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PDFOpen Access (License Unspecified), Open Access
Dissertation
Live, love, code: an ethnography of subcultural capital, liveness, and affiliation among TidalCycles users
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Drexel University
May 2025
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17918/00010951
Abstract
This dissertation examines the global phenomena of live coded music and algorave through a specific investigation of the practices of users of the musical coding software TidalCycles. Tidalists, as users of TidalCycles call themselves, create music and sound through direct engagement with computer code. It is customary for Tidalists to broadcast their screen so that audiences may observe the performers' code during the event. While many Tidalists situate their practice around the creation of electronic dance music, others describe motivations including creating art music, teaching others about coding, or participating in a community organized around free software. Drawing together the findings from nine interviews with ethnographic fieldwork both online and at LiveCode.NYC events in Brooklyn, New York, this dissertation explores how scenes in which Tidalists participate are shaped by diverse forms of subcultural capital (Thornton, 1996) within the field of cultural production (Bourdieu, 1983) and live coding tribe (Maffesoli, 2016), how Tidalists rely upon notions of genre and vibe to describe their artistic projects, how liveness is defined in scenes where computers are primarily responsible for "playing" instruments, and how Tidalists affiliate with the social world of algorave. I demonstrate that Tidalists seeking individual recognition for their craft must do so outside of algorave scenes.
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Details
- Title
- Live, love, code
- Creators
- Ian Burns Zimmermann
- Contributors
- Brent Adam Luvaas (Advisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Drexel University
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
- Publisher
- Drexel University; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Number of pages
- ix, 155 pages
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- College of Arts and Sciences; Communication, Culture, and Media; Communication; Drexel University
- Other Identifier
- 991022054840304721