Sam Aaron
Biography
Samuel Aaron is a researcher, software architect and computational
thinker with a deep fascination surrounding the notion of programming as
a form of communication. His research focuses on the design of novel
domain specific languages to explore liveness, conceptual efficiency and
performance within programming languages.
Samuel works as a Research Associate at University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, where he has
created Sonic Pi, a powerful live coding environment for realtime sound
synthesis targetted for education. Sonic Pi has been used successfully
to teach programming and music within schools but also to live code
music for people to dance to in nightclubs.
Previous events
NewCrafts Paris 2018
Live Coding the intersection between the arts, research and education
Talk
Code is one of the most powerful, creative and transformative media
available. However the potential of code is still largely
incomprehensible and out of reach for most of our society. How and why
should we address this as a problem? In order to help us unpick and
explore these simple yet deep questions we will follow the story of
Sonic Pi - a live coding music synth designed for the arts, research and
education.
Sonic Pi was originally created as a response to the challenge of
finding new ways to teach code in schools. It has since evolved into an
extremely powerful and performance-ready live coding instrument suitable
for professional artists and DJs. It is also a rich research platform
for exploring questions related to liveness, time and concurrency in
programming languages. Yet, despite this rapid evolution it has
maintained its core mission - to be simple enough for 10 year olds.
Through Sonic Pi as a lens we will be forced to confront some
interesting and challenging questions: - How is code creative? How can
we communicate through code? Can programming languages be expressive
interfaces? Can notation become an instrument? To what extent is
performance a form of education and education a kind of performance?
You'll also leave with a simple, joyful and powerful new musical
instrument to start playing with.
NewCrafts Paris 2018
Live Coding with Sonic Pi
Workshop
Sonic Pi is a powerful new kind of synthesiser designed to be simple enough for anybody to use. By expressing your ideas in simple lines of code you can quickly create your own sonic compositions and before you know it you're modifying the code as it's playing to create your own live performances.
In this kickstarter workshop, we learn, jam, explore, share and perform with each other all through the beautiful creative medium of code. Use Sonic Pi to trigger synth patches, samples, studio FX and live loops.
No prior knowledge of coding is required - just an open mind to new ways of creating and manipulating sounds.
Please bring along a laptop and some headphones with Sonic Pi pre-installed. Simply head to http://sonic-pi.net and download the appropriate version for your operating system (Mac, Windows or Linux).
