School
for
Poetic
Computation
Instructional Intimacies: Rules and Parameters for Actions that Would Constitute a Piece, is an invitation to encounter, consider, and create artistic works that enliven questions of authorship and instruction through artistic uses of language and technology. We will study conceptual art and the “author” in the age of networked, decentralized, and augmented interventions. Classes include discussions and lectures about readings and conceptual artists from the 1970s onwards to explore transformations offered by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing. We move beyond traditional narrative forms to consider how we can wield linguistic instruction and technology to reimagine the world around us. We invite willful accidents in archives, experimental encounters in formal settings, and vexed mutations between private and public address. Participants will be guided to create a prospectus for a speculative project which may take the form of objects, publications, actions, performances, new media, or uncategorizable forms.
How much time should I expect to spend on assignments outside of class?
Each participant should be prepared to have the following:
By taking this class, you can expect to leave with the following:
This class may be for you if:
Maryam Monalisa Gharavi is an artist, poet, and cultural technologist whose work explores the limits of knowledge. She is the founder of Oil Research Group (ORG), a one-woman collective investigating oil, data, and extractive economies, awarded an Anonymous Was a Woman Environmental Art Grant by New York Foundation for the Arts in 2023. She completed a PhD at Harvard University; an MFA at Bard College; a postdoctoral Fulbright Fellowship; and has served as a visiting artist, guest studio critic, and professor at a dozen international institutions. Her books include The Distancing Effect; Alphabet of an Unknown City; Secret Catalan Poem; and two co-authored books, Dictionary of Night (with Mirene Arsanios) and Oil News 1989-2020 (with Sam Lavigne). Her book Bio is the first of its kind to be written on a social media platform while bypassing “big tech” data storage sites. She has served as artist-in-residence at nearly a dozen international institutions including Recess, Delfina Foundation, Industry Lab, and Sonic Acts. She is a prompt engineer in the field of generative artificial intelligence at an AI-first tech startup. She lives and works in New York City.
she/her
· website
· instagram
Adina Glickstein is a writer and editor interested in the social implications of emerging technology. Her work focuses on labor and language in view of new media. She has edited books and magazines for the international art press centered on subjects like Web3, AI, and digital intersubjectivity, and previously wrote a monthly column about "internet culture" for Spike Art Magazine.
she/they
· 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 has the internet shaped your language? How has it shaped your imagination? What do you need from the internet and what do you not need?
Applications open until Applications closed on April 15, 2024.
You can expect to hear back from us about the status of your application on . 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.