2/2
1:30–1:45 — Introductions: What does gathering mean to you?
1:45–2:00 — Group Agreement ⤻
2:00–2:10 — Review Syllabus →
2:10–2:20 — Intro: Presentations →
2:20–2:30 — Intro: Community Memory Kiosk →
2:30–2:35 — Sign up for Kiosks ⤻
2:35–2:45 — break
2:45–3:15 — P1 begins →
3:15–3:50 — Download this starterkit and write three ideas
3:50–4:00 — break
4:00–4:30 — Demo: Create a microsite with custom domain on Github Pages ⤻
4:30–5:30 — Add a link to your class site ⤻ and review ideas

For next week...
  1. Prepare your presentation(s).
  2. Determine the topic of your crowd-sourced collection. Create your method of aggregating content. This should be online, accepting submissions, and presentable by next week.
  3. Note: All work-in-progress for this class must be online. Please do not share hand-sketches.
  4. Note: All presentations, critiques, and work-in-progress should be accessible and linked on your class site. If you want to update your share link, please do so in the sign-up spreadsheet.
2/9
1:30–2:00 — Presentation: Crowd-sourced Digital Collection (Nick) ⤻
2:00–3:00 — Read: Ursula K. Le Guin’s Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction
3:00–5:30 — P1 Critique: Small Groups →
  1. 3:00–3:40 — Hannah & Mike
  2. 3:45–4:25 — Alvin & Immanuel
  3. 4:30–5:30 — Alex & Ana & Nick

For next week...
  1. Prepare your presentation(s).
  2. All content presented as a list on your site
  3. Please review these links before Hailey’s visit:
    1. LACA
    2. AOHG
    3. Patricia Fernández’s Box (a proposition for 10 years)
2/16
1:30–2:20 — Presentation: Crowd-sourced Digital Collection (Hannah & Mike) ⤻
2:20–2:30 — break
2:30–4:30 — P1 Critique: Small Group →
  1. 2:30–3:15 — Nick & Immanuel & Ana
  2. 3:20–3:50 — Hannah & Alvin
  3. 3:55–4:25 — Mike & Alex
4:25–4:30 — break
4:30–5:30 — Guest: Hailey Loman, LACA & AOHG

For next week...
  1. Read Laurel Schwulst’s “My website is a shifting house next to a river of knowledge. What could yours be?”
  2. Make an account on Glitch
  3. Make an account on Are.na
  4. Create a channel
  5. OR select a channel from one of these featured channels
2/23
1:30–5:30 — Guest: Charles Broskoski
1:30–5:30 — Workshop: Are.na as CMS with Rosa McElheny’s class

For next week...
  1. Prepare your presentation(s), Ana & Immanuel.
  2. Prepare your Kiosk, Hannah & Nick.
  3. Your website should be live, ready for a critique about design and content.
  4. Review Publishing the Present
  5. Review Wendy’s Subway Reading Room Archive
  6. Read Peer Review: Wendy’s Subway × Press Press
3/2
1:30–3:30 — Guest: Rachel Valinsky, Wendy’s Subway
2:30–4:30 — Critique: Mid-Project, large group (first hour with Rachel) →
4:30–5:00 — Presentation: Community Memory Kiosk ⤻
5:00–5:30 — Presentation: Crowd-sourced Digital Collection ⤻
3/9
Holiday — “2nd Break Day”
3/16
1:30–2:20 — Presentation: Crowd-sourced Digital Collection ⤻
2:20–2:30 — Mid-Semester Survey ⤻
2:30–5:30 — Critique: P1 Final →

For next week...
  1. Read Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering, “Introduction” ⤻
3/23
1:30–4:15 — Guest: Laurel Schwulst
1:30–5:30 — Read: Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering, Ch.4 “Create a Temporary Alternate World” ⤻
1:30–5:30 — Intro: Virtual Events
4:15–4:30 — break
4:30–5:00 — P2 begins →

For next week...
  1. Write 3 ideas for P2, presented as a page on your website. Please view “In-class brainstorm” in P2: Virtual Event →
  2. Prepare your presentation(s), Nick & Alvin.
  3. Prepare your Kiosk, Alvin & Mike.
  4. Three students will present initial event ideas (and their P1 websites) to Prem. The four students who did not present to Rachel get first dibs. If they opt out, then we can open this to the other three students.
  5. Send me your preference for SoA Atrium or Pioneer Works for the final class.
  6. Watch Commune, v.1.0.0, read Karaoke and Communing, and check out Pompeii!
  7. Add 3 questions for Prem to this shared g-doc
3/30
1:30–3:30 — Guest: Prem Krishnamurthy
3:30–4:30 — Reviews for remaining 3–4 students
4:30–5:00 — Presentation: Community Memory Kiosk ⤻
5:00–5:30 — Presentation: Virtual Event review ⤻

For next week...
  1. Prepare your presentation, Mike.
  2. Continue to brainstorm and sketch your event idea. This should be visible as a live link on your website.
  3. Three students will present initial event ideas (and their P1 websites) to Prem
4/6
1:30–2:50 — Demo: Web-to-print led by Anezka
2:50–3:00 — break
3:00–4:00 — Critique: Small Group (Nick, Hannah, Mike) →
4:00–4:15 — break
4:15–5:15 — Critique: Small Group (Alvin, Immanuel, Alex) →
5:15–5:30 — Presentation: Virtual Event review ⤻

For next week...
  1. Prepare your presentation(s), Immanuel & Hannah.
  2. Prepare your Kiosk, Ana & Alex & Immanuel.
  3. Three students will present their event ideas (and their P1 websites) to American
  4. Focus on your invitiations this week
  5. Read “Black Gooey Universe”
4/13
1:30–2:00 — Presentation: Virtual Event review ⤻
2:00–2:30 — Presentation: Community Memory Kiosk ⤻
2:30–3:30 — Guest: American Artist
3:30–4:30 — Critiques with American Artist for Nick, Mike, Hannah
4:30–5:30 — Reviews for remaining 3 students for Alvin, Alex, Immanuel

