►
From YouTube: Poetic Computation - GitHub Universe 2020
Description
Presented by Zach Lieberman, Artist, MIT / School for Poetic Computation
In this talk, Zach Lieberman will focus on his artistic practice, his decade-long work with collaborators, investigations into augmented reality, and new tools for drawing and interactive play. He will also explore community building and educational work, introducing projects like openFrameworks and the School for Poetic Computation, an experimental school he helped co-found. Other topics he will cover are recent changes to his artistic practice, such as doing daily sketching and open office hours, and how that has impacted his work and worldview.
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A
Hi,
my
name
is
zach
lieberman,
I'm
an
artist
based
in
new
york,
and
I'm
super
excited
to
be
here
to
be
a
part
of
github
universe
and
talk
to
you
today
about
poetic
computation.
Where,
specifically,
what
I
mean
is
how
can
we
use
code
in
the
service
of
making
art
in
the
service
of
making
poetry,
quick
introduction?
I
used
to
look
like
this.
I
studied
art
I
spent
all
of
my
time
in
the
printmaking
studio.
I
was
really
happy.
A
So
I
applied
for
a
job
and
while
there
I
discovered
a
tool
called
flash
and
usually
I'm
in
a
live,
giving
a
talk
in
a
live
venue
and
I'll
say
who
remembers
flash
and
I
see
a
lot
of
hands
go
up.
Flash
was
this
amazing
tool
where
you
could
do
animation
on
the
web?
You
could
do
keyframes
and
with
the
with
very
simple
you
know,
you
could
make
things
move
and
and
with
very
simple
techniques,
but
the
other
thing
that
flash
allowed
you
to
do
is
write
code.
A
It
allowed
you
to
write
a
line
of
code,
a
single
line
of
code
like
position.x
equals
position.x
plus
one.
Then
the
object
would
move
across
the
screen
and
for
me
there
was
something
so
amazing
about
turning
language
into
movement
and
a
lot
of
my
work
kind
of
continuing
in
this
direction
do
all
kinds
of
projects.
This
is
a
collaboration
between
five
artists
and
a
sixth
artist
named
tempt.
A
We
work
together
as
a
team
tempt,
is
an
old-school
graffiti
artist
from
la
who's,
completely
paralyzed,
and
we
work
together
to
build
an
eye
tracking
system
that
uses
the
movements
of
his
eyes
to
draw
graffiti.
So
here
we're
taking
building
a
tool
to
allow
him
to
draw
graffiti
again.
This
is
a
project
that
we
did
with
toyota,
where
people
they
have.
This
small
car
people
think
you
can't
drive
them
quickly.
A
This
is
a
project
we
did
in
new
zealand,
where
we
took
your
body
as
a
starting
point
and
then
showed
your
body
but
turned
into
a
monster.
You
know
three
or
four
stories
high
a
lot
of
times
the
projects
that
I
do
involve
the
body
in
one
way
or
another.
So,
for
example,
this
is
taking
your
movements
and
then
working
with
my
friend
daito
manabe
when
he's
making
movement
on
his
face,
he's
creating
shapes
and
the
shapes
come
off
and
bounce
down
his
face.
So
the
idea
is
to
kind
of
take.
A
Take
your
you
know
create
almost
a
new
form
of
of
of
mask.
This
is
a
project
called
manual
input
sessions
that
takes
an
overhead
projector,
so
the
kind
of
projector
that
your
math
professor
would
write,
notes
on
and
a
digital
projector
and
combines
them
to
create
a
kind
of
hybrid
light
source
of
both
analog
and
digital.
So
when
you
make
a
shadow
it
fills
in
with
color
and
when
you
let
go,
it
makes
a
sound.
B
A
In
addition
to
making
art,
I'm
also
a
teacher,
I
helped
start
a
school
called
school
for
poetic
computation,
that's
based
in
new
york.
