ANU Laptop Orchestra

Ben Swift

ANU Laptop Orchestra

6 June 18

One of the coolest parts of my job is doing livecoding gigs—here’s a recent set I did at Smiths as part of Soundscapes #21. A big shout-out to Ushini Attanayake (not in the video, sadly) who did a fantastic job of her first livecoding set.

Somehow I’ve managed to make that stuff part of my day job as a (cough) respectable computer science lecturer, because Laptop Orchestras (or LOrks) are a thing. Seriously, look it up on the internet. But ANU doesn’t have one—sadface. And it’s time to fix that.

if you’re a current ANU undergrad or coursework-postgrad student (any ANU student, not just in computer science) and you’re into
1. music: hi-tech DJing (including livecoding, live patching e.g. Max/MSP, PD, live loop manipulation e.g. Ableton), and other instrumentalists who want to perform live with the laptop orchestra are invited too
2. visuals: VJing, projection mapping, 2D/3D graphics e.g. shaders, Unity, etc., and other drawers/dancers/painters/glassblowers who want to perform live with the laptop orchestra are invited too
3. organising, managing and promoting these sorts of gigs and bands so that people actually show up and have an awesome time (because even laptop orchestras need agents
and you want to get together with like (and unlike!)-minded folks and play some gigs for university credit, and you have 6–12 credit points (1–2 courses) of room in your ANU degree in S2 2018 and S1 2019
then you need to get in touch with me ([email protected]), perhaps with a link to some of your creative work, and we can try and make this happen.

I’m putting together a Laptop Orchestra (or, alternately an Algorave group) as a TechLauncher project. Don’t wait till the start of semester 2; the groups might be full up by then and you’ll miss out!

Even if you’re not sure if you’re the right person (e.g. you’re not sure how to fit it into your degree program) if you’ve always liked technology, creativity and live performance but never found the right outlet for those passions, then get in touch, there might be ways to make it happen.

Cite this post

@online{swift2018anuLaptopOrchestra,
  author = {Ben Swift},
  title = {ANU Laptop Orchestra},
  url = {https://benswift.me/blog/2018/06/06/anu-laptop-orchestra/},
  year = {2018},
  month = {06},
  note = {AT-URI: at://did:plc:tevykrhi4kibtsipzci76d76/site.standard.document/2018-06-06-anu-laptop-orchestra},
}