlands, where I’m from, we have something called the Pop Academy, which, yes, is more focused on rock, metal, that kind of genre.
From there, my interest shifted a bit, towards recording and music production. Then—during my bachelor’s degree—I studied audio design, which focused more on music recording and mixing, and all aspects of production. During those studies, I encountered electronic music and also electronic music programming. That really piqued my interest and made me change a lot of the things I was doing. I’ve changed direction, moving into creating software for my audiovisual pieces, and also creating visuals and electronic music with many different things, like synthesizers. That’s basically all I’m doing now: electronic music and the music scene. It’s a lot to summarize in a few sentences, perhaps, but yes, that’s how it is, I think.
Q: How could you describe the live programming process specifically (live coding)?
A: Yes, it might be helpful to describe it a little. When I was working with electronic music, for a while, I didn’t play it much live, but I would program pieces, then record videos of them, which I would then post on YouTube, for example. When I finished my undergraduate degree, I was still looking for a way to perform these electronic pieces on stage, and since I’m also a drummer, I really liked the idea of being able to improvise a bit with the pieces, so I didn’t have to rehearse a piece from start to finish, but could just go and play it on stage and see what happened. So I started my Master’s in Music Design at the University of the Arts in Utrecht, the Netherlands. During those two years, I tried to figure out how to perform this electronic music.
My course was supervised by Marcel Wierckx, an audiovisual composer, software engineer, and programmer, who introduced me to the live coding scene. The live coding scene is very interesting because it’s made up of programmers, electronic musicians, and even visual artists, who, instead of programming everything in their studios or bedrooms, make programming part of their performance. So it’s programming as a kind of performance art: they go on stage, type the software live, and project the code behind them so the audience can see what’s happening in the piece. I mean, they rehearse, but they also improvise, and that’s how the performance unfolds, from start to finish. This method really caught my attention, too, and that’s how I continue to work and what I mainly do now: live coding, electronic music.
@matt capucchio
Q: Some of your works—installations like “.Abstraction(),” for example—are trying to bring people closer to the intersection of technology and art. Is this one of your guiding principles?
A: Yes. I like this question because it’s definitely something I think is very important. I’m also a teacher. I teach in the audio design degree program I studied in, and I continue to teach there. I really enjoy showing people how they can be expressive with software, and learning how to write their own software to create music or images, or even hardware or some other form of interaction. With my work, like the installation “.Abstraction(),” but also with my live coding performances, I’ve also tried to show people how they can create things themselves, with the software, and interact with it, and also give some insight into how the system works.
Like the installation “.Abstraction()”: it’s like plexiglass; people can see through it and see the wires, see the computer, see how it’s built, and also, as part of that installation, the software is open source. If you want, you can do the installation yourself, if you buy the hardware and download the software. I think this part of sharing knowledge and information is very important. I’ve learned a lot from other people and from information I’ve found online, from tutorials, or from looking at other people’s open source code. Sharing my open source software is also a way to give back to the entire community. Maybe someone else can use it and learn something. I think it’s a really, really nice thing to do.
Q: You’re also sharing your work with other artists. What do you look for in your collaborations with other musicians?
A: Yes… I love collaborating with other people, especially because they have very different backgrounds in making music, or creating videos, or have different ideas about how things should sound or look.
I can learn a lot from this. I have several collaborations, and these collaborations influence what we produce, obviously. I can name a few if you like. For example, I collaborate a lot with Lina Bautista: she’s a live programmer, but also a guitarist. In our collaboration, we program electronic music live, so we use “live coding.” She uses the Mercury language, which I developed during my master’s degrees. A really nice thing, when we collaborate—and even when we rehearse—is that she uses the language in a completely different way than I do. Or she has different ideas about how to create a certain sound or what she wants to try. And this gives me a lot of ideas for improving the software and creating new features, for example, or for modifying elements of the software that you or others can use.
That’s something I really appreciate about our collaboration, or collaboration in general.
Q: Our shared relationship with technology is becoming increasingly complex, on the one hand. On the other, the number of tools needed to use it is growing. Sometimes the artist is a medium in this field. How does this role develop?
A: Yes, I think these kinds of themes also connect to the general idea of education, information sharing, and the creation of open source software, for example. I think, as an artist, I want to show people that software engineering can be accessible and that it can be used for artistic expression, not just to create, say, a specific banking application or something like that. I think it’s very interesting to show people that this is possible and that anyone can learn how to do it. The number of software tools is indeed increasing, but I also think it’s important to have a choice, because if we only had one application… we’re seeing it now, with what’s happening with Meta and Facebook, people want to abandon WhatsApp, for example, and then…
I mean, we’re happy that there are alternatives; if they want to abandon these applications, it’s good that there are applications to choose from. The same is true, for example, in the area of live coding. I designed a live coding language, but it’s certainly not the only language. There are many other languages out there, some more popular than others. But everyone has a different approach to creating music or images. It’s good to be able to choose between different languages, to see which one you need or which one works best for you. It’s like choosing an instrument, like a guitar or bass. You can do the same with software.
Q: What does technology mean to you? Is it just a tool or a companion in your musical adventures? Maybe someone you can even communicate with?
A: Yes, I like the idea of being able to communicate with software. For me, for example, when I program algorithmic music, or when I program installations, a large part of the process is that I might have an idea and want to try to make it work, but then there might be another part where you introduce some randomness, or you insert other types of algorithms whose outcome you don’t know exactly. And then you simply see what the computer does. I also think that different applications give different results, so you can do different things. You enter into a sort of dialogue with the system.
Actually, another thing I like in this field is that I’m also working on a performance where I continue to play the drums on stage. And during the performance, I want to try to play the drums and program in real time at the same time. You can imagine how difficult it is to hold the drumsticks and simultaneously play with the computer and type. So I developed a system where the computer listens to what I play on the drums and then interacts with it. But the computer also makes decisions in its own way, which forces me to listen to what’s happening and then, based on what’s happening, I have to improvise on the drums. So we’re in a kind of jam session. When I play something, I see what the computer does with it and then I have to respond to what the computer gives me back. I really like this process, where you can improvise on stage and see what happens, over time.
Q: Synesthesia between music and other art forms has a long history. How do you imagine this interaction in the future?
A: We can wait and see… as you say, there’s a long history of combining images and music, or music with light. Or attempts to combine all these different elements in a single instrument or a single performance. And Newton was already working on this, trying to combine music with light or colors with the specific tones of an instrument. So it goes back a long time, and we still do it, now with a lot of digital material, obviously. And the tools change, and also, I think, the aesthetics change, the result changes, or what people think is important in an audiovisual work, for example. But for the future, yes, I think we’ll continue to do it.
What kind of tools will we use for this? I don’t know, it could still be the same software I’m making now, maybe in 10 years. I have no idea. It could all be AI-based. Yes, we can discuss whether that would be a good thing or not. I think it would at least be nice if there were more different approaches. As we see now, so many different artists are combining different tools to create interesting works. That would be my little prediction, but I’m really terrible at this, so I don’t take my word for it. We’ll see.