A former teacher of mine once used the music videos of Michel Gondry to demonstrate how the general approach to creating software can be applied outside of the computer in fun and creative ways. Or that creating procedures can play just as an important role in film or music as it does in writing code. Or maybe letting us watch these videos was just a Friday afternoon treat, but Gondry has stated that his father was a computer programmer and I know his brother and frequent collaborator Olivier Gondry was also a programmer at one time. So I think there is some value in this comparison and worth sharing! Click the link below fore more videos
Computational Design is the first part of Pilot Year’s Foundations Tier (five short, skills based workshops). This particular Foundation will run full time for the next two weeks and is being taught by Patrick Kochlik and Dennis Paul of The Product from Berlin, Germany.
From the course syllabus:
In this course we investigate the manifold potentials of software. We will look at software as a concept for describing processes, as a medium for describing interactivity, and as a tool for telling stories.
the discipline of applying computational approaches to design problems, whether related to presentation, analysis or aesthetic expressions.
Fundamentally, the goal of this course will be to get each student comfortable with programming and the Processing programming environment will be our tool of choice. But as the introduction above suggests, it will be an exploration of computer code as an artistic medium and programming as a creative process. We will learn strategies for creating computational processes and applying software and systems to design problems. We can take today’s class as a case in point that this is about more than learning how to program — we did not even open our computers!
