Olivia Jack is a programmer and artist who works frequently with open-source software, cartography, live coding, and experimental interfaces. In this episode of the Art && Code Podcast series, Jack talks with AMT Lab Lead Researcher Hannah Brainard about Hydra, a browser-based open source software she developed for live-coding visuals. With a background in computer engineering, Jack was first introduced to the world of live coding in Bogota, Columbia while working primarily as a programmer. Though initially skeptical, she quickly connected with the community and found that watching artists think through the creative process helped shift her approach to software development.

Beyond Hydra, Jack’s research interests include algorithmic representations of uncertainty and chaos, peer2peer networking, and live coding as a way to enter into a continuous dialogue or feedback loop between herself and her computer. 

In the third episode of the Art&&Code podcast series AMT Lead Researcher, Hannah Brainard, talks with Char Stiles, a computational artist, educator and programmer based in Brooklyn, NY. Stiles works creatively in the lower levels of graphical computational systems and is currently at the MIT Media Lab’s Future Sketches group.

In this podcast, Stiles talks about how her background in painting introduced her to the world of live visuals. While enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University, Stiles picked up gigs as a VJ and has since gone on to perform internationally, including festivals such as Electric Forest, and Mutek Nexus. Additionally, Stiles shared about the importance of working collaboratively in the creative process through groups like Livecode.nyc and Hex House. Stiles dives into her current and recent work with galactic algorithms and extending live-coding visuals into augmented reality spaces.

For the second episode of AMT Lab’s Art && Code series, Social Media and Marketing Coordinator Ashley Offman talks with Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo and Dr. Kate Sicchio, two-thirds of the live coding trio known as Codie. 

Sarah and Kate discuss how their prior experiences in academia and at tech giants influence the art they create. They also talk of their interdisciplinary approaches to performance, including the integration of coding in live performance, as well as the nuances and differences that exist in the live coding and DIY sound scenes worldwide. Sarah and Kate discuss the performative nature of the live coding scene and how, in this discipline, the code is the show's star. The trio uplifts the beauty and importance of making errors in live coding and the creative process at large, highlighting the potential for innovation and education. 

AMTLab Lead Researcher, Hannah Brainard talks with Zoey Sandoval and Matthew Ragan, the creators of SudoMagic, a design and software development studio, which focuses on immersive experiences.

In this podcast, Sandoval and Ragan share how their respective backgrounds in filmmaking and performance have set them up for careers in immersive design. After meeting at a conference for Art & Technology in 2015, the collaborators combined their talents to form the design studio 2020 and work with companies such as Meta, Apple, T-Mobile, and Dell as they reimagined their physical spaces. Sandoval and Ragan discuss TouchDesigner and other software and hardware used to create these experiences. Diving into the creative process, storytelling and participatory design are recurring elements in their work, including recent projects Calaveras (This is Not a Sugar Skull) , and Lumisphere Experience. While artificial intelligence and machine learning have been tools in their artistic practice, Sandvol and Ragan offer predictions and ethical concerns around how these models may be trained and implemented in the future.