In April 2023 I facilitated a course on Cellular Automata at School for Poetic Computation. It was a dream becoming true and there are some people who were really fundamental for this to happen.
Thank you!
I think Zach was the best teacher I ever had. It's not like the other teachers were bad but Zach was such a incredible role model, knowledgeable and compentent at something I *really* wanted to learn that it blew my mind when I got the invitation to be his teacher assistantthe. I still think co-teaching Reacreating the Past was the coolest thing I have ever done.
One day I want to be that teacher for someone too.
It was also during Recreating the Past, taught by Zach, that I made the cover for this course and crystalized my interest on cellular automata.
Max was Teacher Assistant from Recreating the Past at School for Poetic Computation. I remember talking about Mindstorms on an office hour and just having a great time hanging out.
During and after the course, Max opened my eyes to amazing people, books, games, ideas... Lauren Schmidt, Thais, Lu, Dave Ackley, Digital Alchemy, Vehicles, <3
Pretty much every other item on this list came after a conversation with Max!
Sandpond saga was really where I understood spatial programming. Lu is a fantastic person. They run the coolest Discord servers that I participate and introduced me to toad loving cult, that I gladly joined.
It always amazes me that color code appears on some of their youtube videos. I learned how to make nice sand on color code because of one of their videos.
When I was attending sfpc for recreating the past, the best video I watched was the one about random number generators. It completely blew my mind the interactive animations. And the explanation was so good!
Later his work influenced my thinking about computers: Indefinitelly scalable computation, living computation, computer tiles and the hope that we can think about computers and computation differently.
When I saw my name coming out of Dave Ackley as "a new player has entered the room" because of color code, wow, that was very flattering!
I have read over and over, in total awe, the SPLAT and the cell membrane article he wrote. Through chat I also learned more about the many people and threads weaving his work and learned from all of them.
I remember once I told him joking I wanted to make a computer that was also a samba shaker and he sent me an youtube link that could be one way to *actually* do it.
When I was taking the Recreating the Past course, there were some homework I didn't enjoy so much, mostly because of ethical implications. I hated the white man. The theme was very interesting, though: The body. So my homework was a zine that used stretching poses as symbols for a mindfuck program. Zach showed me compudanzas as reference! It was just too perfect!
Colouring computers was also fundamental on my understanding of how things work and how could be different at the same time!
The first article I read that I felt really framed the question of English centered computation was first chapter of Decolonizing the Digital, by Ramses. In my search of a programming language without words, this article was a very important reminder that even abstracted from words there is still cultural bias.
I think I understood what I wanted to do with my life watching an YouTube video of Jay talking about invention literacy. It was such an honor to learn from him as we worked together. Much of the tangible and tactile aspects of this course comes from his idea of a "world as a construction kit". He also introduced me to Bluey!
For being such a loving supporter and for all the exchange that shaped not only this course but my life.
<3