imclab / spring2014

SFPC Spring 2014 session

School for Poetic Computation is a small artist-led school for studying computation through hands-on workshops and conceptual investigation. The Spring 2014 session runs for two weeks on the Lower East Side of NYC at Orbital (155 Rivington Street).

Once again, we're incredibly excited to have an amazing line up of teachers and guest speakers. The two week intensive will be led by SFPC co-founders Zach Lieberman and Taeyoon Choi along with SFPC alumni Jonathan Dahan and Tega Brain. Teachers will be available to support participants through individual tutoring and collective brainstorming. Additionally, classes by Gabi Levine, Kaho Abe, Molmol Kuo, Lauren McCarthy, and Kyle McDonald will provide opportunities to dive into specific topic and methods. There will be opportunities for participants to lead a workshop or study group.

Casey Gollan ([email protected]), SFPC administrator, and Taeyoon ([email protected]) are the contacts for scheduling and other logistics. All classes will be documented on our Hackpad and later published on our website. Moises Sanabria, SFPC alumni, is in charge of documentation and web design.

And without further ado, here's the first assignment for the participants.

Schedule

During the two weeks, there are ten days of class. Classes will fall under three main themes.

Daily Schedule for April 20 - May 4

Time	Block
10 AM~12PM	Morning classes
12:30~1:30PM	Lunch
3~5PM	Afternoon classes

Themes

Days	Theme
Day 1~3	Basics of Computation
Day 4~7	Exploration of Tools
Day 8~10	Code + Poetry

We'll update the schedule within the first several days according to needs of the participants.

Basics of Computation

4.20 Sun

1 PM Greetings and social time

4~6 PM Lighting talk and dinner with SFPC alumni and community

4.21 Mon

AM & PM: Zach Lieberman, Taeyoon Choi, Jonathan Dahan

4.22 Tue

AM: Zach - programming basics

PM: Tega - processing Casey- github

4.23 Wed

AM: Taeyoon - Constrained writing

Lunch with guest: Lev Manovich

PM: Zach - command line tools, c++

Tools exploration

4.24 Thur

AM: 10~12am: Taeyoon - Circuit and drawing

PM: work time
Taeyoon - Circuit lab in two parts. Dahan: Arduino, etc

4.25 Fri

AM: Taeyoon - Circuit and drawing

Lunch with guest: Becky Sterne

PM: Gabriella Levine: Biometric design

4. 26 Sat

Free day

4.27 Sun

Free day

4.28 Mon

AM: Zach

PM: Kaho Abe - Wearable for games

Code + Poetry

4.29 Tue

AM & PM: Zach, Taeyoon, Tega will be in school

3~5pm Circuits lab with Taeyoon

Happy hour with guest: Ishac Bertran, Jon Wohl

4.30 Wed

AM: Tega + Zach

Lunch with guest: Jer Thorp and Ben Rubin from OCR

PM: Dahan + Tega

###5.1 Thur AM: Lauren McCarthy + Kyle McDonald - Social hacking

PM: Tega Brain + Taeyoon - Speculative history of computing

5.2 Fri

AM: Taeyoon - Drawing

Lunch with guest: Masa and Qanta (Party)

PM: Lauren + Kyle - Social hacking

5.3 Saturday

Free day

5.4 Sun

Final event (open to the public with RSVP)

7 PM: Final event RSVP

Special guest: Kenneth Goldsmith

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Classes

###Input / output lead by Zach Lieberman

This class will be held as a series of weekly workshops around techniques and approaches to working with computation and software. We will investigate systems for input, how do we get information into software, focusing specifically on gestural inputs, different sensors systems and signal processing. For output, we will look at graphical, sonic and other approaches to outputting the results of computation. Emphasis will be placed on toolkits and meta level connections between tools that allow us to explore and play with I/O. Potential workshops involve: signal processing 101, from 2d to 3d, optical systems for interaction, postscript hacking, audio synthesis, approaches to data collecting and analysis. More info

###Circuits and drawings

lead by Taeyoon Choi

Participants will make a very rudimentary form of computer using only the most basic parts and their own hands. Intergrated Circuits, Transistors, resistors, LEDs, and capacitors are attached to the breadboard to make an adder or a memory storage. Participants in the process can learn about the principles underpinning binary calculation and programming as well as higher level programming language. This is also a class to think about teaching tools and methods for the general public. More info

###Towards Poetic Sensing

lead by Tega Brain

If data is a medium that connects human and non-human then what sort of data processes build rapport? In this talk I will explore this question discussing several data driven artworks of my own as well as some examples from others working in this field. These are projects that posit a poetic friction in how information is produced from the world.

