Recent developments in interactive art and live coding has placed renewed focus on the dual role of artist as programmer, but with some confusion from misappropriated cultural references and technical processes. We will build a view of the creative processes of artist-programmers based upon the notations they use, the languages they notate, the words within and the movements around those languages, and the symbols both within and without words.

The discussion will focus not only on formal, discrete representations within computation, but on the relationship between discrete and analog representations, on the basis that human (and therefore programmer) cognition is not based on one or the other, but an amalgam of both. As such, symbols will be related to shapes, words with articulation of the body, language with pattern, notation with space and time, and computation with creativity.

These topics will be approached through both theory and practice, demonstrating artistic work and research developed concurrently, in mutual support.