I
also
am
a
professor
at
mit
in
the
media
lab
where
I
run
the
future
sketches
group
and
in
terms
of
teaching
one
of
the
things
that
you
know.
I
think
a
lot
about
is
how
do
I
take
the
things
that
I'm
learning
as
an
artist
and
bring
it
back
into
the
classroom
and
for
me,
open
source
is
a
really
important
part
of
that.
A
That
makes
it
easy
for
you
to
get
started
kind
of
experimenting
with
video
and
audio
and
typography,
and
it
comes
out
of
projects
like
this
message
devotee,
where
we're
with
two
singers,
trying
to
imagine
what
the
voice
would
look
like
and
bringing
those
ideas
back
into
the
classroom
and
oftentimes.
I
think
about
open
source
tools
as
almost
kind
of
building
blocks,
that,
with
some
combination,
you're
taking
all
these
pieces
and
smashing
them
together
and
see
what
happens.
A
One
project
with
made
with
open
firmwares,
which
I
really
love,
is
called
delicate
boundaries
by
the
artist
chrissa
grew
and
what
she's
doing
is
taking.
There
are
these
bugs
on
the
screen
and
when
you
hold
your
hand
up
to
the
screen,
the
bugs
actually
come
off
the
screen
onto
your
hand
and
for
me
there's
something
so
beautiful
about
seeing
artwork
leave
the
screen.
We
always
talk
about
leaving
the
screen,
and
here
when
you
actually
kind
of
come
up
to
the
screen.
A
These
elements
come
off
the
screen
onto
your
hand,
and
you
hold
them
and
to
me,
there's
so
something
so
beautiful
about
this
idea
of
just
making
things
that
leave
the
screen
as
an
artist.
I'm
really
passionate
about
drawing
my
background
is
in
fine
arts,
and
I
constantly
struggle
with
the
idea
that
drawing
on
a
computer
just
doesn't
feel
like
drawing
on
paper
right
if
you've
ever
had
that
experience
of
kind
of
drawing
with
ink
or
with
pencil,
and
then
you
go
to
use
photoshop.
A
A
And
what
I
love
about,
making
these
kinds
of
tools
when
you
put
them
on
in
the
world,
you
can
see
all
of
these
beautiful
things
that
people
do
with
them,
so
sometimes
very
like
silly
childish
things,
but,
for
example,
this
woman
in
south
korea
drew
this
bird
and
for
me
it
was
so
beautiful.
I
had
no
idea
how
she
could
do
something
like
this
and
just
to
see
that
you
can
take
you
build
a
tool.
A
You
see
all
these
kind
of
amazing
things
that
people
do
with
it,
or
this
is
a
project
that
we
did
with
with
google
and
google
came
to
us,
and
they
said
you
know
we
have
all
these
beautiful
satellite
photographs
from
around
the
world.
What
are
interesting
ways
of
interacting
with
them,
and
we
designed
a
tool
where
you
draw
so
it's
a
website
and
when
you
draw
a
line,
it'll
find
that
line
from
somewhere
in
the
world
or
if
you
draw
a
curve,
it'll
find
that
curve.
A
If
you
draw
a
straight
line,
it'll
find
that
straight
line.
If
you
draw
an
angle,
it'll
find
the
angle,
and
the
whole
idea
is
to
build
this
very
intuitive
interface
that
uses
your
gesture
and
your
expression
and
connects
you
with
photographs
from
around
the
world
and
projects
like
this.
They
they
have
this.
You
know
pretty
front
end
but
they're
built
on
software.
A
The
last
drawing
project
that
I
want
to
talk
about
is
called
reflection
studies
and
it's
inspired
by
this
co
student
that
I
had
named
yuki
yoshida,
who
was
making
a
booklet
for
his
final
project.
He
wanted
to
collect
all
of
the
various
algorithms
that
you
can
use
to
tell
a
computer
to
draw
a
circle.
