The practise of aleatory (from latin aleatorius “belonging to the player”, alea “dice, risk, chance”) as it exists in music, art and literature is understood as the deliberate use of non-systematic operations with a unpredictable, often random result.

In this course we will look at the phenomena stemming from the linking of different data sources, programs and devices. Basis for this examination will be the programming language Python and the Open Sound Control (OSC) protocol. OSC messages can be sent between different programs on the same device, or via network between multiple devices (laptop, raspberry pi, smartphone, …). These messages can control or trigger a multitude of different programs (synthesizers, videoplayers, live videosources, diashows, game engines, chat programmes, text-to-speech-converters, etc.).

We will build autonomous software agents that react on changes in their environment (be it through the use of sensors, or by scaning the internet) or that create changes themselves, which in turn can be experienced visually or sonically.

You need to bring your own laptop (Operating System doesn‘t matter).