School
for
Poetic
Computation
Instruments of the Black Gooey Universe is inspired by extracurricular connections between the long-running SFPC class “Dark Matters,” a critical theory class taught by American Artist & Zainab Aliyu that investigates the surveillance of Blackness and the construction of whiteness as “neutral” within high technology; and the course, “Poetic Hardware,” a hands-on electronics class taught by the collective CW&T (Che-Wei Wang and Taylor Levy). In this unique session, students will study and discuss critical theory with American & Zainab, as well as participate in physical computing demonstrations led by CW&T. Students will have the opportunity to bridge the concepts of both classes to imagine what possible instruments can exist within the “Black Gooey Universe”, a speculative space posited by American Artist where Blackness forms the foundation of virtual creation.
Images courtesy of teachers.
What is expected of me?
By taking this class, you can expect to gain the following:
This class may be for you if:
This class may NOT be for you if:
American Artist makes thought experiments that mine the history of technology, race, and knowledge production, beginning with their legal name change in 2013. Their work engages anti-Black state violence, surveillance, and criminalization, such as predictive policing. Artist is a 2022 Creative Capital and United States Artists grantee, and a recipient of the 2021 LACMA Art & Tech Lab Grant. They have exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art; MoMA PS1; Studio Museum in Harlem; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Kunsthalle Basel, CH; and Nam June Paik Center, Seoul. They have had solo museum exhibitions at The Queens Museum, New York and The Museum of African Diaspora, California. Their work has been featured in The New York Times, Artforum, and Huffington Post. Artist is a part-time faculty at Parsons, NYU and UCLA and a co-director of the School for Poetic Computation.
they/him
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Zainab "Zai'' Aliyu is a Nigerian-American artist and cultural worker living in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, NY). Her work contextualizes the cybernetic and temporal entanglement embedded within societal dynamics to understand how all socio-technological systems of control are interconnected, and how we are all materially implicated through time. She draws upon her body as a corporeal archive and site of ancestral memory to craft counter-narratives through sculpture, video, installation, built virtual environments, printed matter, archives, and community-participatory (un)learning. Zai is currently a co-director of the School for Poetic Computation, design director for the African Film Festival at the Film at Lincoln Center in NYC and a 2023-24 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow. Her work has been shown at Film at Lincoln Center (NYC), Museum of Modern Art Library (NYC), Miller ICA (Pittsburgh), the Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile (Hong Kong), Casa do Povo (São Paulo, Brazil), Aktuelle Architektur der Kulturimages (Murcia, Spain), Pocoapoco (Oaxaca, Mexico) among others.
she/her
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Taylor Levy [pron. tey-ler] is an artist & designer with a penchant for taking things apart, understanding how they work, and then putting them back together in a way that exposes their inner workings.The results take on a variety of forms from low-tech electronic sculpture to high-tech software & other executions. She has work on view at The Leonardo Museum of Science and Technology and was a resident at Fabrica Interactive in Treviso, Italy. She is an alumna of MIT Media Lab, ITP at NYU, and Vassar College.
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Che-Wei Wang [pron. sey-wey] is an artist, designer & architect with expertise in computational and generative design, fabrication technologies, electronics, CNC machining, and metal manufacturing. The results range from architecture & sculpture to interactive installations & mobile apps. He is the winner of the 2003 SOM fellowship and the Young Alumni Achievement Award from Pratt Institute. Che-Wei has taught courses on design, time, creative computing, and inflatables, at various institutions. He is an alumnus of MIT Media Lab, ITP at NYU, and Pratt Institute.
he/him
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Applications open until Applications closed on November 22, 2023.
You can expect to hear back from us about the status of your application on December 11, 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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