Poster:
Sorteo:
Special birthday edition, 15 years after the first FromScratch happened in Mexico.
Global live stream and a long session locally (which, obviously, was also streamed).
Stream Archive: https://archive.org/details/toplap-fromscratch-dec2025-toplap-barcelona
Poster:
Sorteo:
A mellow end-of-year FromScratch, plenty of folks were out of town but we still managed to get a sizeable line-up together. Calm before the 15-year birthday storm.
- Yago (Strudel) / Jogaye Snap
- Ramon (Tidal) / Jogaye Snap
- Bennat (Bytebeat) / Alicia Hydra
- The Masked Coder (Orca) / Alicia (Hydra)
- Alicia (Tidal) / Niklas (Openscad)
- Niklas (Mégra) / The Masked Coder (Hydra)
Extra Set: Yago
A marathon line-up, audience-wise it was a slow start.
Poster:
Sorteo:
- heeey (Hydra) / Daax (Pure Data)
- Alicia (Hydra) / Roger (Tocata)
- Bernat (Snap) / Maia (SuperCollider)
- Roger (Animatron) / Yago (Strudel)
- The Masked Coder (Hydra) / Bernat (Bytebeat)
- Iván (Hydra) / Santi (Strudel)
- heeey (Hydra) / Iván (SuperCollider)
- Alicia (Hydra) / heeey (Strudel, audio debut!)
- Bernat (Snap) / Glen (Rhythmitic)
- Niklas (Screamer) / Sang (Strudel, BCN FromScratch debut!)
- Sang (Hydra) / Niklas (Mégra)
Visualists were scarce that day so there were a few repetitions. Audience filled up over time.
Poster:
Sorteo:
- Iván (SuperCollider) / Alicia (Hydra)
- Bernat solo (Bytebeat)
- Alicia (TidalCycles) / Jogaye (Snap)
- Daniel (Strudel) / Niklas (Screamer, software debut!)
- Maia (SuperCollider) / The Masked Coder (Hydra)
- Niklas (Mégra) / Jogaye (Snap)
- Yago (Strudel) / Alicia (Hydra)
... very, very secret ...
An extraordinary FromScratch within the MAGBa show https://www.paloalto.barcelona/expomagba2, in which the TOPLAP Barcelona collective took part with the "show-us-your-screens" screenshot exhibition. It happened right after a guided visit to the exhibition, so there was quite a big audience with plenty of people from outside the "usual" circles.
Sorteo:
- Ramon (TidalCycles) / Enric (Hydra)
- Iván (SuperCollider) / Alicia (Hydra)
- Niklas (Mégra.rs) / heeey (p5.js/shaders)
- Alicia (TidalCycles) / Joan (Punctual)
- Bernat (ByteBeat) / heeey (p5.js/shaders)
- Roger (Živa) / Joan (Punctual)
Last "regular" FromScratch of the 2024/2025 season, before the summer break.
Sorteo:
- Alfonso (LaLluvia) / Alicia (Hydra)
- Bernat (MicroBlocks) / Maia (SuperCollider)
- Glen (Rhythmitic) / heeey (p5.js/shaders)
- Ivan (SuperCollider) / ?
- Alicia (TidalCycles) / Ivan (Hydra)
- Roger (Živa) / Glen (?)
- ? / Roger (Animatron)
- Francesco Ardan Dal Rí / ?
This from scratch happened in parallel to the community tapas at ICLC2025, on a Friday for once.
Unfortunately, we were limited in time and couldn't get all the way down the list.
Changeovers were super quick, and it was great to see the traditional Barcelona format in this context.
Poster:
Sorteo:
Prof. Pibernat Explaining the Procedure (a familiar image):
- Switch Angel (strudel) / Matthew Kaney (hydra) - What an energy release after 3.5 days of conference! Breakbeats and Amen-Cutups ...
- Emptyflash (Strudel/Bytebeats) / jogaye (Snap) - bytebeat glitch
- Joana Chicau (algorithmic artscape) / parkellipsen (Mégra) - meowsic-ton and website artscapes
- Anselm (SuperCollider) / fileneed (hydra) - noisy rhythms
- harte_echtzeit (TidalCycle) / Obi Wan Codenobi (The Force) - AAA
- th4 (TidalCycles) / Jame Coyne (Touch Designer)
- Sule (TidalCycles) / Gorka (Hydra) - Flok Session
- Lu Wilson/Blaz/Miaucow/ElChinchilla/Algorka - flok session (but not nudel?)
