Plunging into Code
Georg Trogemann, Ting Chun Liu, Christian Heck
Basic Seminar Material/Sculpture/Code Thursdays weekly 11 am – 1 pm | Start 27.10.2021 Filzengraben 8 – 10, 0.2 [ ] ground zero, Academy of Media Arts Cologne
In an increasingly medial society, an elementary understanding of algorithms and programming languages is the central key to digital self-determination. Digital information and communication spaces now dominate our perception of the reality of our lives and our medial self-image. More importantly, however, we are producing entirely new spaces of experience, action, and decision-making based on algorithmic constructs. Intelligent algorithms are already composing music, generating interactive visual worlds, and writing poetry. We must therefore understand analytical and generative algorithms as a fundamental cultural technique whose dangers and aesthetic layers must be exposed in equal measure.
The seminar teaches the technical and artistic basics of programming under Python. Generative algorithms of text creation form the core of the methods used. In addition to teaching central data and control structures within a simple development environment, the focus is on introducing programming as an artistic practice. However, the seminar can only help over the first hurdles. Code can only become one's own artistic signature when the craft is so well mastered that it is no longer a matter of pure functioning, but of exploring the aesthetic potential. In particular, generative processes are about the balance between freedom and control. Where can I forgo control in favor of surprise, where do I want to retain control in order to achieve certain aesthetic results?
No prior knowledge of programming is required to participate in the seminar.