Boston Tech Poetics

A creative tech community in the Greater Boston Area

Join our Google Group or Follow our Facebook Page
Next Meeting Tuesday, February 6th 6:00pm - 8:30PM MIT Black Box Theatre 345 Vassar St, Cambridge MA Feb 2024 Flyer

Upcoming Boston Tech Poetics

This event's topic: Boston Tech Poetics is hosting our next meetup at MIT

Bring your projects!

Past Events

1/16/2024 - Tech Poetics & Brown/RISD Idea Exchange

An idea exchange between Boston Tech Poetics and graduate students from Brown & RISD.


12/05/2023 - Tech Poetics Show & Tell

Everyone is encouraged to share their latest projects with the Boston Tech Poetics scene.


10/3/2023 - Tech Poetics Show & Tell & Talk

Tech Poetics Show & Tell & Talk


9/5/2023 - Tech Poetics Show & Tell

Tech Poetics Social Hour and Show & Tell

Come out on 9/5 to catch us up on what you've been working on! Bring a laptop or anything else that helps you share you work.


6/25/2023 - Tech Poetics Show & Tell

Tech Poetics Social Hour and Show & Tell

Come out on 6/25 to catch us up on what you've been working on! Bring a laptop or anything else that helps you share you work.


10/16/2019 - Tech Poetics Lightning Talks

Tech Poetics Social Hour and Show & Tell

Come out on 5/1 to catch us up on what you've been working on for the last 2 years :) Bring a laptop or anything else that helps you share you work. We have a backup location outside should we need to meet outside instead due to increased covid precautions. Check back here before the event for the latest information.


8/7/2019 - Can Büyükberber and Daniel Sabio

Can Büyükberber

canbuyukberber.com

Can Büyükberber is a visual artist working on immersive audiovisual experiences blurring boundries between physical and digital spaces. His practice consists of experiments with virtual/augmented reality, projection mapping, geodesic domes, large-scale displays and digital fabrication. Driven by an interdisciplinary thinking which extends to art, design and science, his work focuses on human perception, exploring new methods for non-linear narratives and emergent forms.

Daniel Sabio

thegladscientist.info

The Glad Scientist is the pseudonym of Puerto Rican new media artist Daniel Sabio. His creations are constellations of the joyful augmentation of humanness through technology, ranging from live VR/AV performances to computer vision and EEG art installations. Thematically, science fiction and a criticality towards technology remain prevalent, often posing questions on what it means to be human in the exaggerated futures that await.


2/28/2019 - Zach Lieberman and Caitlin Morris

Zach Lieberman

zachlieberman.tictail.com

Zach Lieberman is an artist, researcher and educator with a simple goal: he wants you surprised. In his work, he creates performances and installations that take human gesture as input and amplify them in different ways -- making drawings come to life, imagining what the voice might look like if we could see it, transforming peoples silhouettes into music. He's been listed as one of Fast Company's Most Creative People and his projects have won the Golden Nica from Ars Electronica, Interactive Design of the Year from Design Museum London as well as listed in Time Magazine's Best Inventions of the Year. He creates artwork through writing software and is a co-creator of openFrameworks, an open source C++ toolkit for creative coding and helped co-found the School for Poetic Computation, a school examining the lyrical possibilities of code.

Caitlin Morris

caitlinmorris.net

Caitlin is a designer and researcher, focused on perception, sensation, and the human-environment relationship. Her work ranges from explorations in physical space, taking the form of large-scale sculptures designed to bring unexpected phenomena into the built environment, to human-scale research around cognition and perception. She’s excited about moments where surprising modalities in perception emerge out of symbiosis between an individual and their surroundings.


10/3/2018 - Nick Chelyapov & Rosie Weinberg

Nick Chelyapov

nickolaspeter.com

After art school, Nick fell into entertainment advertising. And that was fun at first, then soul sucking. After moving to Cambridge, he started a series of art shows called Curious Sound Objects, and is now making music toys so everyone can enjoy the fun of playing music together. He also gets to make ads for something he really loves.

