Nick Montfort – Computer Programming for Developing a Better Society
Monday, May 11, 2015 at 6:00 pm to 7:45 pm
Nick Montfort, Associate Professor of Digital Media, MIT; Visiting Researcher and Part-Time Lecturer, The New School
Abstract: Programming is usually thought of in narrow, instrumental ways, as a means of producing commodities in the form of apps and websites. However, it is also used by many to inquire about important questions in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities, and can be used to make arguments about and build consensus on the direction of one’s city and world. In this talk, I make the case for general programming literacy and how this can enhance social and political discourse. This builds on my forthcoming MIT Press book and my Spring 2015 New School course on the same topic.
Video: The Talk
The Speaker
Bio: Nick Montfort develops literary generators and other computational art and poetry, and has participated in dozens of writing collaborations. He is the principal of the naming firm Nomnym, a director of the Electronic Literature Organization, and on the faculty of MIT. Montfort wrote the books of poems #!and Riddle & Bind, co-wrote 2002: A Palindrome Story, and developed more than forty digital projects. The MIT Press has published four of his collaborative and individual books: The New Media Reader, Twisty Little Passages, Racing the Beam, and 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10, with Exploratory Programming for the Arts and Humanities coming soon.
Resources:
http://nickm.com
The Class Responds by Group Number (coming soon)
- Garnet Hertz – Critical Making: Foundations and Processes of Critically Engaged Design Practice - February 9, 2015
- Ben Vershbow – Time Machines, Community Gardens, and Other Metaphors for Libraries
Dragan Espenschied – Understanding the Creation of Artifacts of Digital Culture - February 23, 2015 - Jeanne Liotta – The Real World at Last Becomes a Myth: Ruminations on Art and Science - March 2, 2015