Workshops 2022

WORKSHOP: Creating Kinetic Flora

YC, Jenna, Dave, Derek

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TUESDAY, JUNE 14th • 9:00AM • WALKER ART CENTER

Explore the process of creating digital-physical life and build a unique kinetic flower that responds to stimuli!

OVERVIEW
This workshop takes participants to a speculative future where flowers don’t just come from the soil, they are crafted by hand and animated with our intentions. Participants will design and create their own living flower kinetic sculpture using paper, nitinol wire, sensors, and a microcontroller. Each will be unique and respond to stimuli in their own unique way.

We'll world-build together and present our creations, highlighting the origin, function and native ecosystem of their discovery. At the end, the flowers will be transplanted into a collective garden where they’ll respond and dance together.

SKILL LEVEL: Intermediate

WORKSHOP OUTLINE:
- CONVERGENCE: Context setting, inspiration, and forming explorer teams
- BIOMIMICRY: Modify and cut origami flowers
- BIOPOIESIS: Assembling the electronics kit - nitinol, sensor and prototyping boards
- INTELLIGENCE: Programming the movements of the flower
- TROPISM: Connect sensors (microphone) to trigger the flower’s movements
- SPECULATION: Futuring exercises to world-build around the new flora and its ecosystem
- PRESENTATION: Presenting your discover to the Academié

WHAT TO BRING:
- Laptop to program Arduino based microcontroller
- USB A port or adapter
- Latest version of Arduino


REGISTRATION FEE: $329
MATERIALS FEE: $50
Material fees will include a full kinetic flower kit that includes:
- custom PCB board
- breadboarding and prototyping material
- origami flower kit
- nitinol wire assembly

WORKSHOP: Data Life Drawing

Stefanie Posavec

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TUESDAY, JUNE 14th • 9:00AM • WALKER ART CENTER

A special version of Stefanie’s ‘Data Drawing Class’ workshop, updated and expanded for a special Eyeo audience.

OVERVIEW
For this workshop, data is our life model. How would your approach and sensibility within a data-driven project change if you started exploring visualization approaches through sketching with charcoal instead of using code or spreadsheet software? Starting a data project by sketching by hand introduces novel ways of thinking, and leads to designs that are uniquely customized for the specific type of data problems we are working with.

The workshop begins by providing a basic overview of data visualization as seen though the lens of drawing, also looking at artists who create rule-based drawings or draw data as part of their practice.

Participants then undertake a series of timed drawing exercises where they work with the constraints inherent in a single stick of black charcoal, applying techniques found in traditional drawing classes to data visualization, and exploring quick experimental strategies for pushing their custom visualization ideas into new spaces.

The afternoon will focus on using the strategies tested in the morning to sketch a class dataset, thinking about the creation of a visualization system through using a handmade design process, exploring variability in mark-making and material as a way to communicate information, and how to take visual inspiration from what you see to guide your data drawing

By the end of this workshop, you'll both better understand the custom data visualization design process and also have access to a variety of off-screen creative strategies for working with data and shaping its aesthetic (even if you move onto your computer / into code at a later point!)

SKILL LEVEL: Intermediate

WORKSHOP OUTLINE:
- Introduction to rule-based drawing as an approach to creating a data visualization
- Drawing challenges merging traditional drawing exercises with data to build creative confidence and push experimentation
- Basic data analysis for designers
- The custom data visualization design process
- The role of architecture within a custom visualization design

WHAT TO BRING:
Nothing. The entire workshop will be off-screen, using nothing more than black charcoal, pastels, newsprint, and other traditional drawing materials. All materials will be supplied.


REGISTRATION FEE: $329
MATERIALS FEE: $10

WORKSHOP: DIY Solar Panel Design

Alex Nathanson

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TUESDAY, JUNE 14th • 9:00AM • WALKER ART CENTER

This workshop will give participants insight into the possibilities and challenges for electronic art in the context of the climate crisis.

OVERVIEW
This hands-on workshop will introduce participants to creating solar powered electronic art. Over the course of this workshop, we will cover basic electronic knowledge, methods for upcycling solar cells, off-grid solar circuit design, and ways to incorporate photovoltaic solar power into kinetic, sound, and light art. We will also explore a variety of techniques for working with photovoltaic cells as sculptural material. Participants will build a solar powered art piece and have new insight into the challenges and possibilities of incorporating alternative energy into our daily lives through both practical and experimental uses.

SKILL LEVEL: Intro

WORKSHOP OUTLINE:
- Intro to creative applications of photovoltaic solar power
- Intro to soldering solar cells and building small kinetic solar bots.
- Design and build sound based solar powered artwork.

WHAT TO BRING:
• Pens/pencils & paper
• Bringing a computer may be helpful if you want to look at some of the additional web-based resources that be mentioned in the workshop.

SOFTWARE TO HAVE INSTALLED:
• None

REGISTRATION FEE: $329
MATERIALS FEE: $45

WORKSHOP: Interactive Machine Learning

Gene Kogan

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TUESDAY, JUNE 14th • 9:00AM • WALKER ART CENTER

Machine learning is a versatile and extremely general technology, with broad applications to all the other sciences and humanities. It has reignited long-standing debates about the nature of intelligence and the limits of technology, reshaped notions of authorship and originality, and facilitated recent innovations in human-computer interaction. It has numerous creative applications and is rapidly becoming a default faculty in much of the software we interact with daily. Until recently, it has been a relatively obscure technology, requiring uncommon computer skills to work with in a hands-on way. Libraries like ml5 lower the barrier of entry to programmers without specialized knowledge of AI, while tools like Runway lower the barrier even further still to non-programmers and people in other fields.

OVERVIEW
This hands-on workshop introduces techniques from machine learning for real-time interactive applications. We will be using Runway, a tool which makes it easy to install and run models inside your existing workflows, as well as ml5.js, a JavaScript library which wraps neural networks into an intuitive high-level API. Each of these tools, in their own ways, make AI more accessible to non-specialists and people in creative fields who want to apply these state-of-the-art machine learning models to their own craft. We will cover a wide array of vision, sound, and language-based models which do everything from extract structured meaning from raw data to generate photorealistic images and paragraphs of coherent text. Each model will be presented along with its use cases and stubs of ideas for unguided exploration. The class is beginner-friendly and targeted towards artists, designers, and other creatives. Prior experience with programming is helpful but not required.

SKILL LEVEL: Intro / Intermediate

WORKSHOP OUTLINE:
- An introduction to deep learning and how neural networks actually work.
- A review of general use cases and core applications across different types of media and interactive contexts.
- A tutorial on Runway, an application which makes it easy to run open-source deep learning models found on the internet.
- A tutorial on ml5.js, a JavaScript library which wraps GPU-accelerated deep learning into an intuitive interface.

WHAT TO BRING:
• personal laptop

SOFTWARE TO HAVE INSTALLED:
• Most recent RunwayML
• Optionally, also install Docker
*All participants will be given some free RunwayML credit for the workshop.

REGISTRATION FEE: $329
MATERIALS FEE: None