GitHub Universe 2022 Opening Performance
GitHub Universe 2022 opened with an immersive audio-visual performance that merged live musical expression with real-time generative visuals. This collaborative piece featured live vocals by Ollella (Ellie Barber) and cello performances by both Dan Gorelick and Ollella, layered with Dan's live-coded electronic elements using TidalCycles. These musical elements drove a responsive visual environment I developed as a custom software instrument, creating a unified sensory dialogue between the performers and digital realm. The performance demonstrated how code can be an expressive medium, bridging traditional musicianship with computational creativity—a fitting opening for GitHub's flagship event celebrating the intersection of technology and human ingenuity.
Concept
This performance explored the creative potential that emerges when traditional musical instruments, live coding, and responsive visuals interact in real-time. Rather than using pre-rendered content, every element was generated in the moment, with the sound-reactive visuals responding organically to the musical performance.
The piece challenges the conventional separation between performer and technology. Here, code becomes another instrument in the ensemble—equally expressive and responsive. While we structured the performance into predetermined sections, we improvised freely within each segment, creating a dynamic interplay between musicians and visuals. The live-coding element using TidalCycles allowed for improvisational musical structures to emerge and evolve throughout the performance, while my custom visual instrument translated these sonic explorations into a dynamic visual language derived from GitHub's brand aesthetics.
This integration of musical and visual coding created a meta-narrative particularly relevant to GitHub Universe—demonstrating how collaborative creation can happen not just between people, but between humans and computational systems in a creative feedback loop.
Technical Setup
The performance utilized a hybrid system integrating multiple technical elements:
Live Instrumentation: Cello performances by both Dan Gorelick and Ollella (Ellie Barber), with vocals by Ollella
Live Coding: Dan Gorelick employed TidalCycles, an open-source pattern language, to generate electronic musical elements in real-time
Custom Visual Instrument: I developed a specialized software system that analyzed multiple frequency ranges from the combined audio input and mapped them to different parameters of the generative visual system
GitHub-Inspired Visuals: The visual elements were based on GitHub's branding primitives for that year, creating abstract geometric shapes that moved in organic, natural patterns
Real-time Audio Analysis: The system processed both the acoustic instruments and electronic elements with zero perceptible lag, maintaining the crucial immediacy of response
Projection System: Large-scale projection that enveloped the GitHub Universe stage, transforming the opening into an immersive experience
The visual system responded dynamically to the performance, with different sonic characteristics driving various visual parameters. During crescendos, I would adjust how the sound influenced the visuals—sometimes affecting the rotation speed of elements, other times their size or movement patterns. This created a coherent audio-visual language where every sound found its visual counterpart, and allowed me to "perform" the visuals in response to the musical improvisation happening on stage.
Credits
Concept and Visual System: Osman Koç
Music and Live Coding: Dan Gorelick
Cello and Vocals: Ellie Barber (Ollella)
Venue: GitHub Universe 2022
Technical Support: GitHub Events Team
This performance represents the growing intersection between creative technology, live coding communities, and traditional musicianship—showcasing how collaborative artistic expression can emerge from the same principles that drive successful open-source development.