It was very painful to listen to. I don't get how you can "dance" to that

Same boat. That was awful.

There were some good parts near the end. I think it was more of a demo than a polished set. A polished set would be nice to see.

Yes it was a relaxed noodley experiment. More video is on http://algorave.com/ around the artist pages

The photos seem to not look like much fun, either...

http://assets.vice.com/content-images/contentimage/123487/_D...

I was actually there. It was more of a laid back atmosphere of drinks and chatter, and not all of the music was danceable. Me and a friend caught 3 sets: Benoît and the Mandelbrots were not much about dancing, but had a mesmerising set that sounded like an overgrown Boards of Canada, if that makes sense? The guy afterwards continually built up and stripped down his beats, which quite a few people actually danced to a bit, and sounded quite a bit like a more energetic Andy Stott (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTOsBk-V9uA). We left during the set of the guy after that which wasn't too great, but the whole experience was pretty cool, as you had to be patient and really engage with the music, but were rewarded with completely unexpected and beautifully serendipitous sounds.

Pictured here: nobody dancing.

It wasn't really about the dancing, I don't think anyone attended to dance. The use of the word 'rave' is very tongue in cheek, it was purely a group of people interested in music being live coded coming together to enjoy a performance.

Yeah, there's good live coding, but that definitely wasn't an example of it.