"Level Up" Workshop Series: Exploring Esolangs With Daniel Temkin
What do we mean when we talk about the "Next Generation" at Bakehouse? Let’s explain…
Miami, like many urban hubs, is becoming less affordable for artists. Bakehouse is committed to providing affordable live-work spaces for artists, but what kind of spaces do modern-day artists require to thrive? How can Bakehouse, as an arts residency, foster communities that nurture artistic growth? And what do Miami artists truly need for their holistic development?
Enter the inaugural workshop in our new "Level Up" series, made possible by generous funding from the Knight Foundation. On September 9, eleven Bakehouse artists had a chance to collaborate with Daniel Temkin, a multifaceted artist specializing in esoteric programming languages (esolangs). These aren't your typical programming languages; they're unconventional, turning coding logic on its head. Imagine a language where the code is conveyed through pixel colors or even whistled!
The workshop's highlight was the creation of "Merita," a programming language inspired by the very bread once made in the industrial bakery that Bakehouse Art Complex calls home. Drawing from the esolangs Chef and in:verse, Merita uses vintage bread recipes to craft animated digital sculptures. The beauty? No coding experience was necessary. Daniel handled the technicalities, letting artists dive into the creative essence of the project: designing the rules and system of the code language.
To simplify, think of a recipe. It's not just about ingredients (including the amounts of each ingredient and the instructions to combine them) but the language, structure, and even the font used to write the recipe. Now, visualize a recipe transformed into a visual, with every element, from ingredient type to preparation method, influencing the final design. Every time the recipe calls for salt? Merita code adds a floating cartoon dog head to the final design. Every ingredient that calls for 2 or more of a measurement adds a sphere. And so on.
The result? Written recipes morph into unique digital sculpture.
This project posed some unique challenges. Striking a balance between meaningful and dynamic visuals was crucial – if every recipe is a blob of brown spheres it wouldn’t be that interesting. This required a lot of prototyping; connecting various inputs to different outputs and then reviewing what happens with different recipes. By the end, the group had developed a functional Merita language that turned recipes into mesmerizing, albeit unappetizing, digital sculptures.
Returning to our initial question as to what “Next Generation” means for Bakehouse, two takeaways emerged from this workshop:
Educational Value: Many of our artist participants were educators. The workshop wasn't just a skill-building exercise but a pedagogical model of how to teach collaborative group art projects. Moving into the “Next Generation,” Bakehouse endeavors to consider the “whole artist,” not just as a creative practitioner in the art market, but also as artist-educators who need professional development and support to hone their craft as teachers.
Financial Support for Artists: We are drawing inspiration from the Works Project Administration, or WPA, a Depression-era initiative that paid artists to participate in public works projects. Bakehouse offered a skill building workshop, and then offered the participating artists an honorarium for their time and labor. In return, Bakehouse received the Merita code language, an open-source tool that can now be shared with our entire community, including our artists. This model, we believe, is a sustainable “Next Generation” strategy to support artists: we offer financial support in exchange for the artists learning new skills and contributing a final deliverable that can in turn be shared with our entire community.
In conclusion, the "Level Up" workshop was more than just a learning experience for the artists. It was a learning experience for Bakehouse as well, and a testament to our belief that the journey is as valuable as the destination. We're excited to showcase the Merita language, its creations, and the memories forged during the workshop in our upcoming events. This, in essence, is the "Next Generation" at Bakehouse. We look forward to you joining us!