✨History
The History of LiveCode NYC
LiveCode.NYC is New York City's community of nerds and artists writing software on stage to make music, visuals, games and other live art in front of audiences. We've been around long enough that we feel the need to record our history and document where this community came from and all the work that went into making it what it is.
The history of the collective can be roughly broken down into the following eras, organized by our IRL meeting place.
This is a work in progress. Please add your own stories to our collective memory! --nasser
The Early Days (Jan 31, 2016)
First meeting held at Kate's apartment in Bushwick at a large kitchen counter. Members present at first meeting: Jason Levine, Tom Murphy, Ramsey Nasser, Tims Gardner, Kate Sicchio and Shawn Lawson (via Skype).
The original aim was to create a language agnostic coding meet up. Ramsey bought the domain livecode.nyc and our name was cemented.
From our first meet up we had one rule - set the date for the next meet up.
The Kitchen Table Coders Era (2016)
Soon after our first meet up we move to Kitchen Table Coders where Tims and Ramsey had studio space. Sean Lee joined.
Tom Murphy organized the first Source Festival at NYU, focusing on Supercollider and tangential art, performances and code. It included audio, visual and dance performances by Jason Levine, Sean Lee, Kate Sicchio and Kate's middle school students using Sonic Pi.
July 16, 2016, Babycastles - Our first Algorave and workshops
Several members presented at ICLC 2016 in Hamilton, Canada.
The NYU Era (2016-2018)
As Ramsey and Tims moved on from Kitchen Table Coders, so did our meet up and Ramsey hosted at the NYU Game Innovation Lab in Brooklyn MetroTech where Ramsey was an Artist in Residence. The meet ups grew and included Ulysses Popple, Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo, Jessica Garon, Avneesh Sarwate, Zach Krall and others.
The second Source Festival at NYU was in 2017.
Several members presented at ICLC 2017 in Morelia, Mexico and 2018 in Madrid, Spain.
The MEx Era (2018-2020)
As Ramsey's time at NYU wrapped up the collective started meeting at the Metropolitan Exchange Building where Ramsey had studio space. In early 2020 access to MEx became uncertain when its eccentric landlord passed away, so we met once at the School for Poetic Computation in Westbeth.
Several members presented at ICLC 2020 in Limerick, Ireland.
The COVID Era (2020-2022)
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit we were forced to stop our in person meetings for the first time in our history. Gwen took the initiative to start the Discord which rescued the collective from extinction, and Discord would remain a critical part of the collective going forward. We met in Fort Greene Park a few times when the weather allowed but became primarily an online collective during this era. This was the first time our IRL meetings were not centered on a space controlled by a single member.
The Library Era (2022-2023)
When it was safe to meet in person again we secured a regular meeting arrangement with the Brooklyn Public Library's central branch at Grand Army Plaza.
The Rotating Era (2023-present)
The Mayor of New York City cut the city library budget such that most libraries would close on Sundays, forcing us to abandon our library meeting. Not wanting to return to centering the meetings on a single member, we instead opted to start rotating meeting places between spaces that members had access to.
This was initially drafted by Kate Sicchio --nasser