Algorithmic Patterns in the Creative Arts
I have spent my life with textiles, in one way or another. I have explored and made textiles through costume design for theatre and opera, and through art making and museum curatorial work. I am especially interested in textiles’ contradictory qualities
– of softness yet mathematical rigour
– of hiding in plain sight
– of patterning
– of interlacing
– of enduring yet fraying, fading, and falling apart.
bentleypbentley.myportfolio.com
Conference Speaker
Online
Claude Heiland-Allen is an artist from London interested in the complex emergent behaviour of simple systems. Online at mathr.co.uk, offline in Alt Empordà.
Conference Speaker
Online
Kate Sicchio is a choreographer and media artist whose work merges movement with code, systems, and digital tools. She creates performances using live coding, wearable tech, and real-time systems, exploring how bodies and machines co-compose. Her work has been shown in the US, UK, Australia, Belgium, Sweden, Netherlands and Qatar at venues such as PS122 (NYC), Banff New Media Institute (CAN), Arnolfini Arts (UK). She is a 2024-25 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellow in New and Emerging Media and a 2025 Processing Foundation Fellow. Her work has been in New York Times, Dance Magazine, Daze Digital and El Diarios. She is currently Associate Professor of Dance and Media Technology at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Workshop Leader
Online
eye measure is a UK, Sheffield-based artist making weird and dark computer music with live coding and algorithmic composition. Their performances have taken place at venues such as Cafe OTO, Corsica Studios, Venue MOT, No Bounds and Supernormal Festival.
They have released music with labels Cherche Encore, Edited Arts, and TT. In Sheffield, they co-run Pattern Club, a workshop/event series exploring algorithmic patterns.
Photo credit: Declan Wynn
Performing at:
Sunday 14th Sept 2025
7pm-10pm CADS, Sheffield
Phase Transition is a collaborative project by Barcelona-based artists Julia Múgica and Iván Paz, exploring the expressive potential of collective systems, sound synthesis, and learning algorithms to create audiovisual patterns that move on the limits of contrast and repetition.
Performing at:
Sunday 14th Sept 2025
7pm-10pm CADS, Sheffield
James is a synth enthusiast, repetition enjoyer, trance fan, co-runs border community records, and is developing a piece of open source music software called benny.
Performing at:
Club night
Saturday 13th Sept 2025
7:30pm-late
Nick Rothwell (Project Cassiel) is a composer, performer, software architect, coder and visual artist. He has built media performance systems for projects with Ballett Frankfurt and Vienna Volksoper, composed sound scores for Aydın Teker (Istanbul / Kapadokya), Shobana Jeyasingh Dance and Avatâra Ayuso, toured with Luz & Mannion Flamenco, live-coded in Mexico, processed a 3D printer onstage as half of The Printer Jam, and performed in Berlin and Stuttgart with sitar player Shama Rahman.
https://cassiel.com
https://cassiel.music
Conference Speaker (Sheffield)
Israac, Sheffield
For Alpaca Festival, UDAGAN will perform “Biological Machines”
Saydyy Kuo will perform spoken word vocals in both English and in her native language (Sakha) over an evolving group-improvisational algorithmic/organic soundscape, performed by live coder Oscar South and jazz pianist Samuel Wilson Wain. The poetry is broken up by instrumental interludes where Saydyy will join the musical texture on the Sakha Khomus (jaw harp).
Themes include patterns in human behavior and culture, which resonate and converge through locations and time periods to define the interfaces through which humans engage with and embody community.
Biographies
UDAGAN trio (Saydyy-Kuo Fedorova, Oscar South, Samuel Wilson Wain) unites circumpolar musical influences, poetry, live coding built on a generative deterministic harmony engine written by Oscar, and contemporary jazz piano, into a single cohesive performance.
Saydyy-Kuo Fedorova: Master performer and PhD researcher of the Sakha khomus, Saydyy-Kuo has toured internationally with multiple ensembles including Ayarkhaan, with whom she performed at WOMAD as well as BBC Proms Albert Hall for the Human Planet concert series in 2011.
Oscar South: Folk/world multi-instrumentalist, music theory navigator and music technology innovator, Oscar, also a 2011 WOMAD performer, brings his flourish as a composer to the stage through captivating performances on modular synthesizers and guitar-based instruments.
Samuel Wilson Wain: Legendary Sheffield-based jazz pianist, session musician and composer, Samuel brings improvisational mastery and off-the-hip harmonic innovation to the stage. His deeply expressive playing draws from jazz tradition while fearlessly venturing into contemporary and cross-genre worlds of sound.
Performing at:
Sunday 14th Sept 2025
7pm-10pm CADS, Sheffield
Wood + Metal are a drum duo featuring Sarah Heneghan (Key of She, Power Out) and Will Shaw (balo, Assembly Trio) whose set creates a trance-like atmosphere of patterns, soundscapes and meditation. Using just their acoustic kits, Wood + Metal explores how creativity and possibilities can flourish when, paradoxically, limitations are placed upon us.
Performing at:
Sunday 14th Sept 2025
7pm-10pm CADS, Sheffield
Best known as a member of the experimental band 65daysofstatic, Paul Wolinski has spent the last two decades releasing numerous studio albums and touring the world. Always eager to explore less conventional ways to make and present music, amongst other projects the band composed the ‘infinite’ soundtrack to the video game No Man’s Sky and toured their algorithmically-driven live A/V performance Decomposition Theory around Europe.
Paul has released several solo albums, most recently Telex From MIDI City (Data Airlines, 2023) under the guise of Polinski.
For Alpaca, Polinski will be performing ASCII-bangers in strange time signatures. Warez-based music systems riddled with malware. Lots of kick drums. Polinski takes his ever-evolving, always-broken live audio systems for a spin. Sensible BPMs only!
Performing at:
Club night
Saturday 13th Sept 2025
7:30pm-late