- D0ktoro / Savamala - historic Punctual 0.5 duo moment
Poster:
Sorteo:
It's getting warmer, people come in later, maybe because it's light outside for longer.
- Niklas/Leon - Megra.rs/Glsl
- Yago/heey - Mercury/Hydra - classic yago!
- Justin/Gabriel - SuperCollider/Hydra - noisy video deconstruction
- Ramon/Alicia - TidalCycles/Hydra
- Alicia/Lena - TidalCycles/Hydra
- Bernat/Ludovica - plain microblocks/hydra
- Iván/tito - SuperCollider/Hydra
- Iván/mena - SuperCollider/Hydra
Sorteo:
A slow start, there were few known faces when we arrived. Not the biggest audience in the beginning, later it filled up. Weird sorteo, mostly observed but with some double entries
- Maia/Mena - sc /hydra - maia minimal rhythmic
- Justin/Tito - sc/hydra - too much noise
- Glen/Leon - ghythmithic/glsl
- Iván/leon - sc/gls
- Yago/Justin - mercury/hydra
- Niklas/Skynet - megra.rs+scorviz/hydra - live coding a choir of Toplap gatitos
- Justin/Tito again ??? - odd sorteo this time ...
- Roger - Animatron+Živa
special guest, long set: Lina/Citlali - mercury/hydra
Poster:
Sorteo:
Audience:
Key Facts:
- sorteo took multiple attempts, as people kept coming in
- sorteo was implemented in Snap for the first time
- the sorteo was fully observed, no changes to the line-up were made (first time in months)
- more new faces showed up, both in the audience and for playing
- the Femcoders BCN collective was visiting, the audience was majority female
- a research project was running on the side ...
- for the first time in a while, there was some intense on-stage debugging happening
Final Pairings:
Bernat (Microblocks) & heey (hydra, debut) - techno
Niklas (Mégra) & Ilithya (shaders) - birds and sinewaves and shaders
Karisha (Mercury, FromScratch deput) & alicia (Hydra)
Joan (Punctual) + Malisima (VCVRack, debut for lang and person) - noisy
Ivan (SuperCollider) + Jogaye (Snap) - also noisy
Mena (Hydra) + Glen (Rhythmitic, new midi tracker lang debut)
The first FromScratch of 2025. The year started quite noisy. The lineup started small but we had some "walk-ins" so in the end it was a fully-fledged FromScratch session.
Poster:
Final Pairings
Ramón & Jogaye - TidalCycles + Snap - no input supercollider
Alicia & Enric - TidalCycles + Snap
Justin + Tito - SuperCollider + Hydra - very noisy debut
Niklas + Roger - Mégra + Animatron
Stefan + Anna-Lucia - Strudel + p5live - "walk-ins", another FromScratch debut
The Masked Coders - Mercury + Hydra
This from scratch happened within the Framework of the Híbrides conference.
Poster:
Sorteo:
(order shifted around a bit as usual, in the end)
Poster:
Sorteo:
(order shifted around a bit as usual, in the end)
Poster:
Sorteo:
(order shifted around a bit as usual, in the end)
Pairings (reconstructed from images):
| Audio | Visuals | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Xiwire (TidalCycles) | Celia (Hydra) | |
| Bernat (MicroBlocks) | Ludo (Hydra) | Someone's birthday, "Happy Birthday" was played |
| Lina (Mercury) | Leon (??) | |
| Niklas (Mégra) | Citlali (Hydra) | |
| Santi ? (?) | Roger (Animatron) | |
| Ramón (TidalCycles) | Roger (Animatron) | |
| Ivan (SuperCollider) | Maia (SuperCollider) | |
| Glen (Bacalao) | Xiwire (Hydra) | |
| Roger (Živa) | Xiwire (Hydra) |
Poster:
Sorteo:
It was modified nearly immediately, here are the final pairings:
| Audio | Visuals | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Niklas (Mégra) | Joan (Punctual) | Got started around 19h20. |
| Iván (SuperCollider) | Matilde (Hydra) | |
| Dinou (SuperCollider) | Glen (Punctual) | |
| Lina (Mercury) | Diego (Animatron) | Diego's Animatron Debut, with stable diffusion images. |
| Bernat (MicroBlocks + YM2149F Chipsynth) | Citlali (Hydra) | Very chiptune. |
| Eloi (TidalCycles) | Enric (Snap) | Very prominent vocal sample. Also, Enric's FromScratch debut. |
| Roger (Supercollider + Živa) | Leon (P5js + Hydra) |
We thought were done shortly before 21h10...but no, we weren't done! Afterwards, a group of Lina's students (Amaru, Felipe, Nils, Mia and Augustin) got up on stage to do a collaborative set with Mercury and Flok, with 5-6 performing simultaneously on stage (including Lina sometimes jumping up to help with something).
