Hi!

Welcome to my email newsletter! It's been many years since I've sent one of these. I intend to send these approximately every other month, and no more than monthly. You are invited to read, unsubscribe, forward, or write back to me directly to tell me what you are up to.

You're receiving this because you've signed up for my email newsletter, or we've climbed a mountain together, or we met on a bus and struck up a conversation, or you slept on my couch during the era of couchsurfing (RIP), or we met at a warehouse party somewhere in Philly, or you subscribed me to your email list, or we've been the last people to stack the chairs back up at the end of the night after the big event we organized, or due to a bit flip error.

To reintroduce myself: I am an artist, educator, musician, programmer, organizer. I live in Ditmas Park in Flatbush, Brooklyn and am in my third year as an Assistant Professor of New Media and Computer Science at Purchase College.

Email is the original "social media." I enjoy some email newsletters, particularly those with links and music and new things to discover. I hope mine will be in that category!

Here's What I'm Up To:

Artists and Hackers Podcast

I launched a podcast this fall, and am slowly bringing new episodes to fruition. I had been looking for a good podcast on art, programming, new media, and activism. I didn't find one. So I've made my own. I was lucky enough to be able to get some starter funding from my university and hired two students to work with me: Caleb Stone and Mimi Charles. They've done a great job. Check out our work on episode 1, Critical Code, which you can listen to on our website or via Apple podcasts and Spotify. Our first episode features interviews with Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo, Anuluwapo Karounwi, Ramsey Nasser and Daniel Temkin. All in 21 minutes. You can sign up for our email list to be notified of new episodes, or follow our twitter or instagram.

Generative and Programmed Music on modular synth

I have been playing modular synth for the past year or so. It's been nice to get back into working this way. I studied experimental electronic music production in college, among many other things. I have been making music for a long time, and used to have a mini record label I ran in Riverside, California. It's been nice to have a daily music practice again.

In the past few months I have been playing music for an hour or two a day. In the past month and a half I recorded and completed 7 (!) albums, which you can find at my Exquisite Corp Bandcamp. These are generally darker ambient tracks, occasionally with beats, using essentially music score systems kind of like how Brian Eno creates self-playing music systems. I'd say my style is to the dark textures of Actress, Amulets, Basinski, or Huerco S. Most of the music was created by developing a self-playing patch system of cables snaking everywhere, and coding generative programs on a Monome Teletype. My photo above is somewhat misleading, as the vast majority of tracks use no keyboard input and instead are a product of these generative systems I set into motion, like complex Games of Life. I occasionally stream myself setting these systems up and then let them play out, unspooling melodies and textures. I may do a weekly Twitch stream at some point. This music has also been finding its way into my artwork and games.

Babycastles

For all of 2020 I have been an organizer with Babycastles, the experimental art collective, art space and now an online community. Babycastles' mission is to foster and amplify diverse voices in videogame culture. I worked on two major projects this year:

1. I helped launch a new residency program, find partners and funding. Our ___ - In - Residency program began this fall with our first cohort, with two guest judges that made selections of residents, and the program coordinated by Hyacinth Ramsay and Flan Falacci.
2. I have been coordinating our Babycastles Academy series of workshops. Since the pandemic began I've organized 25 workshops, which we stream on Sunday afternoons to our Twitch. These workshops run the gamut from pixel art monsters, creating a platformer, DIY 3d modeling to setting goals, empathic listening, and protestor tactics (we partnered with Cypurr, Bluestockings, Freedom of the Press Foundation on this one). I led a workshop on A Friendly Introduction to Writing Proposals and Grants. You can become a member of Babycastles, or just join our online Discord community, no membership required.

Exhibits

I currently have work up in Accumulations.online, curated by Daniel Lichtman for -empyre- soft-skinned space, hosted by the Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell Library.

This summer I presented work in exhibitions for CultureHub NYC, CultureHub LA, Vector Festival / InterAccess gallery, Electronic Literature Organization conference.

Conferences

In the late summer/fall I spoke at:

• Growing Our Networks in Uncertain Times and Places, a conference on alternative internet and community. I presented Xzone, a Do-It-Together platform for online community-making with artist Daniel Lichtman.
• a talk on the history of 1-dimensional procedurally generated dungeons (in games) for Roguelike Celebration. Writing code that then makes things (art, games, stories, music, etc) has become big in my life, as you can see!
• I gave a talk on DIY and Virtual Artist-Run Spaces for Game Engines Beyond Games conference, organized by Abertay University and Parsons/The New School. That link has the video.
• This week I am on a panel Digressions on Expression at The Psychology of Programming Interest Group's 31st Workshop conference. I speak on the afternoon of the 2nd. The conference is free online and I will be talking about exploratory and improvisatory programming.

OpenSource.com

I've written a few articles this year for OpenSource.com. If you like reading about Linux, open source software, alternative internet protocols, and comment threads that enjoy arguing with each other, check it out! In all seriousness, I have transitioned from Mac computers to Linux now, and have tried to transition from startup software to independent developers. For example, for a Photoshop alternative, I use Krita, which I love.

I do this because I don't want to give my money to Apple; I prefer supporting independent and small businesses like this email newsletter system instead of Mailchimp.com and other tech startups; I don't want to use software that locks you in (iTunes, iPhoto); I am against the lack of privacy of most companies' business models; I think they generally contribute to a culture that hurts misrepresented and minority communities; and because it's near-impossible now to use custom and DIY applications and games now under the current and last version of OS X. It's like losing access to zines, paintings and notebooks but in software form. So I have been teaching with and about open-source software for several years now, and this is just an extension of that work.

How I spend my days

I am mostly teaching but also biking, listening to rap, writing down my dreams, making tea, listening to classical, drawing, , cooking, mountain biking secretly in that hidden part of Prospect Park, playing Among Us and Caves of Qud and Cribbage. I used to be active going out to events all the time and helping to organize things; Zoom is sorta working for me, but I've learned to make new routines and am enjoying my time reading, writing, slowing down. I don't use Facebook anymore and am not on twitter much; instead, I am part of a smaller online social network on the fediverse for solarpunk artist-hackers. If that appeals, write to me and I can send you a link to check it out. I don't use Amazon, Netflix, so since I avoid all stores now I've gone back to "not buying stuff" and "reading books," which works well for me! In addition to all this, I am spending a lot of time just talking with my students, skateboarding, and cooking with an instant pot.

That's it for now. Feel free to respond and let me know what you're up to.

P.S. Also: please let me know if you want to be added to my links page!