I've been teaching interactive design and front-end programming for almost 15 years. At its core, I've realized programming is about encoding thought. Encoding means that it can run repeatedly and consistently across time. This thinking can extend outside of literal programming of software and websites, as natural language itself is increasingly becoming a prompting or scripting language. In this workshop, participants will write ultralight, natural language programs. The workshop will start with a brief show and tell with examples (across art movements including Fluxus, Oulipo, Conceptual Art), and then we'll break into small groups to start writing these natural language programs. A beautiful thing about these "ultralight programs" is that they're medium agnostic. They can be encoded in not only software but also material objects (books, ceramics, posters) or conversation itself — any medium possible of holding and transmitting thought.
An example of one ultralight program:
Water Tasting
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Obtain a variety of different bottled waters and cups for sampling
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Show the bottled waters to everyone
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While pouring, have participants close eyes (or incorpoate some method so people don'd know which water they're sampling)
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Record impressions of each water, share, and try to guess the water brands based on tasting alone
