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. She is the developer of Hydra, a platform for live-coding visuals inspired by analog video synthesis. In Bogotá, she works with the performance laboratory ATI-erra, creating interactive visuals for dance and theater. Originally from San Francisco, she currently lives and works in Bogotá, Colombia.

Hydra is an ongoing research project and software platform that turns each connected browser window into a node of a modular and distributed video synthesizer. Built on top of WebRTC (peer-to-peer web streaming), the project explores possibilities for collaboration and performance on the web, in which each connected browser/device outputs a video signal or stream and receives and modifies streams from other browsers/devices. During the residency, Olivia will use Hydra to develop a series of web-based explorations of specific aspects of live visuals on the internet, including: video feedback, non-linear dynamics, live coding and telepresence.