Quite a big audience for a summer session, especially compared to the last one...
At one point, Linua got up on stage to announce that, for the first time at a FromScratch, we had more visualists than audio performers!
Misunderstood sample lyrics: "Sí, quiero un iPhone!"
Sorteo:
| Audio | Visuals | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Iván (SuperCollider) | Daniela (Animatron) | Daniela's first time performing in a From Scratch! (Not Iván's first time...) |
| Xavi (custom interface to the OpenAI API; chatting with a ChatGPT agent and directly executing the SuperCollider code it produced) | Roger (Animatron) | I think a lot of us were left with our jaws on the ground... It was Xavi's first time performing in a From Scratch (and possibly ChatGPT's first time, too). |
| Glen/totalgee (SC; playing with two samples) | José (Snap!) | |
| Ramón (Tidal...eventually, after a long time trying to get audio out of his laptop!) | Judit (Hydra) | Judit's first time performing in a From Scratch. |
| Niklas (Mégra) | Joan (Punctual in Estuary) | |
| Lluís (SC) | Daniela (Animatron) | By now Daniela is a seasoned from scratch veteran... |
| Laura (Sonic Pi) | Bernat (Snap!) | |
| Bernat (MicroBlocks) | Iván (Hydra) |
There weren't many people at 19h, so we eventually got started around 19h25 and ran until ~21h15.
Another FromScratch-Marathon, this time with people from different parts of the world that were guests for VIU.
Here's Prof. Roger explaining the sorteo:
International Audience:
We even had a poetry booth (by blapunk https://www.instagram.com/bla.punk/ )
Poster:
Sorteo:
A week early due to semana santa.
A preferential invitation went out to women-identifying and FLINTA* people.
Memoria de Citlali:
Qué guay ayer! Creo que fue un primer from scratch enfocado a mujeres y disidencias muy interesante!
Sin duda somos poquitas! Todas muy inspiradoras.
Aunque no hubo el ejercicio de relatoría, y todo quedará en nuestras memorias. Comparto por aquí un par de reflexiones y un pequeño resumen de lo que pasó ayer. 💜
- Puede ser que esa sensación de percibir al live coding como intimidante esté más acentuada en el contexto de mujeres y disidencias?
- Ayer éramos la mayoría visualistas y de manera orgánica sucedió una especie de diálogo entre los visuales de cada from scratch. Júlia empezó con unos cuadritos en P5LIVE hermosos que luego continué con Hydra, y finalmente Joan contestó en Punctual. Me pareció hermoso ver la la misma geometría en distintos lenguajes y distintas maneras de aproximarnos a la imagen.
- Laura hizo ritmos y melodías con SonicPi, que en modo glitch y como toca en un buen from scratch, al principio quería sonar a través del proyector. Nos reímos y volvimos a empezar.
- Maia hizo SuperCollider con ondas sonoras que nos hipnotizaron junto a los dancing cuadritos de Ju.
- Lina, que llegaba desde el otro lado de la ciudad, hizo un set con Mercury que nos hizo bailar.
- Cuando Lina iba a llegar a los 9 minutos, todas sentimos que el set debía durar más y por tanto rompimos las reglas del from scratch. :) Lina hizo un set largo al que me sumé para seguir con el mundo visual de los cuadritos en modo epilepsia. (blancos y negros)
- Joan e Iván cerraron el From Scratch con Super Collider y Punctual. Vimos cuadritos de colores que rotaban, y cambiaban de escalas. Bailaban al ritmo del siempre gustoso y profundo ruidismo de Iván.