Art allows us to think between categories, and materialises ideas that are hard to put into words. What questions does an artist working with data get to ask that a scientist does not? How is information and experience related? What can we learn from experimental practices that emphasise poetics and empathy, over clarity and objectivity?

###Biomimetic Design

lead by Gabriella Levine

In contemporary times of extreme technological innovation, infrastructures are built upon sourcing individual data to inform collective intelligence. Redesigning urban frameworks for efficient transit options are becoming increasingly critical due to growing urban populations. Looking to living systems for influence for organising emergent intelligent systems is increasingly crucial for design considerations.

This workshop will engage with the following questions: How might we derive cues from living systems for our own designs? How might we approach design as a hybrid combining the digital and biological interfaces?

We will go over basic techniques for designing things that move. We will look at various code algorithms that can be translated to hardware, and look at using organic motion for designing tools, fabrication, and hardware. It will cover mechanical principles, Arduino libraries, DIY custom fabrication techniques, motors, gears, joints, as well as code snippets for translating motion from software into hardware.

###Social Hacking lead by Lauren McCarthy and Kyle McDonald

This class explores the structures and systems of social interactions, identity, and self representation as mediated by technology. We will investigate ways that technology can be used to augment, subvert, alter, mediate, and ultimately deepen interaction in a lasting way.

How do the things we build and use limit and expand the way we understand and relate to each other? We’ll explore this question by building new tools and creating new situations for breaking us out of existing patterns, and discussing contextual examples from media art, performance art, psychology and pop culture. Technologies explored may include computer vision (face/body/eye tracking with openFrameworks), data representation and glitch, browser extensions and plugins, computer security, mobile platforms, and social automation and APIs (Facebook, Twitter, Mechanical Turk).

• Session one -- social glitch, surveillance and privacy, computer vision, linguistic analysis. What spaces are social? What are rules? How do we test them? What happens when we don’t follow them? How do we misinterpret each other? Failures, communication breakdowns and arguments, ambiguity? What does it mean to be hacked? Can you hack yourself?

• Session two -- mobile, public spaces/performances, APIs and social automation. How do we find each other? How do we connect? How do we initially engage? How do we interact with each other in public social spaces? What are the patterns and rules and expectations?

The sessions would be a mix of technical demo and discussion (see the github for specific references). In session one, they would pair up to create an intervention / tool / performance that alters their interaction, conversation, or relationship in some way. We would provide a framework for WebRTC that lets them easily set up a video chat and access face tracking, linguistic analysis, and other tools. However, other alternatives to using this framework or video chat will also be introduced.

Rather than this project/challenge being the focus of the workshop, we are thinking it would be sort of an ongoing activity they could think about and work on in between our discussions. At the end of session two we would look at and discuss prototypes, performances, proposals, ideas generated. More info

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##Guest Speakers

• Lev Manovich
• Becky Sterne
• Ishac Betran
• Jer Thorp, Ben Rubin , OCR
• Masashi Kawamura, PARTY
• Kenneth Goldsmith
• more tbd

Open letters

Letter to our teachers

Thanks for offering to teach at SFPC. We are hoping to communicate with you over next week to find best ways you can lead your class. We thought it would be useful to write some words of suggestion. First, SFPC is a place which celebrates questions -- it's helpful to think of whatever topic you are bringing in terms of key questions other than instructions. Second, it's important to focus on the poetry, beauty in the method of artistic making. It's easy to focus on the technical aspects of the medium, how to, what to and etc. We want to try, as much as possible, to investigate the critical questions involved and the impractical, magical, more human centered qualities that can be achieved through computation. In addition, contextualizing what you are doing in some sort of historical context is also helpful. Finally, the students at SFPC are attracted to the idea of creating a school together, they realize that this is a work in progress and are very open to alternative ways of working. We value collaboration and peer-to-peer exploration. Some of the best assignments have been building teaching tools and speculative design. We see them as future teachers as well as builders of new communities around this medium.

Letter to our visitors

Thanks for offering to come speak at SFPC. Here's some guidelines about speaking that might be helpful. First, we will give students links to your projects (and talks) before hand and invite them to get familiar with your work outside of your talk -- this means you don't have to talk about your projects if you don't want to or use your normal decks / talks. You can feel free to talk about other things, such as works that inspire you, how to make a living, challenges or difficulties in the field, top secret things you haven't told anyone before, behind the scenes stories, etc. It's a small intensely curious group that love strikeouts as much as home-runs. We typically have talks over meals, if possible, as this tends to make things more friendly. We also will usually have a note-taker for your talk who will be using some online writing tool like hackpad.