In the 1960s and '70s musicians devised innovative forms of notation and protocol to liberate themselves from aesthetic and social conventions. Today's digital devotees of code based production and improvisation are continuing this tradition, argues Simon Yuill*

Twenty Five Years from Scratch, ed. Michael Parsons, London: London Musician's Collective, 1994.

If relational aesthetics and open source were always commercial, can the musical score provide a way of thinking through different relationships between creativity and code? The return to improvisation in 'livecoding' draws parallels with experimental practices developed by maverick musicians, programmers and educators from Sun Ra, The Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Scratch Orchestra to Seymour Papert. Simon Yuill argues that these 'di

Sakada Thin Autonomy

19th October 2004, 61-75 Alie Street

Between the long stagnant and vital (full of forms of life) trough of commercial road, the self-mythologising skyline of the money mill beyond Aldgate, the Titanic, Totenschiff, death ship: a container ship of spent labour power looms out, for this night welcoming an evening of para-musical hiatus.

Some who were present :

The heritage devotee dressed in deerstalker and eastern entourage

Some thieves

On the 13-14th of December 2004 Mute hosted a Pure Data workshop in East London. Musician and PD abuser Mattin gives a breakdown of the themes of the workshop, surveys some artists and artists groups using PD, and scrutinises the relationship of free software to 'free', experimental and improvised music.

'Education systems are crumbling ... ' in a communique to the Copenhagen Free University, Howard Slater muses amongst the ruins

"Become many, brave the outside world, split off somewhere else..."
– Michel Serres

Eddie Prévost, percussionist and pioneer of improvised music – notably as co-founder of the seminal ’60s band, AMM – takes aim at the increasingly ubiquitous practice of sampling

In the wake of the Napster debacle and the recording industry’s recapture of the main means of music’s commodification – the recording – Ben Watson considers Free Improvisation, a music ‘groupuscule’ and attitude which bypasses the music ownership wars, unpredictably