teaching

"It is impossible to work with information technology without also engaging in social engineering." — Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget, 2010

My interest in the intersection of art and technology arose in critical response to the fragmentation and alienation that pervades the digital age. As a musician, I experienced firsthand the swift transformation of social media from an incredibly useful tool for organically connecting with audiences to a glorified pay-to-play advertising scheme. Whereas once I could post a message and it would reach the majority of my fans, now I need to pay for the algorithms to consider granting me access. In other words, I'd become an unwitting victim of what Cory Doctorow aptly named "enshittification."

I started taking the tools apart: writing my own code, building my own instruments, bending the technology toward what I actually wanted to make. That's what I want for my students: to walk in as users of technology and walk out as people who can make it do what they want.

"People need not only to obtain things, they need above all the freedom to make things among which they can live, to give shape to them according to their own tastes, and to put them to use in caring for and about others." — Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality, 1973

The freedom to make is what my teaching has always been about. I teach through making: students figure out what they want to make, then learn whatever they need to make it. I put the emphasis on what do you want to make?, and the how follows naturally from it. That's what my students love about my classes.

It's also what challenges them. My projects are open-ended, and I give students the space to shape their work to their own tastes. That's not what most of them are used to in an academic setting, and for some, it's uncomfortable.

Creativity starts with noticing. We're all surrounded by what the tech industry casts aside, and for most of us it fades into the background. I teach students to notice it, and to find utility in it: cheap parts, old code, forgotten know-how. With knowledge and skill, the art reveals itself.

"I can tell you how to make almost anything. I can't tell you what's worth making." — Claude i-7f3a91c, Teaching Page Draft, 2026

When I started teaching, finding it meant digging through old forum threads, picking up the jargon, and learning to search like a detective. Now AI does a lot of that digging for you, and it turns out my way of teaching is well suited to it. When students start from what do you want to make?, AI becomes one more way to get to the how, and the work my students make has gone up a level.

But there's a catch, or two. AI lets motivated students do amazing work, but it also lets lazy students coast. That's part of why the first half of my introductory courses is AI-free: everyone learns the fundamentals by hand before they get the shortcut.

Also, it's only a matter of time: AI will be enshittified just like social media was, or it will become too expensive for the average tinkerer. Trillions of dollars are on the line. When that happens, I intend to approach it the way I always have, by tinkering with the cast-offs.

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