Project Blackbird is a secret research group at the Eyebeam Art & Technology Center focused on the use of humor in art and technology and vice versa; from Duchamp to The Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job, and everything in between. It is a secret group comprised of artists, comics, and creative technologists that organize events and projects challenging the boundries of traditional comedic forms, and exploring the use of humor in art and technology.
One of the manifestations of this research group for me personally is a class. Here is a rough draft of the course description.
Course Description
The premise of this class is that, like television, film, audio, and other traditional media, software can be a very effective medium for humor, which, in turn, can be a powerful tool for activism, editorial, and hilarious jokes. Beyond simply rendering our CG, hosting our Flash animations, or providing a target for nerd jokes, the computer can be exploited for its strengths (interactivity, procedurality, logic, networkability) to achieve the funny.
We will explore what makes good humor in traditional media by looking at several comedy styles such as absurdism, prop humor, sketch comedy, improv, and black comedy, with special attention to parody and satire. We will also look at some software artists who have already struck software comedy gold, including Cory Archangel, Max Goldberg (“YTMND”), Ze Frank, and Evan Roth. We will apply the ideas of game theorists and other prominent software gurus such as Ian Bogost, Chris Crawford, and Tim Berners-Lee to the styles of comedians such as Tim and Eric, Andy Kaufman, Yakov Smirnov, Douglas Adams, Stephen Colbert, Mr. Show, the Wondershowzen team, and Eric Fensler to produce funny software. The final independent projects will be shown at a New York comedy club. All of the example code will be provided in openFrameworks, but you may also work in Processing or Flash.
Prerequisite: you must be experienced with either oF, Processing/Java, or ActionScript.
Learning objectives:
To attempt to define humor in the context of software
To answer the question: Are there such things as funny algorithms?
To explore tropes and mechanisms frequently used in software – not just games, but software art and plain old software – that can be used to achieve a humorous effect
To invent the field of software comedy in the same way that there are comedy writers, actors, and even singers
Project Blackbird
One of the manifestations of this research group for me personally is a class. Here is a rough draft of the course description.
Course Description
The premise of this class is that, like television, film, audio, and other traditional media, software can be a very effective medium for humor, which, in turn, can be a powerful tool for activism, editorial, and hilarious jokes. Beyond simply rendering our CG, hosting our Flash animations, or providing a target for nerd jokes, the computer can be exploited for its strengths (interactivity, procedurality, logic, networkability) to achieve the funny.
We will explore what makes good humor in traditional media by looking at several comedy styles such as absurdism, prop humor, sketch comedy, improv, and black comedy, with special attention to parody and satire. We will also look at some software artists who have already struck software comedy gold, including Cory Archangel, Max Goldberg (“YTMND”), Ze Frank, and Evan Roth. We will apply the ideas of game theorists and other prominent software gurus such as Ian Bogost, Chris Crawford, and Tim Berners-Lee to the styles of comedians such as Tim and Eric, Andy Kaufman, Yakov Smirnov, Douglas Adams, Stephen Colbert, Mr. Show, the Wondershowzen team, and Eric Fensler to produce funny software. The final independent projects will be shown at a New York comedy club. All of the example code will be provided in openFrameworks, but you may also work in Processing or Flash.
Prerequisite: you must be experienced with either oF, Processing/Java, or ActionScript.
Learning objectives: