hey! if ur on the internet, u surely know by now that it’s Pride month, thx to the endless parade of sponcon, corporations pretending to be woke on Twitter, and literal parades, which tbh have been a bit stressful this year given some of the heterosexual responses to them.
so why not escape all that with some actual meaningful history? the NY Times’ Overlooked series gives new obituaries to remarkable people whose deaths went unreported in the Times, and for June they are focusing on important LGBTQ figures. first up, they’ve featured Alan Turing, one of the most influential people in modern computing, who tragically committed suicide after being forced to endure chemical castration for the then “crime” of homosexuality. he wasn’t even officially pardoned until 2013.
so, let’s just remember that there have always been diverse voices in the sciences, technology, and the arts, and inclusiveness isn’t just a buzzword for conferences. it’s part of a much needed course-correction, to support and protect important voices in our communities.
resource roundup!
on that note, the American Institute of Physics has gathered up a list of resources that support the LGBTQ+ community of sciences for LGBTSTEM Day 2019. this list includes surveys, toolkits, image galleries, inclusive research, and much more!
Well Played is a monthly column about video games by Vicky Osterwell that approaches the subject by examining how games reflect and shape capitalism. if you’re looking for some good long reads as some critical inspiration for your next gaming project, I recommend digging in. her latest dispatch, “Imagined Homeland,” focuses on the relationship between gaming culture and fascist organizing. you can read it here.
Ali Spittel does it again with a great roundup of common JavaScript errors. sure, you can always just paste your console error into your search bar to see what comes up on Stack Overflow, but it’s easy to get gummed up with things like TypeErrors which can point you in a dozen different directions via a Google search. she also links out to some other great debugging resources, so this one is worth bookmarking.
have u played with the recently released ARKit 3? I haven’t yet but Dilmer Valecillos has been cranking out some exciting videos on using it with Unity3d AR Foundation. here’s the first in his series, focusing on getting urself all set up:
I just had a chat with an industry friend today who used the expression “vampire baby” to describe the dangerous allure of giving too much to a passion project. this post by Joe Chasinga digs into some of the practical causes and potential solutions to programmer burnout. listen to your burnout! even if your project is your dream, you’re no good to anyone if you don’t take space to reflect on your goals and needs.
opportunities!
opportunities have been stacking up, so I’m going to abbreviate some of the older ones so that the new folks get some focus! for more details, check the past few weeks’ newsletters.
Materia Abierta is an independent summer program on theory, art, and technology based in Mexico City, and the inaugural edition, Novo Pan Klub, will be August 5 – 26, 2019.
Novo Pan Klub will bring theorists and artists from different fields together to consider a contemporary crisis of imagination. The program will reanimate Argentinian artist Xul Solar’s Pan Klub. This “universal club,” initiated in 1939 in Buenos Aires, was conceived as a “collective seánce” of minds and ludic ideas…. Over the course of three weeks, the program will serve as an epistemic and political space from which new tools for the creation of meaning may emerge. The sessions in this edition will be led by contributors from diverse fields of knowledge and praxis, including Black studies, Indigenous worldviews, queer and feminist practices, critical and philosophical computation, design, and environmental justice.
so basically this sounds great, and is happening in basically my favorite city (obvi I will be applying myself 😅). the program will also prioritize the participation of applicants who identify as part of a group or groups that are disadvantaged within the arts, including women, Indigenous people, people of African descent, members of the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, and others AND the program will offer a limited number of partial scholarships for Mexican applicants and candidates based on economic need. so you should apply! deadline is June 15. you can learn more here.
School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe has a fresh new l3wk, all the better to feature their upcoming programs for this summer and fall. topics include data and society, physical computing for beginners, bots and machine learning, a history of money, citizen forensics, and much much more! you can check out their web makeover and learn more about their programs here.
if you’re a woman based in London, the BBC is offering a free 14 week software engineering training course to jump start a career change. no previous experience required, this is aimed at anyone who wants to work in software engineering but needs to start with the core skills. apply by July 5! more info here.
