This site serves students in DGST 101: Intro to Digital Studies at the University of Mary Washington but is open to all. All content here is CC BY-SA unless otherwise noted.
There are many reasons to write computer code, and many have argued that learning how computers work and how to make them work is a fundamental competency in today's world. But learning something simply because it's important is hard to get excited about. Instead, why not make computational literature, art, or music? Programming is inherently a creative activity, but beyond that, artists, and writers have worked with computers in creative ways for nearly as long as computers have been around.
In this module, you'll learn about some of the interesting things people have done with computer code, and you'll experiment with your own ideas.
Since there are two learning goals in this module, it is possible to approach the work from either end: start by learning more about what's already out there, or start by jumping in to some code and seeing what you can do. If you choose the former, you may enjoy a deep dive into a specific genre or a specific creator. If you choose the latter, you may find it helpful to start with a tutorial such as Codecademy's JavaScript curriculum or Daniel Shiffman's P5js videos.
A third approach, which may be more difficult, is to first imagine something that you think needs to exist in the world and then figure out what you need to learn and do to make that happen. Here are a few suggestions:
And to learn more about creative programmers, explore literary works in the ELMCIP database or the [Electronic Literature Collection], or research any of the following individuals (in no particular order): Vera Molnár, Manfred Mohr, Tega Brain, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Ranjit Bhatnagar, Liza Daley, Nick Montfort, Allison Parrish, Kate Compton, Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, Rosa Menkman, Nettrice Gaskins, Cory Arcangel, Lingdong Huang, Goal Levin, Darius Kazemi, Andy Wallace, Sam Lavigne, Everest Pipkn, Erik Loyer.