A
So
it's
actually
not
that
simple
to
draw
a
circle,
there's
a
lot
of
like
different
code,
different
ways
of
writing
it
and
I
thought
of
a
way-
and
I
told
him
and
then
I
coded
it-
to
show
him
and
the
general
idea.
Is
you
start
with
a
rectangle
the
boundary
and
you
pick
a
random
side.
So
one
of
four
sides-
and
you
pick
a
random
point
along
one
of
those
four
sides
and
you
connect
it
to
a
random
point
along
one
of
the
three
other
sides.
A
So
now
you
have
a
line
and
if
that
line
doesn't
intersect
the
circle
you
draw
it,
but
if
it
does
intersect
the
circle,
you
don't
draw
it
so,
in
a
way,
it's
a
form
of
drawing
by
absence
you're
only
drawing
what
is
not
a
circle
and
the
more
lines
you
draw,
the
closer
you
get
to
approximating
a
circle,
and
I
got
so
excited
about
this
idea
that
I
tried
the
word
love.
I
tried
a
smiley
face
and
then
I
was
thinking.
A
One
of
those
lines
were
like
rays
of
light,
what
if
they
could
actually
bounce,
and
then
you
could
see
more
detail
and
more
form.
So,
for
example,
this
is
doing
reflection
and
bouncing
rays
of
light.
On
top
of
the
word
love,
this
is
refracting.
So
what
if
the
light
bends
as
it
hits
the
walls
and
when
I
make
these
sketches
oftentimes,
they
find
their
way
into
interactive
work.
A
A
A
lot
of
projects
that
I
do
involve
the
body
in
one
way
or
another.
So
in
specifically,
the
field
that
I'm
really
passionate
about
is
human,
pose
estimation.
How
can
you
understand
where
a
body
is
in
space
and
then
we
can
take
that
data
and
use
it
to
drive
animation,
to
drive
art
and
design
and
in
general,
you
think
about
this,
almost
as
a
kind
of
trying
to
find
a
skeleton.
So,
given
a
given
like
a
picture
of
a
person,
where
are
the
elbows?
Where
are
the
wrists?
Where
are
the
hips?
A
A
This
is
taking
a
dancer
on
the
street
and
just
trying
to
understand
her
contour
and
the
velocity
of
her
contour
and
and
draw
it
and
kind
of
an
interesting
way
or
create
a
situation
where
she
could
paint
with
her
body
and
it's
her
movement
that
brings
the
city
to
life
through
through
her
gestures
and
I'm
really
interested
in
the
body
as
a
starting
point.
So
specifically,
what
happens?
If
you
take
the
body
and
rotate
it
and
revolve
it?
Do
you
still
see
a
person?
A
What
would
it
look
like
to
connect
things
to
the
body
or
even
just
take
like
a
circle
and
draw
around
the
body
and
see
what
it
feels
like?
Do
you
still
see
a
person
there?
Do
you
still
see
a
human
form?
This
is
a
project
that
I
did
with
the
new
york
times
where
we
for
this
article,
we
interviewed
hundreds
of
addicts
and
asked
them.
A
You
know
what
what
did
their
body
feel
like
when
they
went
through
addiction,
and
then
we
commissioned
a
dancer
to
dance
the
those
responses,
so
she
interpreted
the
language
that
these
addicts
were
telling
us
and
she
dances
it
out
and
to
me,
there's
something
really
amazing
about
the
movements
we
wrote
software
to
track
the
body.
You
know
to
get
control
to
track
the
data
points
and
then
try
to
figure
out
what
is
the
visual
language
that
we
could
use
to
really
show
what
what
the
body
feels
like
when
you
go
through
addiction.
A
So
the
way
this
article
works
is
that
when
you
scroll
through
it,
there
are
these
visuals
that
we've
created.
So,
for
example,
this
is
gateway
where
you
see
what
the
bot
you
know.
This
is
what
you
feel
like
when
you
start
to
take
the
drug
and
tolerance
when
your
body
builds
up
a
kind
of
tolerance
for
the
drug.
