Algorithmic Patterns in the Creative Arts.
12-14th September 2025, Sheffield UK
Over 40 artists explored pattern-based music, arts and crafts through three days of concert + club performances, talks and workshops
You can also browse our photo archive for a further taste – a small selection also shown below.
Events
TALKS
Diverse talks explored the use of patterns across heritage and contemporary creative crafts. Recordings are available online. Part of the Alpaca Conference.
CONCERT
This concert mixed ancient and contemporary approaches to musical patterns in deep time. Featuring diverse instrumental and algorithmic performances from Kourosh Kanani & Matt Davies, Heavy Lifting and Prathap Ramachandra. See full details.
CLUB NIGHT
A night of patterns over two venues. Panke’s dancefloor hosted upfront pattern-based dance music, including some of the UK’s best electronic musicians and algorave artists writing code to make music to dance to. Next door, Delicious Clam hosted more chilled-out performances. Featuring James Holden, badcirculation, Polinski, MYNA, Digital Selves, Interworld + many more. Full line-up + details.
WORKSHOPS
We hosted a huge selection of hands-on workshops for those curious to explore heritage and contemporary algorithmic patterns in the creative arts. In particular:- Patterns for textile repair, Making a paper record, and Procedural drawing, Kumihimo braids, Live coding computer graphics, 33 Fingering Methods for Qin, Musical improvisation with patterns and Learning to juggle with mathematics, and a drop-in workshop exploring Andean informatics with Paola Torres Núñez del Prado and Dave Griffiths.
CLOSING PARTY
We sent off the first Alpaca Festival with an energetic mix of instrumental and electronic music. Featuring minimalist percussion duo Wood + Metal (Sarah Heneghan + Will Shaw), electric khomus + live code outfit UDAGAN, audio/visual duo Phase Transition, plus Sheffield Pattern Club/Algorave residents Eye Measure and Epiploke! See full details.
