KLAXON KLAXON! cool Kickstarter alert! A MAZE. is hoping to build a more sustainable future by fundraising for their unique festival experience:
A MAZE. mixes all amazing and positive ingredients together: flame throwers, masterclasses, delighting talks, hands-on workshops, #hypertalks, dream tents, live concerts, DJ sets, performances, human craziness, playful intelligence, beautiful minds, arthouse games, immersive art, playful media, and interactive installations.
they’re adamantly a festival, not a trade show (or networking event or corporate meetup or other type of commercial schmooze/snooze-fest), and sound pretty devoted to play and interactive art as a means of community connection and to keeping it free of unsavory sponsorships. they also really want to keep tix affordable, which is an admirable way to keep it accessible to students, artists, and just like anyone who is not rolling in cash but is still deserving of these kinds of inspiring experiences.
it’s nice to see a campaign acknowledge that organizers need to think long term in order to survive. I also dig that they shout-out the importance of fairly compensating their team. actually paying people for the mission-driven work they do is critical to preventing burn out!
I backed this one myself, and maybe A MAZE. / Berlin 2020 will be a good excuse for visiting all u cool cats in Berlin???? you can check it out and support the campaign yourself here!
resource roundup!
Diana Adrianna Smith is back at it again with a new pure HTML/CSS painterly portrait. it’s lovely and worth checking out like actually truly (and not just in one of the myriad social media/blog posts that screenshot the work as an image :/ ), and you can also learn more about her process and check out here code here.
did u know that radial gradients in CSS are pretty wonderfully malleable? this article by Obinna Ogbonna digs into all the little nitty gritty tweaks you can make to get the exact look you need. you can get properly fancy with just a few values!
I’m also digging this post by Rachel Curioso this week on refactoring. as a largely self-taught coder, my association with refactoring is “a word that scene police programmers like to throw out when they want to vaguely critique what you did without really explaining themselves or even really looking at your code.” I really like her friendly guide to refactoring patterns as a gateway to actually doing things properly (and being able to articulate what you are doing).
ok so now you’ve found some new typefaces to try thx to the Font of the Month Club, now let’s get super weird with this tutorial by Tim Rodenbröker on animating type with Processing.
Handsfree.js is a lil wrapper library by Oz Ramos that lets you interact with web pages handsfree. it’s a lil spoopy to try it out and suddenly have your page tracking with your facial movement, but there’s already some room to do something clever in terms of an interactive project, or even in terms of making an experience accessible in a different way. ok I need an excuse to play with this! I’m looking forward to all of his planned updates for the coming days (and admiring his ambitious dev roadmap).
📅 upcoming events!
Tuesday, Nov 12! STATE Studio! Berlin, Germany: as a lead-up to their closing community gathering of the year, STATE Studio is hosting an evening with some of their collaboration partners of 2019: SUPERMARKT, r0g agency, and friends-of-the-newsletter School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe, to hear more on their strategies and initiatives for working on social, political, and cultural change, as well as community involvement. this looks like a good opportunity to hear from some great organizers! you can learn more here.
Thursday, Nov 14! Babycastles! New York, NY USA: Cypurr Collective, a small cryptoparty and cat-enthusiast collective, is back on Thursday with a free viewing of Mr. Robot at Babycastles. come thru for the l33t h4ck1ng and for actual real cybersecurity tips. cute! you can learn more here.
Saturday, Nov 16! Wonderville! Brooklyn, NY USA: another Tech Learning Collective gem: Hex90’s latest queer hacker salon will be hosted at Wonderville this month. I will actually be at this one and cannot wait!!! the invite speaks for itself, so check it out here, and maybe I’ll c u in the meatspace this week.
also Saturday, Nov 16! co.up coworking! Berlin, Germany: the Creative Code Jam is a monthly gathering of artists, makers, designers, illustrators, coders, musicians, performers, learners and anyone interested in the use of computing skills for artistic expression. this is a free event, open to all, with an open format – suggestions are welcome! I like that their event listing explicitly asks participants to reach out to friends who might feel underrepresented/excluded in tech – diversity doesn’t happen by accident. you can learn more here.
Sunday, Nov 17! Grey Area Art + Technology! San Francisco, CA USA: ok ok, if you don’t need yet another ML workshop, how about this workshop on hacking your senses?!? artist Erika Marthins will lead this exploration the boundaries of perception this Sunday. this looks like a properly weird alternative to whatever brunch you were planning, so check this one out if you’re in the area. you can learn more here.
Dec 14 -15! Triangle Arts Association! Brooklyn, NY USA: I wish I was still in NYC for this one! this weekend conference, hosted by Tech Learning Collective via their semi-permanent residency with Triangle Arts Association, will feature New Yorkers fighting against invasive corporate and dragnet government surveillance alongside national technology law and policy watchdogs. the lineup is STACKED, and well worth your time. you can learn more & get your tickets here.
opportunities!
School for Poetic Computation has a call for students for Code Societies! this is a 3-week session with a mix of critical theory and hands-on coding workshops, and a good alternative to the typical programming bootcamp for artists who want to create conceptually and interrogate with code, rather than crank out React apps. recommended! you can learn more here.
Data & Society is accepting applications for their 2020-21 Faculty Fellows until December 17. they’re looking for 2-3 Faculty Fellows whose research projects will contribute to existing research initiatives, explore one of their themes, and stretch the program with novel topics and questions. anyone at least 2 years beyond receipt of their Ph.D. is invited to apply, and they’re pretty open in terms of discipline. learn more here.
Georgia Institute of Technology has an opening for an assistant professor in digital media. this is a tenure-track position, with an emphasis on design and social justice, effective August 2020. this looks like a good fit for someone with a multidisciplinary practice who has a real focus on equity and inclusion. check it out here.
Instructables has a BUNCH of contests open right now with entries that close on December 2, so check out their listings page & see if anything works for your projects! some potential relevant topics include: robotics, multi-discipline, and made with math.
Electrofringe is looking to fill 3 positions in their Directorial Team: an Artistic Director, a General Manager, and a Marketing/Communications Manager. applications are due by November 24, and you can learn more here.
Olin College of Engineering is seeking applicants for its creative residency program, an initiative that’s part of Sketch Model. you can learn more and apply by November 15 here.
the European Media Art Platform has an open call for media artists in the fields of digital media with applications due by December 2. you can learn more here.
Rhizome has a rolling open call for their 2019-2020 microgrants! you can learn more & apply here!
just for lulz!
this radiates lawful evil UX energy:
*~housekeeping~*
if you have anything in the works that you are excited about (an event, a workshop, a new project), please send me all the details. the next newsletter will cover the week of November 18 – 24, but I’m happy to promote events further in the future as well and keep them on the calendar.
