Syllabi and curriculum for the 2021 Digital Day Camp workshops.
Established in 1998, Digital Day Camp (DDC) is New York-based Eyebeam’s longest running program. DDC is an intensive, multi-week, youth arts and technology program for high school students. Through local partnerships, we recruit applicants from schools underrepresented in STEAM programs to ensure a diverse range of ideas and backgrounds in each cohort. Each year, our students and educators are challenged to apply creative thinking strategies to develop critical, empowering, and long-lasting relationships with technology.
Established in the Chelsea district of Manhattan in 1998, Eyebeam was founded as a resource for artists to engage creatively with technology in a setting that encouraged experimentation. Today, we continue to be a resource for artists and technologists alike as technology’s effect on society grows increasingly complex and problematic. In all of our work, we strive to amplify artists’ ideas that carve a path towards a more just future.
Since 2001, the core of our programming has been our Residency, which evolved into a digital-first Fellowship in the last year. Every year we provide professional guidance, studio space, expert advice, and a significant cash award for up to 30 artists whose practices engage with the most pressing issues of our time. Unlike other fellowships, Eyebeam encourages inquiry-based practices through which artists can experiment and initiate critical dialogues with one another that are centered around technology’s effect on society. By supporting a multiplicity of artists responsive to systems of oppression, Eyebeam includes narratives that better reflect the existing plurality of genders, races, ethnicities, abilities, ages, sexual orientations, citizenships, and socioeconomic statuses in support of an expansively inclusive vision of a better future.
In this workshop, we will explore the relationship between internet infrastructure and sustainable energy. The internet is often presented as removed from the physical world. Words like the “cloud” and “cyberspace” obscure its relationship to the environment. We will question the need for websites and internet services to always be on at the highest possible resolutions and bloated with tracking and advertising software. Via group discussions, we will explore whether there is a relationship between the resource consumption of websites and the ways in which we interact with them. We will also be designing speculative web-based projects that envision new modes of engaging with the internet that are environmentally responsive, healthier, and more sustainable.
Wednesday guest lecture: Thomas Tajo (Vision Inclusive)
In the early 20th century, a historian and sociologist named W.E.B. Dubois created a series of infographics (visual representations of information, data, or knowledge) that gave visual form to a variety of data about Black Americans. His groundbreaking research reclaimed Western methods of cartography (the practice of making and using maps) that had historically been used by power holders to spread the belief that Black Americans were innately inferior or incapable of social advancement. His work asserted a narrative that Black people could write their own histories
In this four-hour workshop we will explore the work of artists and technologists who, in the tradition of folks like W.E.B. Dubois, creatively use data to surface hidden histories and build community power. Participants will explore different approaches to data collection and visualization and create their own graphs and diagrams using ready-at-hand data.
Wednesday guest lecture: Neta Bomani (The New School)
In this workshop, we will work with the interactive software called Max to create audio reactive visuals that we can potentially share with friends, family, and others in our communities. Participants will be introduced to basic principles of working with video and sound in Max in addition to basic digital imaging and audio principles.
This workshop is a shortened version of our 2019 workshop, which looked at the interplay between video and audio. Our focus will be on using a live video feed to shape and manipulate sound. To accomplish this, we will use Max and a little bit of math. The goal for us will be to explore expressiveness. A piece of music expresses something, but how can we communicate that same something using video? When something happens in a video for example, such as a person raising their eyebrows or opening their mouth, can we make the computer respond in a specific, expressive way?
Wednesday guest lecture: Yo-Yo Lin
For this workshop, Movers & Shakers will be using augmented reality monuments to recontextualize history through a Black lens. Students will learn Movers & Shakers’ unit on the history of Black Resistance in the USA, with a special focus on Juneteenth. The AR app Kinfolk will serve as a foundation for discussion on how 4 different Black icons—Denmark Vessey, Fannie Lou Hamer, Zora Neale Hurtson, and Harry Belafonte—have resisted over time. The workshop will culminate in a socratic discussion on whether or not Juneteenth should be a holiday, followed by a creative brainstorm on reimagining monuments in public spaces.
Wednesday guest lecture: Mutale Nkonde (AI For the People)
In this course we will practice inclusive thinking as early as the inception point of a project. How can we normalise inclusion as a natural part of our everyday thinking and doing? How can you blaze the trail for inclusive cultures and societies that are free from oppressive and exclusionary cultural beliefs and practices of people based on their race, gender, sexual-orientation, abilities, poverty, etc? We will look at the work you’ve completed for the various workshops and work together to embed inclusive practices into your final projects.
The final week of DDC 2021 includes time for independent and collaborative project development in preparation for the public showcase that will happen later in the week. This will be a wonderful moment to celebrate your DDC learnings and share them with family and friends!
This week will be supported by the DDC Support Staff: Peyton Emery, Rae Dand, Cy X, and Elizabeth Perez
Data: a collection of facts such as numbers, words, measurements, observations, or just descriptions of things.
Data visualization: the graphic representation of data through charts, maps, or graphs. It is a way to communicate trends, patterns, and outliers in data.
Frequency: in sound, frequency refers to the number of times per second that a sound wave oscillates, or moves. Frequency is measured in hertz.
Pitch: refers to the observable perception of sound based on frequency. The higher the frequency, the higher the pitch. The lower the frequency, the lower the pitch.
Pixels: the unit of measurement for digital displays and images. Each pixel is a square that is assigned a color. Pixels come in various shapes and sizes. Within each pixel is a red, green, and blue light. The amount of brightness of each light controls which color is perceived.
Representation: the action of speaking or acting on behalf of someone or the state of being represented. The description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way or as being of a certain nature.
Signal flow: a graphical representation of a chain of events/ processes or algebraic equations. In electronic sound, signal flow is the order of operations a sound goes through. Example: Singer -> Microphone -> Mixer -> Speakers
Socially engaged art: artistic practices that aim to improve conditions in a particular community or in the world at large.
Symbols: an image, mark, or character used to describe an idea, feeling, place, or object.
Visual language: a system of communication using visual elements.
Ferry, Robert and Elizabeth Monoian. A Field Guide To Renewable Energy Technologies, 2nd Edition. Land Art Generator. 2020.
African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.
Anti-Eviction Mapping Project
Bell, Lee Anne. “Storytelling Project Model,” Organizing Engagement. 2019.
Media In Action Curriculum, Global Action Project. 2010.
Starks, Anthony. “Recreating W.E.B Du Bois’s Data Portraits,” Medium. 2019.
“The Duboisian Visualization Toolkit,” Dignity + Debt, 2021.
Barri, Tarik ft. Lea Fabrikant. “Versum,” Vimeo. 2017.
Manabe, Daito. “Electric Stimulus to Face,” YouTube. 2009.
O’Reilly, Maera. “Chladni Songs,” 2010.
O’Reilly, Maera. “Bjork Biophilia,” 2011.