School
for
Poetic
Computation
In Advanced Secret Keeping, students are invited to explore their own relationship to secrecy and private space, intimate memory, fugitivity and territory—mapping out the psychogeographies that make up their reality and setting the stage for new patterns. From self-hosted servers, secret languages, invisible writing, encryption workshops, lock picking, and morse code light flickers, this class will be a hybrid of theoretical and practical skill sharing in digital and physical security culture practices, giving students a foothold to redefine privacy and community for themselves. Throughout the five week class, students will join their teachers in conducting poetic investigation of secrecy as an ideal, a tactic, and a relational practice. Guest speakers will share their technical and personal reflections on what embodied secrecy feels like, as students test out new choreographies for their data, their stories, their memories, etc. Potential projects may include encoding secret messages into memes, anonymous newsletters printed and left in public spaces, designing our own fake intelligence agencies, deleting a digital file beyond all recovery, etc. Seeking hackers, e-girls, autonomous groups, pirates, shadow librarians, the chronically online, and other folks jaywalking through cyberspace!
Images courtesy of teachers and guests.
This class may be for you if you:
This class may NOT be for you if you:
Olivia McKayla Ross is a Caribbean American information worker and documentarian from Queens. Her work practice in audiovisual and software preservation informs research into the cybernetics of secrecy, power, and despair.
she/her
· instagram
Seldom Chen is a writer and memory worker based in Philadelphia. She employs poetry, noise, and games to play and intervene in public networks, digital life, and personal history. She choreographs hypertexts that perform against encouraged uses of everyday objects and programs, instead using those objects as psychogeographic divination tools. She is currently interested in orality, maps, and puppetry.
she/her
· website
· instagram
Applications open until Applications closed on February 2, 2025.
You can expect to hear back from us about the status of your application on February 18, 2025. 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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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.