Algorave India is an art collective founded in 2018 that aims to promote programming as performance art through events called Algoraves.

Algorave — short for algorithmic rave — is a performance format and underground movement that revolves around the practice of live-coding, that is, writing and editing code live in front of an audience to create music and visuals. Emerging out of the demo scene of the 1980s and 1990s— where people would swap demos of graphics and music software — live coding has been a medium for performing arts for almost three decades, but it was usually restricted to either the art world or tech and trans-media events. Then, in 2012, Sheffield-based musicians Alex McLean and Nick Collins decided to take live coding into the club environment, organizing live coding jams at local music venues under the Algorave banner. Today, Algorave India continues this tradition with the intent to establish more live coding practices and audiences in India.

While Algorave India promotes coding as art through performances and concerts, it is also a strategy for community development, music eduction, computational literacy and functions as an alternative learning platform for creative coding and contemporary live-art practices in general.

With permanent members like Khoparzi, Dhanya, sound.codes, and Joshua “Tig3rbabu” Thomas as well as collaborators like CC Sante, Music Tech India, Algorave India is a flexible structure that welcomes individuals, organizations from different backgrounds to help organize concerts, events, talks and workshops and join in a space that blurs the line between artists, musicians and engineers.

#livecoding #liveperformance #algorithmicart