Processing Community Day @ Pittsburgh takes place on the campuses of CMU and Pitt on the afternoon of Friday, January 25th, and all day Saturday, January 26th. We’ve organized a mix of skills-oriented creative coding workshops (with limited enrollment, at many levels) and free public presentations (open to all).

Friday afternoon features introductory and intermediate-level workshops in creative technology tools, held at the University of Pittsburgh. On Friday evening, we shift to CMU for an all-star panel discussion that considers the topic of curiosity in technology and the arts.

Saturday morning features artist lectures by two leading creative technologists working at the frontier of the arts and machine learning. On Saturday mid-day, join your friends and peers for lunchtime speed presentations by Pittsburgh-based creatives. Saturday afternoon brings more workshops in a wide range of creative technologies. We conclude the conference on Saturday evening with an informal gathering for drinks and dinner.

Registration is required to attend all PCDPGH events.

tools

FRIDAY, January 25

WORKSHOPS at PITT, 2:30 – 3:50pm

Drawing Like a Computer

Programming unplugged! Designed for novices, but fun for everyone, this hands-on workshop introduces the principles of algorithmic thinking using rule-based drawing exercises and social pencil-and-paper games.

Level: Introductory (no programming experience is required).
Instructor(s): Lindsey French, et al.
Location: Frick Fine Arts, Library Reference Room
Time: Friday Jan. 25, 2:30 – 3:50pm

Generating Music & Lyrics with ml5.js

ml5.js is an open-source library which aims to make machine learning approachable for a broad audience of artists, creative coders, and students: a friendly tool for creating intelligent systems in the browser. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to use ml5.js to train and harness LSTMs — a type of deep neural network — in order to generate novel melodies, poetry, and other creative symbol sequences.

Level: Intermediate (participants should have some modest prior programming experience).
Equipment: Computers will be provided.
Instructor: Hannah Davis
Location: Frick Fine Arts, Room FFA-B43
Time: Friday Jan. 25, 2:30 – 3:50pm

WORKSHOPS at PITT, 4:00 – 5:20pm

Introduction to p5.js, through Observational Drawing

p5.js is a free software toolkit developed to make programming easily accessible for artists, designers, students and novices. In this workshop, we’ll learn the basics of p5.js while creating observational drawings from life. (There will be a live model, but no nudity.) Bring your own laptop. Beginners are welcome!

Level: Introductory, but all levels are welcome.
Equipment: Bring your own laptop, please!
Instructor(s): Lindsey French et al.
Location: Frick Fine Arts, Room FFA-B43
Time: Friday Jan. 25, 4:00 – 5.20pm

Topic Modeling with MALLET

“Topic modeling” is a text mining process that uses word co-occurrences to help discover hidden patterns in large collections of texts. This workshop will introduce topic modeling with MALLET, a Java-based software tool for statistical natural language processing. Participants will learn how to create and interpret topic models using MALLET, a common workflow in the Digital Humanities.

Level: Intermediate (participants should have some modest prior scripting or programming experience).
Equipment: Computers will be provided.
Instructor: Tyrica Terry Kapral
Location: Hillman Library, Digital Scholarship Commons, Room G-49
Time: Friday Jan. 25, 4:00 – 5.20pm

PANEL DISCUSSION at CMU, 6:00 – 8:00pm

Curiosity & Unfamiliar Spaces
What does it mean to be curious about unfamiliar spaces? Join this free-ranging discussion where we explore how people create with and contend with seemingly inaccessible languages, vocabularies, scripts, social spaces, and wild spaces. Featuring Nina Barbuto, Marijke Hecht, Darrell Kinsel, and Kyle McDonald, and moderated by Kate Joranson. This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

Location: Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, CFA-111
Time: Friday Jan. 25, 6:00 – 8:00pm

SATURDAY, January 26

ARTIST LECTURES at PITT, 10:00 – 11:50am

On Saturday morning, we present guest lectures by two artists who are pioneering the use of machine learning techniques in the arts.

Kyle McDonald (10:00 – 10:50am, Frick Fine Arts) is an artist working with code. He builds tools that allow artists to use new algorithms in creative ways, and has a habit of sharing ideas and projects in public before they’re completed.

Hannah Davis (11:00 – 11:50am, Frick Fine Arts) is a generative musician and researcher based in NYC. Her algorithmic compositions have been played at the Louvre, the BMW Museum, the Fabrica Alta, and others. She is a contributor to ml5.js, an open-source library for making machine learning approachable by artists, musicians and students.

CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY LUNCHEON & SPEED PRESENTATIONS at CMU, 12:30-2:15pm

Luncheon & Speed Presentations
This is the primary community event for PCDPGH. We’ll gather for a shared luncheon, and for a series of 6-minute lightning talks showcasing recent creative technology projects by your friends, peers, and fellow Pittsburghers. (Vegetarian and vegan options will be available. Attendees must be registered.)
Location: Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, CFA-111
Time: Saturday Jan. 26, 12:30 – 2:15pm

WORKSHOPS at CMU, 2:30 – 3:50pm

Livecoding Shaders with GLSL
GLSL is the OpenGL Shading Language, a C-like programming language that allows you to to code powerful graphics programs (called shaders) directly on your computer’s graphics card. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to “livecode” GLSL shaders — a method of programming in which one’s changes to the code are realized immediately and in real-time. Ideal for audiovisual performance!

Level: Intermediate (participants should have some prior programming experience).
Equipment: Please bring your own laptop.Instructor: Charlotte Stiles
Location: Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, CFA-111
Time: Saturday Jan. 26, 2:30 – 3:50pm

Wick Editor Animation and Programming
The Wick Editor is a free, open-source, browser-based tool for creating games, animations, and everything in-between. Designed to be the most accessible tool for creating multimedia projects, Wick is a hybrid of an animation tool and a coding environment, heavily inspired by similar tools such as Flash, HyperCard, and Scratch. This workshop is ideal for young people (tweens and teens), art students, and middle-school or high-school art teachers.

Level: Introductory.
Equipment: Computers will be provided.
Instructors: Luca Damasco & Zachary Rispoli
Location: CMU Fine Arts Computer Lab, CFA-318
Time: Saturday Jan. 26, 2:30 – 3:50pm

WORKSHOPS at CMU, 4:00 – 5:20pm

Introduction to openFrameworks
openFrameworks (OF) is a free, open-source, cross-platform, toolkit for creative coding in C++. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to get to “Hello World”, and will become familiar with the most popular features of openFrameworks for interactive graphics and high-performance computer vision.

Level: Intermediate (participants should have some programming experience).
Equipment: Please bring your own laptop, with a recent OS.
Instructor: Golan Levin
Location: Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, CFA-111
Time: Saturday Jan. 26, 4:00 – 5:20pm

Programming Interactions with Handsfree.js
Oz Ramos is on a mission to help improve the accessibility of the Internet. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to program new interactions with Handsfree.js, his drop-in library for adding handsfree, head-tracking interfaces to any website, service, and Internet of Things device.

Level: Intermediate (participants should have some prior programming experience).
Equipment: Computers will be provided.
Instructor: Oz Ramos
Location: CMU Fine Arts Computer Lab, CFA-318
Time: Saturday, Jan. 26, 4:00 – 5:20pm

SOCIALIZING at the PORCH, 6pm+

The official events are concluded, but the good times continue. Join us for informal drinks and/or dinner at the Porch restaurant at Schenley Plaza! (We’re going Dutch.)