processing study group

i have decided to study up on Processing again in anticipation for the Fall semesters classes. i will be doing a study group on Thursday nights at the Emerald Coast Community of Makers. tonight, i was able to get an install on the machine at the Makerspace running Ubuntu 12. we will start this week with a screening of Hello World! Processing, a 41 minute documentary about the platform. and then i will demonstrate some simple hello world exercises.

a lecture proposal with dramatic Keanu expletives

i will be doing a lecture for the Leisure Learning Society this October on the history of the Internetz and WWW from the perspective of an artist. after i sent it in, i found out that the guy who had encouraged me to lead a community ed. course actually served on the board of the non-profit company that ran the backbone for NSF.

<Keanu>

WHOA!

</Keanu>

and then he told me that he was one on the authors on the incorporation documents for Edunet.

<Keanu>

Dude.

</Keanu>

i have asked Bob if i can interview him and i will definitely have to do more homework! anyway... here's the proposal:

The Byzantine History of the Internet and the World Wide Web

This lecture is a detailed look at histories of the Internet and World Wide Web from the perspective of an artist and research academic. Thomas will examine the confluences of military, social, and technological advances during the 19th and 20th Centuries which led to our contemporary world of highly connected and intertwined information systems. Some (but not all) of the historic figures and institutions to be covered include: Optical Telegraphy, Dwight D. Eisenhower, DARPA, Paul Baran, Stanford Research Institute, Eglin AFB, Tim Berners-Lee, the National Science Foundation, and the W3C.

impromptu Glitch Art lecture in the lab on Monday

fantastic idea

SAIC, one of my favorite institutions, has a 1.5 credit hour foundations program for all first year students called SAICWired. it teaches the basics of the Mac desktop, simple image composition and color correction through Ps, blogging skills, and simple web development mostly targeted towards gallery building. in other words, digital fundamentals for every student in the program, basic skills for participating in the contemporary digital society.

i try to compress this info into 2week period at the beginning of my classes and thus i lose 15% of my teaching time to basics. many students still need to pick up these basic skills, and it doesn't matter if they are going to be a painter or prosecutor, these are fundamental contemporary skills. the SAIC class is 90 minutes once a week for one semester. what a deal!

i will be borrowing from this! and i will be trying to get it written into our program!