School
for
Poetic
Computation
Disturbing Code explores works (“art” and “not art”) that employ recent technologies to enact protest. From DDoS attacks, to data poisoning, DIY servers, radical archiving, today’s Luddite movement, protest machines, and much more: code in this class disturbs and—as a medium with imperialist roots—is disturbed. Participants of all skill levels will work in teams to produce and inventively distribute a work of computational political action.
Images courtesy of teachers.
Disturbing Code explores works (“art” and “not art”) that employ recent technologies to enact protest. From DDoS attacks, to data poisoning, DIY servers, radical archiving, today’s Luddite movement, protest machines, and much more: code in this class both disturbs and—as a medium with imperialist roots—is disturbed.
We borrow our terminology from the Electronic Disturbance Theater to describe political action that takes unexpected forms, causes discomfort, and endures. Throughout, we consider questions like: How can we use code and digital tools to expand access to subversive political thought? Can we jailbreak and radically misuse technology to free it of its warmongering and/or big-tech baggage? And what are the limitations of technology in liberatory practices?
At the start of the class, participants are placed in teams with aligned political interests and diverse skillsets. Each team then collaborates to produce and inventively distribute a work of computational political action. While we offer a detailed framework for collaboration, teams are enthusiastically invited to go off-script. Participants will not learn new technical skills; instead, they will contribute their existing skills—technical or otherwise—toward collective action.
The majority of the class is spent analyzing examples of “disturbing code” and working on collaborative team projects. However, participants also gain a robust theoretical framework via lectures and short readings.
Section 2 will be hybrid with optional in-person meetings in NYC. More accessibility information to come!
This is a discussion- and collaboration-oriented class! Participants can expect to spend 3-4 hours per week on readings and projects.
Computer or cell phone with ability to run Zoom.
No technical experience is required. Participants will use whatever skills they already have—including: web development, design, fabrication of all kinds, research and fieldwork, writing, data analysis, DIY infrastructure, and more.
This class may be for you if you:
Theo Ellin Ballew is a poet, educator, net.artist, and activist who grew up on 4-to-11-hour drives between cities in the greater Southwest. Theo’s net.art and e-poetry have been featured widely, and she founded ORAL.pub, a multilingual journal for net.art and e-poetry, in 2016. Recently, Theo focuses on writing code to free and/or fuck with the internet via sites like Red Calendar, online guerilla education projects, and a forthcoming website for decentralized education programs. Theo’s static (non-coded) poems ares science-fictional; many are bedtime stories. An Inch Thick came out last year with Ornithopter Press; Bedtime Stories for the Worshipped is forthcoming with Wonder Press; and individual poems have been featured in many literary magazines. Theo has taught computational art/literature, cyberfeminism, and political action in tech at RISD, Brown, CUNY Brooklyn College, and The New School; they currently teach in NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. More at theo.land/.
she/they
· website
· instagram
Neeti Sivakumar is an artist, designer, and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. With a background in media arts and architecture, Sivakumar works at the intersection of body, space, and technology, with a focus on interpersonal dynamics. Through iterative and collaborative processes, her practice spans internet art, video games, architectural drawings, and performance. Sivakumar has received grants from the Goethe-Institut Mumbai, ZKM Karlsruhe, and NYU Tisch Creative Research, and has presented work at SPAM New Media Festival, Cooper Union, and NYU.
she/they
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dre r. jácome (she/her) is an Andean transdisciplinary artist, storyteller, and strategist based in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, NY). A child of the Andes Mountains, the Magdalena River, and Georgia red clay, her work is rooted in land-based knowledge, relational practice, and the survival arts of everyday life. Working across traditional and emerging technologies, she weaves collective narratives across digital, physical, and ecological systems to support memory work, cultural organizing, and strategies for collective liberation. With over thirteen years of experience as a wordsmith, designer, and communications strategist, dre has stewarded narrative and infrastructure for projects spanning healing justice, abolitionist memory work, and the solidarity economy. Her creative practice bridges oral history, research, design, computation, and critical ethnobotany, often taking the form of experimental counter-archives that honor and defend BIPOC knowledge systems held in story, land, and recovering cosmologies. Her work has been featured at Lincoln Center, Smack Mellon, and MOCADA’s Abolition House. She is Communications Director at the After Violence Project, a resident artist with Flux Factory and Future Histories Studio, and a member of the Community Advisory Board at Powerhouse Arts. She holds a B.A. from Swarthmore College and an M.P.S. from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program.
she/her
· website
· instagram
Applications open until Applications closed on February 9, 2026.
You can expect to hear back from us about the status of your application on February 25, 2026. 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 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.
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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