18/06/2018

Programming language becomes music at IMPA seminar.

You could say Vitor Rolla is a maestro, but don't expect to see him with a baton in his hands. A proponent of a creative technique called live coding, the IMPA postdoctoral researcher has a rather unusual way of composing and conducting instruments: he inputs algorithms into a laptop. In front of an audience, codes indecipherable to most of us quickly transform into something understandable to everyone: music!

An innovative way of combining computer science and creative practices, live coding has been used in several countries in video and electronic music productions, especially the United States, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. The practice also has an educational aspect, as seen in the Cybernetic Orchestra at McMaster University (Canada), which promotes the teaching of computer programming through such performances.

If you're curious, set aside some time next Wednesday (20) to follow the result of one of the works that Rolla develops in his post-doctorate at Visgraf, the Computer Graphics Laboratory at IMPA. At 1:30 pm, in auditorium 3 of the institution, he will present the performance seminar Live Coding Music.

After a brief introduction to the ChucK programming language and the live coding technique, Rolla will code a musical excerpt inspired by the work "Robotic Pianos," a composition by Andrew Sorensen, an artist-programmer and senior researcher at Queensland University of Technology (Australia), known for languages used in live performances around the world, such as Impromptu and Extempore.

Vitor faz pós-doutorado no IMPA

“Live coding is a new type of performance art, in which the computer is used as an instrument,” explains Rolla, who holds a PhD in Computer Engineering from the University of Coimbra, Portugal. He says the technique can be used with various musical genres.

He graduated in data processing from UnB, earned a master's degree in Computer Science from the Military Institute of Engineering (IME), and then spent some time in Portugal, where he furthered his studies in algorithmic composition, complex networks, artificial intelligence, simulation, and live coding.

Back in Brazil, Rolla is researching the complex properties of musical networks derived from classical music for his postdoctoral studies. He recently published a study on the subject in the April issue of the journal Europhysics Letters: “The complexity of classical music networks” .

For more information on this topic, please also visit the TOPLAP website , an organization that promotes live coding worldwide.