Coding for Non-Coders, Vibe Coders, & Everyone Else

Why even learn to code when generative AI might do it faster or better? What critical and creative skills do we need as artists and citizens in order to engage with code, when so much of what we make and encounter has code underneath?

This basic seminar is part of CODESHIP, a supportive community for critical–creative coding that emphasizes co-learning, co-teaching, tinkering, and works in progress. With a welcoming, non-intimidating approach, the course aims to help you gain comfort with the key concepts of computational thinking and to question those concepts through intersectional lenses. You can launch (or troubleshoot) a code-related dream project, ask ‘silly’ questions, and explore new programming skills suited to your artistic practice.

Together we will explore foundational techniques across programming languages, gaining practice with Rust, Python, and/or Javascript, and you will have the chance to experiment with these and other tools that support your ideas. We will explore how (when, whether) to use AI in your coding practice, as well as better practices of digital care at this pivotal moment of high-risk tech.

We will engage the historical, sociotechnical, and material stakes of computation as we create critical-creative projects that treat code as an artistic material and critical aesthetic form. Drawing on creative and critical examples from crip technoscience, Black computational thought, cyberfeminism, esoteric programming languages, critical data studies, OSINT, '90s tactical media/net art, and more, we will test the limits of our own expectations for what code should be and should do. Along the way, we will have practical workshops, discuss readings, support each others' projects, and eat snacks.

This seminar gives priority to students on foundation courses, but is open to everyone.