Rosie Weinberg

leahrosaweinberg.com

Rosa Weinberg is a licensed architect. Since 2014, she has taught design full-time at NuVu Studio in Central Square. More than half of the almost fifty studios she has taught relate to designing for the body through topics such as assistive devices, speculative prosthetics, fashion and dance. When she worked as an architect, the building sites she designed for were flat planes--the ground. Her current work is affixed to the body: a contoured, fleshy, expanding, contracting site that is in motion. Her latest projects are focused on this site of attachment.


7/10/2018 - Ben Houge & Andrew Blanton

Ben Houge

benhouge.com

Ben Houge is an internationally active American artist operating at the nexus of music composition, gastronomy, video games, performance, sound installation, and digital art. In addition to his art practice, he has been working in the game industry since 1996, and teaches music technology in the Electronic Production and Design department at Berklee College of Music. During this talk, Ben will share the results of a recent 'food opera' involving sensors integrated into plates and music scored to a meal.

Andrew Blanton

andrewblanton.com

Andrew Blanton is Assistant Professor and Area Coordinator of the CADRE Media Labs at San Jose State University and Visiting Researcher at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies at the University of California Berkeley. His work has been performed and presented around the world in venues such as Google Cultural Lab in Paris, The University of Brasilia, The City University of Hong Kong, STEIM Amsterdam, and the Dallas Museum of Contemporary Art among many others. His current work focuses on the emergent potential between cross-disciplinary arts and technology in the context of New Media Art, building sound and visual environments through software development. Andrew has advanced expertise in percussion, creative software development, and developing projects in the confluence of art and science.


5/2/2018 - May Tech Poetics Meetup

On Wednesday May 2nd we'll be gathering at WeWork to meet IRL and give everyone an opportunity to introduce themselves to the community and discuss their work and interests. if you've never been to a Tech Poetics event before, this will be a great opportunity to make connections with other folks interested in technology and art. If you've attended our events before, come shake off your Winter blues and see some friendly faces! Pizza provided by us and beer provided by WeWork. Thanks WeWork!


1/31/2018 - Miriam Simun & Gillian Smith

Miriam Simun

miriamsimun.com

Miriam Simun is an artist whose work spans video, sculpture, scent, food, writing, public performance and numerous other disciplines. Often based in ethnographic, historical and scientific research, her work has been called “Performance as Research/Research as Performance.” Among her chief concerns are are attending to sensorial, embodied forms of knowledge; exploring the messy complexities and contradictory poetics residing at the intersection of Nature/Culture/Power; and developing the means to imagine alternate futures.

Gillian Smith

sokath.com

Dr. Smith's research interests are in computational creativity, game design, computer science education, and the intersection of traditional crafts and computation. Her interdisciplinary work merges technical research in AI and HCI with creative practice in textiles and games, with a view towards addressing social issues and broadening participation and perspectives on computing.


10/26/2017 - Sara Hendren

Sara Hendren

https://ablersite.org/

Some bodies do some things, and others do others. Prosthetics, bodily capacity, expanded engineering and creative research, flexible adaptation, possible futures, interdependence, collaborative design, inclusive systems, productive uncertainty, and critical making—these things drive my work. At this talk, I want to explore ways to expand work on disability and technology into some newer uncharted territory.


9/14/2017 - Theo Watson of Design I/O

Theo Watson

http://design-io.com/

Theo has had a profound impact on the creative tech scene through his work on openFrameworks and his co-founding of the Cambridge-based creative studio, Design I/O.


2/2/2017 - Brian Kane

Brian Kane

http://briankane.net/

Brian Kane was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1965 and currently lives and works in Cambridge, MA. He received a BFA in Painting from RISD in 1987, where he also teaches. His sculpture, interactive, and video work has shown in many museum and gallery exhibitions, and Kane’s pioneering real time video sampling techniques was influential to a generation of media artists. He was a founding member of the video art group EBN, and a primary collaborator with RadioValve.com and Amorphic Robot Works.


12/14/2016 - NAPA & Stefania Druga

New American Public Art

http://www.newamericanpublicart.com/

New American Public Art is changing the way public art is created, enjoyed, and critiqued. Drawing on sociology, urban design, and user experience, NAPA combines open source technology and industrial materials to create robust and responsive installations. The outdoor public realm is a harsh environment in many ways. Learn how NAPA uses code, engineering, and modern fabrication techniques to bring ideas off the table and into the streets.