Bartlett Creative Coding Summer School, London UK, happening Sept 9 – 20, apply here.
Experiential Space Research Lab, San Francisco CA USA, deadline to apply is June 23, more info here.
Eyebeam’s 2020 Residency, New York NY USA, deadline to apply is June 21, more info here.
Toronto New Wave open call, Toronto ON Canada, deadline to apply is July 2, more info here.
DIGITAL SPRING open call, Salzburg Germany, deadline to apply is June 30, more info here.
Google Arts & Culture Artists + Machine Intelligence Grants, deadline to apply is July 15, more info here.
📅 upcoming events!
Thursday June 11! Alpha House Artist Co Operative Erskineville! Sydney Australia: 𝐸𝓁𝑒𝒸𝓉𝓇𝑜𝒞𝒾𝓉𝒾𝑒𝓈 is back with round 2, featuring net.Artist in Residence Edison Chen alongside their first Workshop of the year by an OG Electrofringe fave Dr. Josh Harle. get a first look at Chen’s ‘Everything is going to be o-KOI’ exhibition and join in on a free VR workshop! RSVP on Eventbrite here!
Saturday June 15! Wonderville! Brooklyn, NY USA: Wonderville NYC in collaboration with the Tech Learning Collective presents: A Dark Web workshop by and for Femmes and Allies! this digital safety workshop is open to all and is facilitated by the Tech Learning Collective’s femme-identified cybersecurity instructors. it’s a two-hour mini-intensive focused on the Tor Project. don’t worry if you’re new to cybersecurity – this will be a safe and welcoming environment for learning how to make the most of Tor, a free digital safety tool. this crew is legit, and I highly recommend this event if you’re in the NYC area! tix are $45, or $30 for queer and femme-identified folx. u can learn more here.
Tuesday, June 18! Wythe Hotel! Brooklyn, NY USA: Eyebeam is turning 20 with a “Fête of the Future” benefit at the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn this June. it’s definitely a splurge, but the event includes visuals created by THE FAMILY with art direction by Eyebeam resident Yo-Yo Lin, artist-led experiences up for auction from alumni Zach Lieberman, Lauren McCarthy, and Taeyoon Choi, as well as a live performance from Jasminfire. tix are available on Eventbrite.
Friday June 21! Wonderville! Brooklyn, NY USA: LIVECODE.NYC is hosting Algorave, an evening of digital art and music at Wonderville! this edition will feature performances by f00f + s4y, Shelly Knotts + johnLP.xyz, and RGGTRN [Jessica Rodríguez + Ruffles]. get ur tix here and goooooooo!
June 25 – 28! Christie’s Rockefeller Plaza! New York, NY USA: TRANSFER Download is an immersive exhibition format showcasing simulation artworks, including virtual reality, video games, algorithmic art, video and experimental media, in conjunction with Christie’s ART + TECH Summit on AI. the exhibition will feature works by LaTurbo Avedon, Lawrence Lek, Eva Papamargariti, Theo Triantafyllidis, Alan Warburton, and Pinar Yoldas, so you’ll seriously be missing out if your in the NYC area and don’t make time for this. you can learn more here. TRANSFER is imo consistently the most interesting platform for that tension between artists making digital work and the presentation of that work in a physical space.
just for lulz!
fyi Genital Jousting is on sale on Steam rn and is a rly fun way to interrogate some toxic masculinity with some abject humor this Pride month. (cw: cartoon genitals)
*~housekeeping~*
as always, submit to the open artist call if you have anything in the works that you are excited about! I swear I’m actually going to read through them and start pinging people (lol). and if you have an event or opportunity to promote (anywhere), please send me all the details. the next newsletter will cover the week of June 17 to June 23, but I’m happy to promote events further in the future as well and keep them on the calendar.