A
Relapse,
which
is
what
you
feel
when
you
start
taking
the
drug
again
and
finally,
recovery,
which
is
what
you
feel
like
when
you've
gone
through
this
and
you
start
to
feel
your
body
come
back
to
itself
and
the
most
beautiful
part
of
this
project
is
at
the
end.
There
was
a
forum
where
we
asked
people
to
tell
their
own
story,
and
we
collected
hundreds
of
more
stories
of
former
addicts
and
just
loved
the
idea
that
this
project
sort
of
started
with
conversation
and
leads
to
more
conversation.
A
It's
really
easy
to
make
out
a
face
and
there's
also
a
concept
of
periodia
seeing
faces
and
things
there's
a
museum
in
japan
of
rocks
that
look
like
faces.
I
really
want
to
go
and
I
want
to
go
see
the
rock
that
looks
like
elvis.
That's
like
super
my
dream
to
go
in
the
future
and
in
general
like
what
does
it
mean?
What
does
mass
mean
in
culture?
What
is
it?
A
What
does
it
signify
that
we
wear
mass
and
what
are
we
celebrating
and
and
when
we
worked
on
this
project
we
were
going
to
downtown
and
every
time
we
went,
we
would
do
workshops
with
local
school
children
and
for
me
there
was
something
so
amazing
about
hanging
out
with
school
children
and
making
masks.
We
laser
cut
all
of
these
pieces
of
cardboard.
We
we
geeked
out,
we
made
masks
together
and
then
those
ideas
informed
our
software.
So
we
took
those
ideas.
We
wrote
software,
we
were
using
a
tool
called
paper.js.
A
This
is
a
really
beautiful,
javascript
framework
for
doing
kind
of
beautiful
animation
in
canvas,
and
we
created
these
forms
that
are
very
simple
that
are
just
based
on
kind
of
this
simple
graphical
ways
of
representing
the
face
and
the
way
this
project
works.
Is
you
approach
it?
It's
almost
like
a
living
poster
when
it
finds
your
face
it
zooms
in
then
your
your
face
becomes
a
kind
of
backdrop
for
a
living
poster
that
there's
graphics.
A
A
A
The
last
thing
I
want
to
talk
about
and
then
I'll
talk
about
school
for
teaching
for
a
little
bit
is
space
so
specifically
augmented
reality.
What
does
it
mean
that
we
can
know
where
a
device
is
in
3d
to
me?
That's
so
beautiful
to
think
of
a
camera
in
space,
a
screen
in
space,
a
speaker
in
space
and
a
microphone
in
space.
I
think
there
are
all
kinds
of
beautiful
interactions
that
we
can
create
with
that.
So,
for
example,
this
is
taking
photographs
and
the
photographs
stay
in
the
air
where
you
took
them.
A
So
with
your
body
you're
almost
like
the
playhead
for
the
video
and
you
go
back
and
forth
and
control
the
speed
of
the
video
through
your
movements.
This
is
taking
photographs
and
exploding
them
in
3d.
So
there's
one
vantage
point
where
the
image
looks
correct.
But
if
you
move
it
starts
to
become
kind
of
like
a
cubist
composition.
A
This
is
a
slit
scan
technique
where
you're
taking
the
colors,
the
pixels
that
are
in
front
of
you
and
painting
with
them
them
with
the
air.
So
almost
taking
elements
from
the
world
and
bringing
it
back
into
the
world
having
a
conversation
with
the
world
through
through
the
system
or
taking
photographs
and
pushing
them.
A
And
my
partner
momoko
and
I
have
been
developing
different
apps
like
we
have
an
app
called
weird
type.
This
is
an
app
called
weird
cuts
where
it's
you
can
it's
like
taking
collage,
you
take
elements
from
around
the
world
and
you
can
put
them
back
in
the
world
in
3d.
So
it's
a
kind
of
mechanism
for
capturing
and
collecting
and
making
augmented
reality,
and
we
use
it
in
all
kinds
of
ways.