Stefania Druga

Stefania on Hackidemia


11/19/2016 - Tech Poetics & Hacking Arts Tech Expo


9/22/2016 - Wonyoung So & Nan-Wei Gong

Wonyoung So

http://wonyoung.so/

Wonyoung So is a data visualization designer that specializes in combining computational analysis and narratives, in particular, network visualization and mapping the invisible. Wonyoung is also interested in developing (creative) systems. He is a data visualization specialist at SENSEable City Laboratory at MIT and his work has been recognized and exhibited by Adobe and Lift Conference, among others.

Nan-Wei Gong

nanweigong.com

Dr. Nan-Wei Gong is the founder and CEO of Circular2, and a research affiliate of the MIT Media Lab. Her primary research interest is in digital interfaces that seamlessly integrate into everyday objects. Her past work includes flexible and customizable printed sensing surfaces for gestural control, time-of-flight modules for 3D gesture tracking, and wearable sensing for dynamic management of ubiquitous media. At MIT, Nan-Wei was an Energy Fellow, and has extensive experience developing low-power sensing systems and wearable electronics. She holds a PhD and MS degree in Media Arts and Sciences from the MIT Media Lab, where she worked in the Responsive Environments Group under Prof. Joseph A. Paradiso.


8/12/2016 - Boston Tech Poetics Retreat

First Annual Boston Tech Poetics Retreat

In August, Boston Tech Poetics invited 16 artists and creators to Ringe, NH to unplug and explore some of the topics covered in prior tech poetics meetings in a natural surrounding. Three workshops were held focused on the topic of 'Digital to Analog'. Kawandeep Virdee led a workshop on pattern drawing in nature. Adam Ribaudo led a workshop on digital music production with analog instruments. Rosa Weinberg and Sadiya Akasha led a workshop on programming with human looms.


5/19/2016 - Kawandeep Virdee & Rosa Weinberg/Laura Zittrain

Kawandeep Virdee

http://whichlight.com/

Kawandeep moved from the html canvas to the IRL canvas for a recent set of large scale drawings, currently on view at OPEN in the Active Fields show. The drawings are inspired by minimal computer art and geometric repetition. He'll share some background on the development of the show, and give a tour of the works- highlighting aspects of the transition from digital to physical works, as well as themes and suprises that arose in the series of large-scale pattern paintings.

Laura Zittrain

http://Laura.land

Rosa Weinberg

http://LeahRosaWeinberg.com

Laura and Rosa are collaborators whose practice explores the embodied senses, perception, and calm technologies. Their latest project, the Stethosuit, is a wearable bodice that acts as a sonic portal between the inner universe of our bodies and the outer universe of the cosmos. The bleeps, bloops, and rhythms of our breath, stomach, and heart synchronize with the bleeps, bloops, and beats of pulsars, flares, and orbits. Rosa is a maker, educator, and architect who teaches at NuVu and maintains a private label piñata service. Laura is a designer and independent curator who also runs a personal styling practice, Hack the Dress Code.


4/27/2016 - Amedeo Mapelli & Ani Liu

Amedeo Mapelli

http://simmetri.com

Amedeo is a Boston based software engineer and the creator of Simmetri, an engine and application designed for creating interactive art and 3D experiences for screens, projections and virtual reality. His talk will comprise of an intro followed by a live demo where we'll build an interactive show together (with suggestions welcomed!) to see how its editing environment works.

Ani Liu

http://www.ani-liu.com/

Ani is an artist, designer, and speculative technologist currently conducting research in the Design Fiction group at MIT Media Lab. Her work deals with the intersection between technology, the mediated body, culture & the sensorium. Through engineering 'cultural prosthetics,' Ani's work employs the language and tools of design to pose questions, reveal embedded assumptions about our world, and to inspire us to imagine possible futures.


