School
for
Poetic
Computation
How can emerging web technologies inspire new, and more connected musical experiences? With so much of our listening being mediated by streaming platforms, social networks, and virtual environments, it is exciting to imagine the wild shapes that music might take under these strange new circumstances. In this 10-week class, participants will work with a variety of tools to build interactive, spatial, and generative sound pieces online. Classes will unfold through discussion, sharing, and hands-on lab time. Approximately half of the course will focus on composition and sound design exercises to accompany the coding examples. These lessons will include field recording, sampling, and digital synthesis techniques. Participants will work each week to build their own web-based sound pieces while collectively imagining what music can look like on the world wide web. The course will be taught primarily in p5.sound, Web Audio API, and Max MSP though other tools will also be explored. While some experience working with HTML, CSS, and Javascript is required, we welcome all experience levels. If you have any doubts about the required skills coming into the class, reach out to us before applying.
Images courtesy of teachers.
We expect that participants attend with an open mind and are willing to try out new forms of working both collaboratively and independently. We aim to set up an environment where participants feel empowered to ask questions, but understand that this can be challenging when people are working with new technologies or creative modalities for the first time.
The course will be taught primarily in p5.sound, Web Audio API, and Max MSP though other tools will also be explored. While some experience working with HTML, CSS, and Javascript is required, we welcome all experience levels. If you have any doubts about the required skills coming into the class, reach out to us before applying.
This class may be for you if:
This class may NOT be for you if:
Tommy is a musician, programmer, and organizer investigating algorithmic approaches to sound composition, simulations, and manifestations of identity, tradition and history in electronic culture. He has lectured on computer music and media art and is a professor at School of Visual Arts. Tommy is the co-editor of Software for Artists Book: Untethering the Web (Pioneer Works Press, 2022), and currently a Brooklyn College Sonic Arts MFA candidate.
he/him
· website
· twitter
· instagram
Thompson is a Cree, Canadian, interdisciplinary artist and sound designer. Thompson approaches sound as a mode of connection—embracing the kinesthetic agency of sound to compose abstract feats of spatialized audio recording and synthesis. Her work engages tactics of material minimalism to create site-specific installations that sculpt droning, maximalist experiences out of space and sound. Using audio programming software, computational processing, and acoustic instruments, Thompson’s work seeks to create connection by guiding audience participants through these augmented experiences.
she/her
· website
· instagram
Our programs are conducted in spoken English with audiovisual materials such as slides, code examples and video. Online programs are held over Zoom.
Please take care and be well. We hope you are comfortable in your housing, living, and working situation in general. Never hesitate to ask us for advice and reach out if you have accessibility requests or need any assistance during your time at SFPC. We will work closely with you towards co-creating the most accommodating learning environment for your needs.
How do you use tools, technological or not, to express yourself?
Applications open until Applications closed on August 11, 2023.
You can expect to hear back from us about the status of your application on August 25, 2023. Please email us at admissions@sfpc.study with any questions you have.
For 10 classes, it costs $1200 + processing fees, for a one-time payment. We also offer payment plans. Participants can schedule weekly or monthly payments of the same amount. First and last payments must be made before the start and end of class. *Processing fees apply for each payment.
SFPC processes all payments via Withfriends and Stripe. Please email admissions@sfpc.study if these payment options don't work for you.
Upon payment, your space in the class will be reserved. We offer scholarships for those who cannot pay full tuition. Read more about scholarships below.
If you can’t pay full tuition, we really still want you to apply. Our application will ask you how much you can pay. We will offer subsidized positions in all of our classes, once each one has enough participants enrolled that we’re able to do so.
We have also started a scholarship fund, and we will be offering additional scholarships as community members redistribute their wealth through SFPC. We direct scholarship funds towards participants who are low-income, Black, Indigenous, racialized, gendered, disabled, Queer, trans, oppressed, historicially excluded and underrepresented.
Right now, tuition is SFPC’s main source of income, and that is a problem. It means that we can only pay teachers, pay for space, and organize programs when participants pay full tuition to attend. Tuition is a huge barrier to entry into the SFPC community, and it disproportionately limits Black participants, indigenous participants, queer and trans participants, and other people who are marginalized, from participating. Scholarships are not a long term solution for us, but in the short and medium term we hope to offer them more while we work towards transforming SFPC’s financial model.
For SFPC to be the kind of place the community has always meant it to be, it needs to become a platform for wealth redistribution. If you are a former participant, prospective participant, or friend of the school, and you have the financial privilege to do so, please donate generously. There is enough wealth in this community to make sure no one is ever rejected because of their inability to pay, and becoming that school will make SFPC the impactful, imaginative, transformative center of poetry and justice that we know it can be.
Interested in more learning opportunities at the School for Poetic Computation? Join our newsletter to stay up to date on future sessions and events, and follow us on Instagram and Twitter. Support our programming through scholarships. Get in touch over email.