School
for
Poetic
Computation
In this month long, twice-a-week online class we will explore new relationships between audience and performer, and between in-person and remote audiences. We will especially be focusing on the way technology can create new, less passive forms of audienceship and how that role can extend beyond a single physical space. Some questions we will consider: What does performance mean when the audience is a participant? What does it mean for performance to feel “live” and why does it matter? How can our bodies gain back their presence in digital performance? Can we experience connections in tangible ways regardless of the distance? We will learn about real-time networking by building websites and connecting them through WebSockets. We will put our bodies in digital space using WiFi-enabled sensors and networked micro-controllers. We will discuss this history of telematic performance and analyze contemporary works by visiting guests. This class will be taught online through Zoom and other online platforms and will culminate in a live performance for an online audience produced in New York City. Participants are invited to come to NYC to put on the final show, but can also participate remotely from anywhere in the world.
In this class, participants will learn:
This class may be for you if you:
The class may NOT be for you if you:
Is class on Monday, Wednesday, or both?
Both! Both sections meet on both Monday and Wednesday, one section meets 10am-1pm and the other meets 7pm-10pm. This means you will need to be available on both Monday and Wednesday to attend this class.
I can’t travel to NYC. Can I still attend the class / be in the final show?
Yes! The first 4 weeks of class will all be on online, and the last week will be hybrid, meaning participants can attend at Recess in NYC, but also can attend online through zoom. The final show livestream will be produced in NYC, but it will be an online event meaning participants can still perform and participate remotely
I don’t like to be perceived, do I have to perform on camera?
Not necessarily! We’ll be working in collaborative groups which will often involve some people being more the focus of attention and others working behind the scenes. There are many different ways to perform and you can find one that feels comfortable for you!
Todd Anderson is a digital poet, software artist and educator based in New York City. He has been making experimental software art for over 10 years including the live interactive poetry project Hotwriting, the Chrome Extension ARG 'An Experience', the performance-inside-the-browser extension HitchHiker, and multiple plays and performances with the multidisciplinary group H0t Club. He is perhaps best known as the host and curator of WordHack, the monthly language+technology talk series in NYC running every third Thursday since 2014.
he/him
· website
· twitter
· instagram
Bangkok-born, New York-based Tiri Kananuruk is a performance artist and educator. Her works focus on the manipulation of sound, the disruption of time. How technologies change the meaning and the ways we communicate. She utilizes mistakes, both human and machine, as means of improvisation. She holds a BA in Exhibition Design from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, and a Master in Interactive Telecommunications from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Tiri has lectured at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and the School for Poetic Computation. She is currently an adjunct professor at Collaborative Arts, New York University. She was a new media artist resident at Mana Contemporary (2019), CultureHub New York (2020), Barnard Movement Lab (NUUM)(2020), and Media Art Exploration (NUUM)(2021). She is a NEW INC Member in the Creative Science track. She is a founding member of NUUM collective. She is a co-founder of MORAKANA along with Sebastián Morales.
she/any
· website
· twitter
· instagram
Sebastián Morales Prado is a Mexican artist, engineer, and researcher based in New York. His practice develops interactive works hybridizing robotics, digital culture, and living systems. Sebastian is the co-founder of MORAKANA among with Tiri Kananuruk, they exhibited and performed at The National Gallery of Singapore as part of the exhibition Novel Ways of Being, the Gwangju Media Art Platform in Korea, and CultureHub in New York. Sebastian has spoken at conferences including Radical Networks, and ArtTech Forum in Venice, Italy. He has lectured at CUNY, UArts , and SFPC. Sebastian was an artist in residence at Autodesk Pier 9 (2015), a New Media Artist resident at Mana Contemporary (2018), and Research Fellow at the ITP at NYU (2018).
he/him
· website
· instagram
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
Galen Macdonald is an artist and arts organizer based in Tkaronto/Toronto whose work currently straddles hand craft, kinetic sculpture, poetry, and new media. He uses whatever tools are available to make delicate and limited tools for communication.
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.
Applications open until Applications closed on April 30, 2023.
You can expect to hear back from us about the status of your application on May 8, 2023. Please email us at admissions@sfpc.study with any questions you have.
For classes, it costs $1400 + 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.
