School
for
Poetic
Computation
There’s no place for us to just sit and hang out on the Internet. In this class, we’ll use open-source tools to create websites that come alive with our presence. What kinds of social interactions can we have outside of the standard social media feed?
Images courtesy of teachers.
Building Benches for the Web is an exploration of the internet’s potential as community-led social media through playhtml, an open-source library for shared web elements.
We will learn to code digital third spaces using presence, collaboration, and participation as our core building materials. Inspired by our physical community infrastructure—living rooms, cafes, libraries, and local events—students will create online spaces to facilitate new ways of relating to one another.
Through a mix of demos, discussions, and prototypes, we will explore how tiny social spaces fit into a platform-capitalist internet that promises permanent connection but leaves people feeling more alone. What does it mean to create digital spaces that nourish our collective social well-being? And how can we make the internet a home that feels like ours?
By the end of the class, each student will craft a live, public site that embodies the spirit of a chosen communal space. Linked together in a shared town, these sites will form a small network of digital places, built with care, intention, and the desire to make the internet feel a little more like a place where we meet.
This class may be for you if you:
This class may NOT be for you if you:
Spencer Chang is an artist, engineer, and toy maker interested in the play, creation, and care that emerges from our relationships with and through technology. Working across internet spaces, interactive sculpture, and creative tools, they engage with everyday practices to explore our online identities and design public good technology. These works leverage whimsical intimacy to interrogate our systems, invite new imaginations, and provide the means to reinvent them.
Chang's work has been showcased by the New Museum (New York), Gray Area & the de Young Museum (San Francisco), Hyundai Artlab (Seoul), Tokyo Geidai (Tokyo), Museum of the Moving Image (New York), and Alserkal Avenue (Dubai). Their projects have been featured in MIT Technology Review, It's Nice That, and Frieze, and supported by the San Francisco Arts Commission and APOSSIBLE. A NEW INC Y11 member, they have taught and led workshops internationally for institutions such as the School for Poetic Computation and Stanford University.
he/they
· website
· twitter
· instagram
Munus Shih is a Taiwanese Minnan-Hakka creative technologist and educator building tools and spaces for anti-colonial, queer, and collective uses of technology. They co-founded Co-Assembly/SpOnAcT!, a Taiwan-based design cooperative exploring data storytelling through ethnographic research and organizing. In 2023, Munus co-organized Processing Community Day Taiwan, a global event centering queer, femme, and grassroots creative tech voices from the Global South.
An Assistant Professor in the Graduate Communications Design program at Pratt Institute, Munus teaches and leads courses on the critical history of technology, critical making, cooperative networking, and open-source publishing. Their pedagogy draws from critical pedagogy, critical software studies, solidarity economy, and intersectional feminism.
A Processing Foundation Fellow, Munus’s work, including p5.zine, Syllabus (Subject to Change), and Duty Free, has been exhibited and supported by NEW INC x New Museum DEMO Festival, the Taiwanese Hakka Affairs Council, and the Open Source Art Contributors Conference. They have presented talks and workshops at institutions such as NYU ITP, Cooper Union, SVA, Type@Cooper, Typographics, The Dalton School, Type Electives, and Google Developer Group DevFest.
Applications open until Applications closed on April 27, 2026.
You can expect to hear back from us about the status of your application on May 11, 2026. Please email us at admissions@sfpc.study with any questions you have.
For 5 classes, it costs $750 + 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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