Offline and online, coming out of Berlin, maybe a "School of Machines, Making and Make-Believe" is exactly what you need
We’re very much into the idea of a “School of Machines, Making & Make Believe” - and it’s alive and well, teaching online and offline classes, from a Berlin base. Here’s their self-explanation:
School of Machines, Making & Make Believe provides one-of-a-kind hands-on learning experiences in the areas of art, technology, design, and human connection.
Our philosophy is centered around the idea that we are all lifelong learners. We would love for our students to leave our programs activated; not only equipped with technical and hands-on tools and skill sets, but also critically-minded, more deeply engaged with their surroundings and with themselves.
Artists, designers, technologists, makers, researchers and the like come to us to explore new topics, develop and expand their practice, and wrestle out the courage to begin something new. We support them in these endeavors while encouraging curiosity, confidence, and the enthusiasm to say something with their work.
Our instructors are distinguished artists and technologists working directly with the tools they teach and our programs provide an opportunity for our students to work with them to expand their fields of knowledge and build towards a more interdisciplinary practice. Program sizes are small and students actively engage their new-found skills and collaborators each step of the way, creating individual and group work towards a public exhibition at programs end.
We encourage people without previous experience to apply, as we believe the formative qualities that make each of us distinctive humans-- our beliefs, attitudes and unique experiences-- can guide us towards the creation of something more magical than what technology alone can achieve. We must all start somewhere!
Here’s a page of their current classes, to give you a flavour of what they mean by “machines, making and make-believe” (click on image or image credit to take you there):
We were particularly struck by Speculative Biophilia: “How can we redesign and reimagine our devices, artifacts, and built environments to foster deeper emotional and ecological connection, as intertwined in the same planetary togetherness?”
And by Algorithmic Poetry of Fictional Robotics: “How have historical developments in robotics, speculative fiction, and algorithmic poetry influenced our understanding of the present and the future?”
Not much broken toaster or zipper-on-suitcase repair here. But somewhat anticipatory of a certain future involving tinkering hopefully with machines and code.