CATS+ Computer Club
About
This residency session was part of the CATS+ program and ran from February to April 2023. For the second CATS+ residency session a cohort of 6, handful of mentors, and a few visitors gathered weekly to explore ideas, technologies, and ways of working together. Rather than making discrete projects, residents and guests led generative workshops, before collaborating on a final showcase, which took place as part of the 2023 Fusebox Festival. The CATS+ Computer Club residents were Itai Almor, Jesse Cline, Kellyn Dassler, Sam Mayer, Sara Aleyce Roma, and Serena Zam.
Residents
Itai Almor
Project Wiki
Bio
Itai Almor is an illustrator and an educator who recently published their first kids book! Find Sasha and the City of Whispers online, or ask your favorite bookstore to order you a copy! It’s an imaginative, artsy, cli-fi romp for the kids. Itai received a BA in Computing & the Arts from Yale university in 2020, and they’re currently completing an AmeriCorps service year in school social work with Communities in Schools. As a first generation American and queer person, they make art that explores the beautiful and the intimate entangled in monstrosity and the intergenerational longing for home. They love to cook, to draw, and whistle while driving on a sunny day.
Jesse Cline
Project Wiki
Bio
Jesse Cline is a designer, artist, and educator interested in contemporary systems of representation and production. Through appropriation and subversion, Jesse explores the ways that objects and images embody meaning and transmit information, and the ways we define ourselves using these signifiers. Jesse is a co-founder of Partial Shade, a nomadic curatorial project dedicated to exhibiting artwork in nontraditional spaces. They earned a BS in Electronic Media, Art and Communication from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2011, an MFA in Design from the University of Texas at Austin in 2016, and currently teaches communication design at Texas State University.
Kellyn Dassler
Kellyn Dassler is a software developer and creative technologist interested in co-creation and deconstruction of technology and code as methods of exploration and critical lenses for creating more ethical, playful technology. She is particularly interested in natural user interfaces, creative and human-centered AI, feminist technoscience, and augmented reality and explored these spaces through research at Carnegie Mellon University’s HCII and Colorado State University’s NUI Lab, as well as human centered design prototyping, art installations and software development through CIID, NASA Colorado Space Grant, and her current employer, frog design. She most recently exhibited an online code poetry piece via the School for Poetic Computation’s showcase in 2022 and a future-focused interactive tech installation at frog’s SXSW PoP event in 2023. As a volunteer, she serves as a mentor and educator through Girls Who Code, Code Chicas, and a variety of hackathons for underrepresented students in design and tech. Originally from Colorado, she earned a BS in Computer Science with a focus on Human Computer Interaction as a Boettcher Scholar, and she still loves to hike, rock climb, hammock, and vibe in Austin’s nature while listening to indie music in her free time.
Sam Mayer
Project Wiki
Bio
Sam Mayer is a playwright and performance maker from Houston. Full length works include POOLBOY00 (Beaubourg, Co-Lab Projects, Crashbox, UTNT) , THE CUCK (Intramural Theater), and CHET'S SUMMER VACATION (Kennedy Center; Intramural Theater; Rec Room Arts). His work has been developed with The Orchard Project, The Workshop Theater, The Mastheads, SVT/Grackle Jack, and SPACE on Ryder Farm. He is the recipient of the Chesley/Bumbalo Foundation Prize and a fellowship from the Michener Center for Writers. MFA: UT Austin.
Sara Aleyce Roma
Project Wiki
Bio
Sara Aleyce Roma is an ATX based new media artist, animator and occasional curator and facilitator. A Motion Design graduate from SCAD, they have a particular interest in time-based works involving animation, video, interaction, and performance. Most recently in their short film “A Problem” they explored stop-motion as endurance performance in efforts to exhaust the meaning of a single object. From learning HTML on neopets and studying experimental animation, to diving into VJing, ecophilosophy, and phenomenology; they pull inspiration from a variety of fields and subcultures. A strong believer in “bad art”, process, and experience as art.
Serena Zam
Project Wiki
Bio
Serena Zam is an artist and technologist based in Austin, TX. She makes paintings, collages, and tech-based art to explore how technology and internet culture shape people and their rituals. She is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and shares her life with her dog, Darcy, and cat, Bennet.
Mentors
Contributing mentors and artists include Kristine Fernandez, Julia Kunze, Cathryn Ploehn, Celine Lassus, Rachel Weil, Jay Roff-Garcia and Rachel Stuckey.
Mentor Wiki
Events
Exhibition
CATS+ Out of the Bag
April 15, 2023 | 5pm–10pm
6-10pm, performances at 7pm
This spring 6 residents, a handful of mentors, and occasional visiting artists gathered for weekly Computer Club sessions to explore ideas, technologies, and ways of working together.
Something between a showcase, open studio, and performance, CATS+ Out of the Bag is an invitation for audiences to get curious, start conversations, dig into artists’ processes, and get excited about what technology means when we define it together.
The CATS+ residents are Itai Almor, Jesse Cline, Kellyn Dassler, Sam Mayer, Sara Aleyce Roma, and Serena Zam.
Contributing mentors and artists include Kristine Fernandez, Julia Kunze, Cathryn Ploehn, Celine Lassus, Rachel Weil, Jay Roff-Garcia and Rachel Stuckey.
Workshops
CATS+ Computer Club 4: Soldering and Electronics Workshop
We'll show you some basics in soldering, using a multi-meter, bread boarding, troubleshooting, and working with micro-controllers. It'll be fairly free-form, so if you have something you've been aching to solder, an Arduino you want to dust off, or anything else in that realm - bring it in! If not, we'll have plenty of things for you to practice on and play with. ,
CATS+ Computer Club 5: OBS and Participatory Performance
Sam Mayer talks about online participatory performance as it relates to his practice and the artists who inspire him. He'll also walk us through the basics of how to use OBS (Open Source Broadcasting Software) and Twitch for live-stream broadcasting. No experience necessary. No computers necessary, we'll have OBS running on the lab computers. ,
CATS+ Computer Club 6: Stop Motion Animation
⚡ March 11 CATS+ Computer Club
12:30pm in the IRL Studio, Stop Motion Animation with DragonFrame workshop led by Sara Roma and Analog Video Synthesis demo led by Jay Roff-Garcia
2:30pm in the IRL Studio, Discussion & Collab time to talk through ideas, share what you're working on, and collab on projects. ,
CATS+ Computer Club 7: ML5.js for Arduino and three.js
ML5.js for Arduino and three.js workshop by Kellyn Dassler. Bring a laptop with a webcam, if you have one. Or use one of ours!
2:00pm - 3:30pm ✍️ Wiki Article Session with Rachel Stuckey. Discussion & Collab Time talk through ideas, share what you're working on, and collab on projects.
It's cold! We'll have the space heaters on, but bundle up. Bring a mug and we can make tea, coffee, etc! ☕ ,
CATS+ Computer Club 8: 3D scanning and Photogrammetry
12:30pm - 1:30pm - 3D scanning/Photogrammetry workshop with Jesse Cline. Bring one or more emotionally charged, precious-to-you objects to 3D scan
1:30pm - 3:30pm - Show and Tell your CATS+ experiments, progress, and projects Collaborative Wiki Authoring Session for residents and mentors ,
CATS+ Computer Club 9: Thermochromic Paint workshop
April 1 Computer Club
12:30pm - 1:30pm - Thermochromic Paint workshop with Serena Zam Materials provided
1:30pm - 3:30pm - Show & Tell & Collab time. Bring your projects, materials, equipment, etc to show, share, and work on stuff
