Two live coding artists use a performance plus a manifesto to force creative-tool designers to re-examine their built-in assumptions
Patterns for restarting the world ft. Switch Angel + LO.FI.SCI.FI | Config 2026 · Anthony Di Spezio
27 min total·Actually worth watching closely: ~9 min·3 must-watch clips
- 0:11 – 3:23Watch
No introductions - perform first
After a minimal host intro the stage goes straight to the two performers; the music starts from a single bassline and stacks layer by layer into a full arrangement. Almost no explanation.
They make a performance written on the spot the first move of their argument, instead of slides.
The code on screen is being rewritten constantly, and every edit immediately becomes a new layer of sound; the segment only lands when you watch the change and hear the change line up. Audio alone throws away half of it.▶ Jump to 0:11 - 3:29 – 7:33Watch
A performance about a world being made
The music keeps evolving, joined by real-time generated visuals and a poetic narration about how a world gets restarted. The narrative is itself part of the performance.
The work is ever-flowing, moving, evolving - there's no finished state.
The visuals grow out of the music in real time; narration, sound, and image interlock into the whole work, and reading the text alone or hearing the sound alone makes it fall apart.▶ Jump to 3:29 - 7:49 – 14:51Listen
Two paths, and turning code into an instrument
Each tells how they arrived at live coding - twenty years of electronic music, Luthier work, rock bands, and music production on one side, creative technology and software engineering on the other - with hands-on experience from a large public installation in between, plus an introduction to the open source music language Strudel and its community and spread.
The real value of open source isn't that it's free - it's that a user can grow into a core maintainer and pour their own domain experience straight into the tool.
This stretch is basically the two of them narrating their histories and project background to the audience; there's nothing on screen you have to watch, so listening while you do something else costs you nothing.▶ Jump to 7:49 - 14:51 – 18:57Listen
Building your own tools, and where the community came from
A standard for judging performance tools, argued from a Luthier's point of view, plus the path from getting involved with the New York Live Code community to founding their own community in Boston.
A good tool has clear cause and effect - you strum and it sounds - and that intuitiveness pulls bystanders into the user's flow state, which is exactly what most digital tools have lost.
All argument and firsthand history, carried by language rather than by anything shown; there's nothing you need to stop and look at.▶ Jump to 14:51 - 19:00 – 22:38Listen
The good ideas come from small circles
A critique of creative tools that make incorrect assumptions about the user's goals, the 1960s modular synthesizer whose very awkwardness produced polymeter, and a direct shot at where massive proprietary software companies stand when anyone can spin up the exact tool they need.
The idea that certain futures are inevitable is a narrative we're sold, not a fact.
The densest and sharpest stretch of argument in the talk, and entirely spoken with nothing on screen to match. Listen closely rather than half-watching.▶ Jump to 19:00 - 22:44 – 26:10Listen
Seven questions before you start
Ursula Franklin's seven questions as an ethical self-check on a project: Does it promote justice? Does it restore reciprocity? Does it confer divisible or indivisible benefits? Is the reversible favored over the irreversible? Does its strategy maximize gain or minimize disaster? Is conservation favored over loss? Does it favor people over machines?
It rejects the story of machines over humanity and of intelligence as a commodity - an optimistic technological future is possible, but only if you choose the values deliberately.
The seven questions are read out one at a time, so catching the wording matters more than watching; if you want to keep them, just write them down - no need to replay.▶ Jump to 22:44 - 26:29 – 27:02Skim
The host closes out
A brief thank-you from the host, wrapping up the session.
Nothing new here.
Standard closing pleasantries - fast-forward past it.▶ Jump to 26:29