About the programme
(Algo|Afro) Futures was founded by Antonio Roberts and Alex McLean in 2021. As a pratice and community Live Coding actively tries to counter the white-male bias which is prevalent in digital art, electronic music, and the tech industry. This is detailed in their community guidelines:
Diversity in lineups and audiences – Try to have a diverse lineup, thinking about e.g. gender, ethnicity, class, age, belief/non-belief, and education. A diverse lineup creates a diverse audience which leads to a diverse community, and is beneficial to all. Additionally it is also nice to see a range of different technologies and approaches to keep things moving.
It’s best to focus on diversity right from the start. Once people get the impression of e.g. a boys’ club it’s hard to shake that off.. Plus we’re fighting against heavy biases in both club and tech culture… Look to create a new space from day one.
The result of this is women, trans and non-binary people play important roles in community organising, event planning, and line ups are rarely overrepresented by White men. Despite this, and despite electronic music itself having deep roots in Black culture, there is an underrepresention of ethnicities at UK Algoraves.
In response to this, and at a time in 2020 when the UK was reakoning with its historic treatment of Black people in response to the killing of George Floyd in the US, Antonio and Alex created (Algo|Afro) Futures.
Since 2021 the programme has welcomed 25 early-career Black artists from across the UK to learn about live coding and create engaging audio and visuals using software such as TidalCycles, Strudel, and Hydra.
Although (Algo|Afro) Futures responds to the lack of Black representation in the live coding and Algorave scene it’s intention is not to ‘solve’ that problem. Instead it aims to provide early career artists with the time and resources to explore live coding and algorithmic music/art, and take it in whatever directions they want to.
You can hear Antonio talk more about the motivations behind the programme in the below presentation he delivered for Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol, or read a similar-themed blog post he wrote for Control Shift.
Mentors
Antonio Roberts
Photo by Emily Jones
Antonio Roberts is an artist, musician and curator based in Birmingham, UK. His practice is concerned with how the misuse of digital technology impacts people of colour and other marginalised groups.
His recent work focuses on the depiction of Black people in digital media, ranging from stereotypical misrepresentations in early video games to modern algorithms and AI codifying existing biases.
His (Algo|Afro) Futures mentoring programme teaches live coding software as a way to address how Black people have been under/mispreresented in digital art and electronic music, despite being pivotal to its development.
He is currently learning game development, with the aim to explore how immersive environments can be used as a narrative storytelling device. He is also working on his debut EP, created using a combination of live coding software and hardware synthesisers.
Previous guest mentors
2025
2023
2022
2021
Partners
Vivid Projects
The project is run in partnership with Vivid Projects, a non-profit company supporting media arts practice. Founded in 2012 and based in Birmingham, we encourage innovation, risk and experimentation in artistic practice. We are committed to a diversity of practice and encourage historic and contemporary engagement with cultural and sub-cultural histories. Our work is made public through an ambitious programme of events and exhibitions on and off-site, created in collaboration with artists, producers, thinkers and researchers.
https://www.vividprojects.org.uk
Press and features
Reflections on (Algo|Afro) Futures (2024) - https://control-shift.io/blog/algoafro-futures/
(Algo|Afro) Futures programme - interview (2022) - https://kitmonsters.com/blog/algo%7Cafro-futures-programme-interview
Branding
Logo and branding by Designer Philly. Additional design work and website design by Antonio Roberts.
Contact
For any questions about the programme please contact Antonio Roberts at algoafrofutures@gmail.com.