For next week...
  1. Prepare your presentations, Ana & Alex
  2. Your invitations should be sent out before next class
  3. Mindy will confirm guests by the end of week
  4. Your invitations should be documented somehow on your website
  5. Please sign up for a timeslot for Pioneer Works
4/20
Presentation: Virtual Event review ⤻
Critique: P2 Invitations →
4/27
Critique: One-on-Ones →
5/4
NO CLASS TODAY! Presentations will occur this Saturday at Pioneer Works
5/8
12:00–1:00 — lunch in the Courtyard (please pick food from Court Street Grocers and send to Mindy)
1:00–5:00 — Critique: P2 Events at Pioneer Works→
1:00–5:00 — Guest: Geoff Han
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For first- or second-year graphic design students. On Gathering is part studio, part reading and conversation seminar about online gatherings in two forms: (1) crowd-sourced digital collections, and (2) virtual events that activate these collections. This course itself will be a gathering. Multidisciplinary practitioners will visit and lead discussions with students: half will share the use of websites to share collections of field reports and grassroots archives, and half will introduce different forms of online events and its facilitation. Through hands-on design projects, readings, and discussions, students will delve into different material and social forms of gathering. Workshops include an introduction to Github, alternative Content Management Systems, and print-to-web tools. This class is intended for those with a working knowledge of HTML and CSS. JavaScript would be helpful but not required. Completed projects are expected to be technological in nature.

With each prompt, aim to transform your project, altering its meaning and/or its function through choices concerning content, material, visual form, language and sequence. Your decisions are not neutral. Be prepared to articulate why you have compiled this particular collection and its relationship to a larger social context.

See full syllabus ⤻

→ Project 1: Online Collection
For this first assignment, create a crowd-sourced online collection.


  1. Feb 2 — What would you like to gather?
    • Determine the topic for your crowd-sourced collection.
    • Determine your method for aggregating content.
    • How many entries would you like?
    • Is it for an organization?
    • Is it media-specific? (e.g. written quotes, hand-drawn portraits, PDFs, etc)
    • Is there a time period?
    • Does it fill a void?
    • Consider... Saidiya Hartman’s notion of “critical fabulation”
  2. Feb 9 — Your method of aggregating content is online and accepting submissions. Present the current findings.
  3. Feb 16 — Small group discussions of your crowd-sourced content. Show all content for your collection, presented as a list on a website.
  4. Mar 2 — Mid-Project Critique: Present your websites
  5. Mar 16 — Final Project Critique
  6. References

→ Project 2: Virtual Event
For this second assignment, activate your collection through a virtual event. This can also be an on-site event with a digital overlay. How do we gather people to present an online collection? With a book, there is a book tour. With a film, you have screenings. What might this be for a website? Since our final presentation will be on-site, on our last class, you will: (1) hold your event with the people in this class as your audience, or (2) present documentation of your event that took place beforehand.

For both options, you will need to show thoughtful documentation on your class website before the semester ends. What does event documentation look like? Consider the examples Hailey Loman provided during her class visit. Is it a recording? A script? An audio file?


  1. Mar 23 — In-class brainstorm
    • Create three ideas for the form of your gathering: Is it a performance? performative lecture? conversation? screening? party?
    • What are the rules? Is there a set? Who are the attendees?
    • In this project, there are three moments for design you should consider and prepare: before, during, and after.
  2. Mar 30 — With Prem, all-class discussion of three ideas for your virtual event, presented in a website.
  3. Apr 6 — Small group discussions of one idea for your virtual event, presented in a website, with sketches of promotional material.
  4. Apr 13 — With American, all-class discussion of your in-progress proposal.
  5. Apr 20 — Critique of the promotional material and its dissemination. Before class, please invite us to your event.
    • newsletter?
    • social media post?
    • airdrop?
    • voicemail?
    • billboard?
    • skywriter?
  6. May 4 — Final presentations: (1) event occurs during class time, or (2) event documentation
  7. References:

→ Community Memory Kiosk
For this one-week group project, please create a community memory kiosk. The Community Memory Project was based in Berkeley, CA in 1976. From their description, they write:


We are placing public computer terminals through which people can freely share information unmediated by censors. Community Memory allows people with no previous computer experience to enter messages, find messages entered by others, and enter responses to what they see. Messages are cross-indexed to related subjects to help people make connections.

  1. References

→ Presentations
Students will give two presentations throughout the semester. Depending on the number of students, 1–3 students will present each week.

  1. Presentations should be no longer than 15 minutes.
  2. There should be some documentation of your presentation, as screenshots in a g-slides, a screen recording with voice over, etc.
  3. You may also screenshare a live navigation of the site, which Mindy can record.

Between February 9–March 16, students will find a crowd-sourced online collection and present the website to the class.

  1. What is the collection about and what does it include?
  2. Is the website design and UX a complementary vessel for the collection it holds?
  3. What is a surprising element?
  4. What could be improved?

Between March 30–April 27, students will attend a virtual event and write a review.

  1. Please provide some specifications about the event (time, duration, location, platform, etc).
  2. Provide a summary of the event
  3. How did the platform affect the event? (Twitch, Zoom, Jitsi, etc).
  4. What was the affect or tone of the event?
  5. What could be improved?

Weekly links are collected in our class Are.na channel.

Thank you to Laurel Schwulst for help in developing the virtual gathering portion of this course, Geoff Han and Isaac Nichols for syllabus feedback, Rosa McElheny for class collaboration, and Anezka Minarikova for being the T.A. of this course!