Processing Community Day connects art and tech

Art and code are convening this weekend for Processing Community Day. The international event is being celebrated on Saturday, Feb. 9, with community events around the world.

In Baltimore — Towson, to be specific — Goucher College will be hosting a daylong event. It’s scheduled for 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Goucher College Athenaeum. RSVP here.

The focus of the day is on opening up access to coding tools for creative pursuits, said organizer Andrew Bernstein, the academic director for Goucher’s MA in digital arts and MFA in art and technology.

“Processing is an open-source platform for coding in context of the visual arts, and part of the focus of the project is to make learning to code more approachable to diverse audiences,” Berstein said.

“With the Processing Community Day event at Goucher we wanted to focus on the relevance of coding in the art, music and design, bring artists together to talk about their work, host workshops introducing the practice of ‘creative coding’ to people who might not be familiar with computer programming, and provide a forum for attendees to share their work and meet like-minded creative people working with technology,” he said.

Processing Community Day Baltimore is this Saturday! Spend the day with the Bmore creative community! Come early or drop in late! #pcd2019 @ProcessingOrg pic.twitter.com/jc3R0Z9Kgn

— Goucher Digital Arts (@GoucherDigiArts) February 5, 2019

The day offers a way to plug into the community working at the intersection of art and tech, which is growing at Goucher.

“In Goucher’s graduate Digital Arts and Art & Technology programs all of the students learn to code in Processing and p5.js (the web version of Processing) and are introduced to the international community around the software, so there is definitely a community forming here,” Bernstein said. “Part of the intention of the event is to expose Goucher students to the exciting community of artists and creative technologists working in the Baltimore area, and encourage them to get involved.”

The agenda states that the day will include introductory workshops, as well as keynotes with artists Bonnie Crawford and Jeffrey Gangwisch. Plus, free pizza.

Reflecting Processing’s values, the aim is to provide an inclusive environment: A background in coding and art isn’t required, and the event is not limited to the specific software. Attendees are invited to bring work to show in any medium, and there will be combining analog and digital art.

The goal, Bernstein said, is to offer “a supportive and inspiring environment to try out new things, and a place for people to come together in person with a community that largely exists on the internet.”