arts crafts interface-design club

The weekly hang on hard mode. An encounter with unfinished projects, turning group chemistry into electricity through an accountability chat, feedback at weekly hangs, and a demo at the end. Co-facilitated by Ling Lu.

What do you get weird amounts of pleasure from paying attention to? An informal interactive lecture on appreciation, co-run with Andrew Blevins. Three speakers made their appreciation available to absolute beginners through examples, sensory aids, and small experiments.

An ESP32, a button, and a screen—and a self-built handheld computer to take home, extend, and customize. A way to dip a toe into hardware with Ling Lu; no prior experience required.

Little yearbooks, Battery aci-d demos, and a call to host things outside the club. Friends signing friends’ pages, but also strangers asking each other to sign. Have A Great Summer! ::)

An object of encounter: an interview with Bill Watterson. Jerry Hong hosted a conversation about artistic integrity and the expansive medium of comics.

An object of encounter: Ivan Illich’s Hair and the History of the City. Henry Zhu hosted the first Talking in Circles session, facilitating a conversation about bodies, cities, surfaces, and the commons.

The sequel, exactly one year to the day. A two-mile walk through six Brutalist gems with Liza Pagano: the architects’ visions, the buildings’ original purposes, and how they function today. Photos by Logan Williams.

A cyanotype activity and talk with Kelli Anderson on the material history hidden in everyday type.

Greatest hits, deep cuts, overlooked designers, and new acquisitions. Head archivist Beth Kleber curated a selection specifically for aci-d club—much of it unavailable on are.na, Pinterest, or Google Images.

No wifi, no phones, no laptops. An hour sitting silently in a circle watching paint dry: simultaneously the most and least productive weekly hang ever. An April Fools’ collaboration with Andrew Blevins and the Context Appreciation Society.

A little pizza party to kick off a new season after a longer-than-planned hiatus.

From Tribeca to Washington Square Park with Liza Pagano: concrete buildings, an unexpected invitation inside, and a Picasso along the way. But really the best part was walking around the city with friends ::) Photos by Jasdev Singh.

A visit to Shigeko Kubota’s studio and the loft she shared with Nam June Paik.

A field trip + talk with Omar Rizwan and Andrés Cuervo, the team behind folk.computer, an open-source, room-scale physical computing and projection-mapping system. A demo of the system, its philosophy, history, and other folk...lore — including the more esoteric, obscure parts.

An encounter with materiality, context, and intent at the Lubalin Study Center. The archive isn’t digitized—this is stuff that can’t be found on are.na, Pinterest, or Google Images.

The first aci-d trip: a tour of the New York Sign Museum and Q&A with founder David Barnett. One of the first groups to get a tour ::)

Figure drawing—but for music. Musicians played while artists drew the music, then artists drew while musicians played the drawings. A (utopian?) experiment in creative...polyphony? Co-hosted by Raoul and Soran Zhuo.