Hydra, Live Coding Visuals in the Browser

Olivia Jack talks about her Hydra project which invites you to reimagine pixels and color, melt your screen live into glitches and textures, and do it all for free on the Web – as you play with others.

Olivia Jack is a programmer and artist who works frequently with open-source software, cartography, live coding, and experimental interfaces. Her research interests include algorithmic representations of uncertainty and chaos, peer2peer networking, and live coding as a way to enter into a continuous dialogue or feedback loop between herself and her computer, among other things.

Recent projects include media development for the experimental dance performance Nodos: Cuerpos en Expansión, part of the Festival de Danza en La Ciudad in Bogotá; as well as the Laboratory of Possibilities, a participatory media installation at the Oakland Museum of California. She is the developer of Hydra, a browser-based platform for networked visuals that is inspired by analog modular synthesis. Originally from San Francisco, she currently lives and works in Bogotá, Colombia.