A
We
make
funky
portraits
a
lot
of
times
in
the
studio,
we're
doing
things
like
taking
photographs
of
our
eyes
and
nose
and
making
kind
of
unique
portraits,
and
I
love
when
you
put
out
tools
seeing
what
people
do
with
them.
So,
for
example,
this
is
a
sandwich
where
somebody
took
all
the
elements
of
the
sandwich
and
put
them.
You
know
in
in
3d,
like
exploded
them
out
in
3d
and
we're
doing
a
lot
of
experiments
with
the
body
so
trying
to
understand
what
does
it
mean
to
have
the
body
in
space?
A
So
it
feels
like
you
can
create
almost
new
forms
of
portraiture
with
augmented
reality
and
also
understanding
kind
of
where
the
human
form
is
or
taking
the
body
and
cutting
it
into
pieces.
And
then,
as
you
move,
you
can
leave
a
trail
and
the
trail
sort
of
hovers
in
the
air
where
you
were,
or
even
doing
things
like:
recording
sequences
of
movement
and
looping
them
so
you're,
creating
almost
a
kind
of
like
like
a
playback
or
a
like
an
animation
system
with
the
world.
A
It's
very
trippy,
it's
very
hard
to
understand
or
doing
things
like
taking
the
body
and
understanding
taking
your
gestures
and
you're
kind
of
weaving
and
creating
3d
forms
with
your
hand,
movements
you
know,
taking
the
body
as
a
almost
a
kind
of
vehicle
or
instrument
for
painting
here's
similar
painting,
but
now,
like
a
chrome
shape
and
as
you
move
your
hand,
you
make
this
kind
of
chrome
form
and
my
studio
mates
are
very
patient
with
me.
I'm
constantly
running
around
filming
trying
to
make
figure
out
something
that
looks
cool
and
saying
like.
A
Oh,
what
if
you
we
filmed
you
from
behind
and
you
moved
and
we
made
a
tunnel
and
like
what
would
it
look
like
in
the
tunnel
and
just
experimenting
experimenting
experimenting
in
the
studio
every
day
and
finally,
most
people
think
about
augmented
reality
as
adding
a
layer
onto
the
world,
but
I
also
think
it's
really
beautiful
to
think
about
removing
things
from
the
world.
So
here
we're
trying
to
remove
a
person,
and
I
think
this
is
really
beautiful.
A
This
idea
of
you
know
through
software,
what
can
we
do
and
how
can
we
understand
privacy
most
software
is
about
trying
to
you,
know,
understand
the
body
and
to
and
to
yeah,
understand,
yeah
and
and
surveil,
and
I
think
there's
something
really
beautiful
about
kind
of
taking
those
technologies
and
thinking
about
how
can
we
build
tools
to
make
people
anonymous
to
to
hide
people
or
abstract
them?
So
we
can
tell
a
different
story.
We
can
tell
a
different
story
about
our
bodies
and
and
them
in
the
world.
A
A
We
do
a
lot
of
cooking
and
eating
and
I
teach
a
class
there,
which
is
called
recreating
the
past
and
it's
inspired
by
this
book
by
osama
sato
osama
sato
is
a
japanese
designer
and
I'm
going
to
share
this
book
with
hit
with
you.
He
made
a
book
in
the
90s
which
I
really
love.
I
realize
this
is
not
professional,
but
I
love
just
sharing
random
stuff.
In
my
talks,
this
is
a
an
amazing
book,
the
art
of
computer,
designing
from
the
early
90s,
and
I
love
the
aesthetics
in
this
book.
A
It's
all
about
how
you
can
use
the
computer
and
all
these
different
kind
of
yeah
techniques
of
rotation
and
symmetry
and
using
them
for
making
art
using
them
for
drawing,
and
I
fell
in
love
with
this
book.
I
read
it
cover
to
cover.