3/24/2016 - Victoria Shen & Nick Chelyapov

Victoria Shen

http://www.evicshen.com

Victoria is a Somerville-based multimedia artist and musician whose work is positioned at the intersection of art history, pop culture, and identity politics. She constructs interactive video/sound installations which layer and saturate appropriated media to produce new critical readings. Through a process of visual exaggeration and effacement, her video work holds up a mirror to the absurd side of images we consume. Shen's talk will discuss the strained yet harmonious relationship between art and technology within her own practice and the way technology reproduces our sexual and violent fantasies.

Nick Chelyapov

http://www.curioussoundobjects.com

Nick is the founder of Curious Sound Objects, an outlet for the various interactive sound forms coming out of Cambridge and Somerville in Massachusetts. Nick will present about the objects he's constructed as well as the community he's created.


2/25/2016 - Joelle Bitton & Matt Tytel

Joelle Bitton

http://joelle.superficiel.org/

Joelle is an artist, designer and HCI researcher, currently enrolled as a DDes candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. For her presentation, 'Living in the Material World', she has this to say. 'I look at personal data and digital fabrication and I see creative opportunities arising. I’m proposing to use human-based data as parameters for CNC-machining. Twipology and Rabota are two recent projects that suggest that digital fabrication can be unprecise, slow, non-linear but... on purpose. Overall, the point is to establish a daily relationship with technology that is intimate and disruptive at the same time.'

Matthew Tytel

http://tytel.org

Matt is a music and virtual reality software developer. He is a former Leap Motion employee where he created interactive physics toys ranging from centipedes, to pluckable flowers. In his presentation titled 'Playful Physics Toys - in 3D!', Matt will go through the long term process of developing interactive physical objects that started with simple blocks and ended with constructing dance robots.


1/20/2016 - Eitan Mendelowitz & Saba Ghole

Eitan Mendelowitz

http://www.eitanm.com/

Eitan is an Assistant Professor of Computing and the Arts at Smith College where his creative research and art production inform his teaching of algorithmic art and computer science. As a recent transplant to the Boston area, I'm excited to introduce him to the community. Eitan will be giving us a tour of his work with 'Lessons learned in 18 years of creating interactive installations'.

Saba Ghole

Pulse & Bloom

Saba is an artist, designer and entrepreneur. Her latest project, Pulse and Bloom, is an interactive and social art installation that visualizes participants’ heartbeats, and invites people to share and sync their heartbeats in a rhythmic pattern. Pulse and Bloom is one of the largest biofeedback installations of its kind, allowing a group of 40 people to visualize their heartbeats simultaneously. Pulse and Bloom received the Burning Man Honorarium Art Grant in 2014. After its premier at the Burning Man Festival in Black Rock City, Nevada, Pulse and Bloom began a world tour, bringing the installation to festivals and galleries across three continents. In her talk, Saba will discuss the process of designing and building an interactive art piece of this nature, and the multidisciplinary team that spans across multiple cities (Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Bangalore, and London).


12/17/2015 - Jonathan Bobrow & Dana Busch

Jonathan Bobrow

Automatiles

Jonathan Bobrow is a research assistant at the MIT Media Lab's Playful Systems Group. He's the mind behind Automatiles and will be speaking about Systems Tinkering. 'The spaces with which we think are largely shaped by the tools and toys we are exposed to or the kind of coordinate systems we play in. We will explore my work and process of inventing new ways of playing with alternate geometries and complex systems, and the happy accidents that have guided my design and development along the way.'

Dana Busch

Dana Busch's work focuses on sustainability, urban planning, public health, and community/design partnerships. Her most recent collaboration, Tidraphone, was on display in Fort Point through the Fall. Dana will be talking about the concept, the process, and what it's like to work with the City of Boston on a semi-permanent interactive piece on a public bridge over Coast Guard waters.


10/28/2015 - 3rd Annual Demo Night

3rd Annual Boston Tech Poetics Demo Night

In October, we held our 3rd annual demo night at the Piper auditorium in Harvard's Graduate School of Design. We had a strong showing of about 25 artists and makers who presented their work to about 150 attendees.


7/29/2015 - Eyeo & OpenVis Conf Recaps

OpenVis Conf

In July we heard presentations from Irene Ros talking about her work with Open Vis Conf as well as Sands Fish, Emily Garfield, Kawandeep Virdee and others talking about their Eyeo 2015 stories.