- En el público estaban Enric, Alfosofonso, Diego, Iris, Tayrine.
- Ayer comenzó la primavera para bailar al ritmo de cuadritos y ruidismos en un experimental From Scratch*
Sorteo:
| Audio | Visuals | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bernat (MicroBlocks with hardware microcontroller/synth) | Maia (P5LIVE) | |
| Iván (SuperCollider) | Alicia (Hydra) | |
| Alicia (Tidal) | Xiwire (Hydra) | |
| Xiwire (SC) | Glen/totalgee (Punctual) | |
| Glen (SC + MIDI to Dirtywave M8 tracker) | Joan (Punctual) | |
| Glen (SC) | Leon + Beverley (custom-made drawing software) | |
| Joan (Tidal in Estuary) | Joan (Punctual in Estuary) | Fun clapping audience participation piece! |
The from scratch event was followed by a ~40 minute prepared set by Roger, using Živa/SC for music along with a short animation he had made. We eventually got started around 19h25 and ran until 22h, including Roger's performance at the end.
Sorteo:
The sorteo wasn't observed at all this time ...
FromScratch for the Algorithmic Pattern Salon, probably the longest we've had so far.
Sorteo:
Sorteo:
Sorteo:
Sorteo:
Soundcheck:
Participants (reconstructed from pictures, might be incomplete):
- Niklas (Mégra) & Linalab (?, Hydra)
- Linalab (TidalCycles) & Glen aka totalgee (shaders)
- Glen (SuperCollider) & Iván (Hydra) (might be the other way round ???)
- Iván (SuperCollider) & Roger (animatron)
- Maia Francisco (SuperCollider)
- Ramon & Eloi (couldn't see who did what)
- Eloi (TidalCycles) & Niklas (imgsampler, probably used for the 2nd time on stage in total)
Sorteo:
Recorded Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMbPaq7kjsM&t=3155s
Soundcheck:
The Canódrom sessions unfortunately weren't visited that well, probably because there's no bar there ...
Participants (reconstructed from pictures, might be incomplete):
- Linalab (Hydra) & Alfonsofonso (Alfonsofonso software)
- Eloi el bon Noi (TidalCycles, solo)
- person with a beard whose name I don't remember (TidalCyles)
- Maia (audio & visuals with SuperCollider)
- Roger (Živa)
- Iván (SuperCollider)
- Linalab (TidalCycles)
- Niklas (Mégra)
- Alicia (TidalCyles)
Sorteo:
Sorteo:
Entrada:
People:
Participants: (reconstructed from pictures, might be incomplete, order unclear):
- Alfonso
- Alicia
- Maia
- Joan ?
- Roger
- someone using MaxMSP whose name I don't know
Participants (reconstructed from pictures, might be incomplete, order unclear):
- Eloi
- Ramon
- Alicia
- Penny
- Alfonso
- Maia
Was there a from scratch in January 2022?
Semi-Public from scratch that turned into an algorave stream, in collaboration with TOPLAP Berlin.
Sorteo:
Olivia Jack was a artist in residence at the time ...
Sorteo:
TOPLAP Barcelona's 3rd Birthday. An additional constraint was that everyone had to use SuperCollider after Shelly (who was artist-in-residence at the time) gave a workshop.
Recorded Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE9lz4OxdHA
Recorded Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGf2Ab3JU-s
Recorded Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcXfv2lmPog
Recorded Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39WuRYI3uQA
Recorded Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71G23mGRrzA
Recorded Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5NaMcboTM0
Recorded Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhUte1i6H4c
FromScratch Marathon for /* VIU 2020 */, right after ICLC 2020 Limerick, and one for the last in-person events before the pandemic really took off.
Back then it was still mostly solo performances, rather than the sound/visual pairings that became typical later on.
Recorded Stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTke6xiTuqc
Collaborative FromScratch.
FromScratch Marathon for /* VIU 2019 */, right after ICLC 2019 in Madrid. The day started with talks and presentations, and we had plenty of guests that came over from Madrid after ICLC.
The first FromScratch session.