I
got
so
excited
about
all
of
the
visual
ideas
in
this
book
and
then
at
the
end
of
the
book
he's
his
book
gets
crazier
and
crazier
and
at
the
end
of
the
book,
he's
thanking
people
and
he
said
in
the
afterward
he's
thanking
people.
A
I
said
I
would
like
to
acknowledge
my
favorites
russian
avant-garde,
futurism
and
bauhaus,
whose
brilliant,
typefaces
and
designs
have
in
many
ways
shaped
my
own
mind.
If
the
artists
of
those
movements
were
alive
now
to
work
with
computers,
I'm
certain
they
would
discover
new
artistic
possibilities.
A
The
work
of
past
ages
accumulates
and
is
remade
again,
and
I
think
this
sentence
is
so
important.
The
work
of
past
ages
accumulates
and
is
remade
again,
and
I
think
this
sentence
is
really
powerful
because
it
suggests
that
the
past
is
there
for
us
to
engage
with
and
for
students.
I
think
in
particular
it's
a
gift
to
say
that
you
can
you
you
can
recreate
the
past.
You
can
have
a
conversation
with
the
past,
but
also
it's
a
gift.
A
They
have
a
conversation
with
it,
they
reverse
engineer
it
and
they
recode
it
using
modern
tools
and
we
were
invited
to
show
our
work
at
a
festival
and
we
suggested
showing
the
code
and
the
visual
side
by
side.
So
most
times
when
you
see
artwork
that's
created
with
code,
you
only
see
the
output,
you
only
see
the
visuals,
you
never
see
the
underlying
code
or
when
you
go
to
a
website
you
can
say
view
source,
but
you
never
really
see
the
language.
A
The
thing
that
makes
the
thing
we
wanted
to
show
these
at
the
same
time
to
make
them
equals
so
for
this
exhibit
we
set
up
led
screens
where
we
have
text
and
visual
side
by
side
and
what
you
see
on
these
screens
are
homeworks
that
my
students
made,
and
we
also
made
a
zine.
So
you
could
learn
about
these
artists,
so
you
could
see
the
homework,
but
then
you
could
also
through
the
z
and
learn
about
who,
who
are
the
artists
that
inspired
this
work.
A
And
you
can
even
see
these
moments
where
you
see
the
the
text,
the
numbers
change
in
the
code
and
you
can
see
a
corresponding
change
in
the
visual
and
the
whole
idea
is
to,
even
if
for
people
who
don't
know
coding
for
them
to
feel
this
relationship
between
language
and
form
for
them
to
feel
the
poetry
of
text.
Turning
into
visuals,
that's
what
we
were
trying
to
do
with
this
with
this
installation
and
the
last.
The
last
thing
I
want
to
say
is
it's
obviously
a
really
strange
time.
You
know
it.
A
I
I'm
speaking
to
you
virtually
we're
in
a
virtual
conference,
we're
all
going
through
this
covid
situation.
You
know
in
together
and
I
was
walking
down
the
street.
You
know
a
while
ago-
and
I
saw
this
graffiti
on
a
building
in
brooklyn
where
I
live,
and
somebody
wrote
written
the
word
coven
19,
and
I
thought
this
was
so
terrible.
It
was
like
being
in
a
really
cheap
science
fiction
movie,
where
there's
graffiti
on
the
wall,
to
tell
you
to
kind
of,
I
don't
know,
give
you
environmental
graphics,
so
you
understand.
A
What's
going
on
or
like
a
video
game,
I
just
felt
it
was
so
stupid
that
somebody
had
written
coven
19.
and
I
was
walking
down
the
street
the
other
day
and
somebody
had
crossed
all
that
out
and
written.
The
word
hope,
and
that
gave
me
a
lot
of
hope
and
I
hope
it
does
for
you
as
well.
I
just
want
to
say
thank
you.
It's
been
really
my
pleasure
and
honor
to
be
speaking
to
you
today
excited
that
you're
taking
part
in
this
conference
and
yeah
happy
to
answer
any
questions.