Event Details

In this workshop led by media artist, product designer, and computer programmer, Chelsi Cocking, CM 2017, participants explore computational concepts such as encoding and decoding information, rule-based drawing, generative design, and algorithmic expression through the familiar lens of drawing.  

•     Can we teach coding without code?  
•     Can we teach computational thinking through drawing?

 Participants are led through a series of group-based drawing exercises to help them understand computational thinking and see it as a form of expression. Through drawing activities, they understand and gain knowledge of how code works and what computation feels like. 

After each exercise, we walk through example demos of existing computational tools that utilize the methods participants just employed in their drawings. This solidifies the connection between using rule-based methods within art and design and using code and computational thinking for artistic expression and craft. 

Cocking's installation, Photorythms, will be open for interaction from March 29 to April 21 as part of the Tech Arts Festival. The foundation of her practice falls within using code, computing, and media technologies for craft in art and design, particularly within the visual arts and the performing arts. The goal of her research and art is to use computing to aid and enhance human creativity and expression, creating new ways in which we experience art, design, and performance in the world today through technology. Cocking is currently a researcher and graduate student at the MIT Media Lab, where she is studying for her Masters of Science in Media, Arts, and Sciences. She received her Bachelors of Science in Computational Media with highest honors from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2017.

This workshop has been taught at: 

• Festival of Learning (2022), at the MIT Media Lab 
• Between Worlds: How do we learn Art & Design in the Digital Age (2022), at the Bezalel Academy of Art & Design Jerusalem