School
for
Poetic
Computation
Code Societies: Cybernetic Sculpture is an exploration into the transformative potential of computational processes within sculptural practice. In this hybrid coding and art production class, discover what happens when we push far past the screen to deeply situate into our material and social lives. Code Societies centers understanding technology as social and the social as political technology. We will engage with code, and the ways code acts on our bodies and lives, equally as subject and as medium. Together we will build new codes made of the digital, the social, and the material on a co-created foundation of radical perspective shifting and a commitment to learning with care. Cybernetics is the study of how we shape and are shaped by systems. What embodied forms can code-based art take that create openings for interrupting systems of power and control? How do different platforms and processes—including networks, data, installation, and interface—yield distinct modes of seeing, thinking, and feeling? Cybernetic Sculpture is an introduction to re-introducing yourselves to computers as a physical and contextually specific art medium. This class is about redrawing the divisions that make us and unmake us. We’ll begin by challenging the division between those who code software and those who are coded by it. We’ll end by dispersing equipped with new skills and projects for shaping experience and provoking change within and outside of ourselves.
Images courtesy of teachers.
This class may be for you if you:
This class may NOT be for you if you:
Melanie Hoff is an artist, organizer, and educator. At School for Poetic Computation and Hex House, they strive to cultivate spaces of learning and feeling that encourage honesty, poetry, and reconciliation for the ways we are shaped by intersecting systems of classification and power. Melanie engages hacking and performance to express the absurdities of these systems while revealing the encoded ways in which they influence how we choose to live and what choices have been made for us. They teach about sex, technology, and social cybernetics at the School for Poetic Computation, Yale University, New York University, and have shown work at the New Museum, the Queens Museum, and elsewhere.
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Lee 소라 Beckwith is sometimes an educator but always a learner. They currently teach high schoolers computer science, math, and creative writing on Lenape land (Bronx, NY). Their recent research centers on rethinking classroom power dynamics through curriculum negotiation. These days, they are thinking a lot about fractals and film scores.
they/them
· 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 10 classes, it costs $1200 + 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.