School
for
Poetic
Computation
Reading, Writing & Compiling Zines is a class to learn about the historical ways of reading, writing, compiling, and learning, both with and without computers. Students explore various forms of printed and digital matter such as zines and posters, and how they are published as mediums for creative and political expression. Independent publishers show that everyday people are capable of intervening in public discourse and telling their own stories about their lives. Zines in particular hold a site of rich significance in the history of print communication from radical pamphleteering to the various forms of (micro)blogging. This class will build a case for zines and other publications as critical and artful tools that can be utilized across a multitude of disciplines.
Materials will be provided.
This class may be for you if:
Our classroom space is hosted by Creative Time Headquarters (CTHQ). CTHQ is a gathering space supporting artists working at the intersection of art and politics as they continue to plot, orchestrate, and recharge from cultural, political and social organizing work. The space is rooted in the legacy of art and activism, in the rebelliousness of artist-organizers in the Lower East Side such as self-organized neighborhood art, health and education centers, experimental theater, protest collectives, and community-owned housing, cultural and greenspaces, to claim and shape space for artistic and political production. Additionally, CTHQ sits within Creative Time’s historic and ongoing work to gather artists to share tactics for political change most notably through the Creative Time Summit, Creative Time Reports, and its Global Fellowship. Growing within a lineage of visionary and transgressive creative moments, CTHQ serves as a hub for today and tomorrow’s community of socially engaged and politically oriented artists in the neighborhood, citywide, across the country, and around the world.
Participants will be required to provide proof of up-to-date vaccination status (including boosters) to attend. Participants, teachers and staff are expected to be masked during class. Before the first day of class and final showcase, all participants will be expected to show a negative result on a COVID test.
Neta Bomani is a learner and educator who is interested in understanding the practice of reading and parsing information as a collaborative process between human and non-human computers. Neta’s work combines social practices, workshops, archives, oral histories, computation, printmaking, zines, and publishing, to create artifacts that engage abolitionist, black feminist, and do-it-yourself philosophies. Neta received a graduate degree in Interactive Telecommunications from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Neta has taught at the School for Poetic Computation, the New School, New York University, Princeton University, the University of Texas, and in the after school program at P.S. 15 Magnet School of the Arts in Brooklyn, NY. Neta has studied under American Artist, Fred Moten, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Mariame Kaba, Ruha Benjamin, Simone Browne, and many others who inform Neta’s work. Neta’s work has appeared at the Queens Museum, the Barnard Zine Library, The Kitchen, and the Met Library. Neta is one of seven co-directors at the School for Poetic Computation, and one of two co-directors at Sojourners for Justice Press, an imprint of Haymarket Books.
any pronouns
· website
· twitter
· instagram
Aliyah Blackmore is an Afro-Caribbean writer, researcher, and zine maker based in New York. Through their research, writing, and art making, Aliyah engages with the multi-dimensional threads, narratives, and histories that run through Caribbean and Black Diasporic experiences. She seeks to deepen her understanding of how our modes of cultural production foster and activate spaces of resistance and recovery. Aliyah’s zine making practice is a site to uncover and thread together Caribbean Diasporic histories while moving across various thematic crossroads—matrilineal histories, refusal, and the spaces of recovery and rejuvenation made by Afro-Caribbean women. She is the founder and lead writer for a zine project, Bright Spots Zine. This project unravels Black Bajan and Caribbean Diasporic histories through free printed material, bibliographies, and resource lists.
she/they
· website
· instagram
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.
This class is free / pay-what-you-want through the support of external funding.
At SFPC we believe that no one should be denied an educational opportunity because of their inability to pay. Through the support of funders and community donors, we are able to subsidize tuition-free classes and provide scholarships for participants.
Our scholarships directly redistribute wealth to those who might otherwise be unable to participate in our program. Scholarships are a critical resource on our way towards creating a more comprehensive free or donation-based model in the future.
We know this future is possible through the generous help of current, former and future participants, community members, and friends of the school on WithFriends. Please become a member to help us become a beautiful school that can offer free and low cost classes and events in the future.
This class is made possible by a grant from Art for Justice Fund, a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. Through this grant, we offer tuition-free classes that interrogate the role technology plays in the carceral system through the study of critical theory, computation, visual art and poetry.
For more information about what we look for in applicants, scholarships, and other frequently asked questions, please visit our applicant FAQ.
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