programs
SCHOOL OF MACHINES OFFERS YEAR-ROUND IN-PERSON AND ONLINE EVENING COURSES THAT MEET WEEKLY.
OUR INSTRUCTORS ARE WELL-ESTABLISHED ARTISTS AND TECHNOLOGISTS WORKING DIRECTLY WITH THE TOOLS THEY TEACH. LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR COURSE OFFERINGS BELOW.
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summer 2026
School of Machines offers in-person, immersive 4-week programs in Berlin.
Our four-week full-time programs are project-focused courses, aimed at bringing thoughtful humans together to connect with each other and with themselves. We explore the latest technologies while simultaneously questioning their usage, the world around us, and ourselves. Program sizes are small and participants actively engage their new-found skills and collaborators each step of the way, creating individual and group work towards a public exhibition at program’s end. Caring creative humans and family vibes included.
Additionally, each month-long program includes a one-month residency following program completion, giving you one extra month to continue your work or to begin something new.
This summer we’re offering three summer programs, one program each in June thru August. More info below! Tell your friends! <3
June 2026
Data Cyborg Stories: Investigative Storytelling for Liberation using Data and AI
Data Cyborg Stories is a one-month full-time program that explores how artists, activists, and concerned citizens can use data and AI as tools for investigation, interpretation, and public storytelling. Inspired by traditions of whistleblowing, citizen-led journalism, and critical art practice, the course focuses on uncovering hidden structures and transforming them into works that can be experienced, questioned, and shared in public space.
The course is organized around the practical workflow of an investigative creative practice: finding a question, gathering traces, structuring and interrogating data, extracting patterns, and translating those patterns into public form. Participants will learn hands-on methods in Python, web scraping, data cleaning, visualization, AI-assisted research, and rapid prototyping, while developing their own exhibition-oriented projects.
Come meet other lovely humans who give a damn about these topics and let’s make some positive impacts in the world this summer! <3
July 2026
Creating Alt-Ctrl Games as Feminist Practice
Video games are the medium of the 21st century. While the indie movement enabled a lot of folks to go out and make their own ideas a video game reality, the field is still very limited to a privileged, homogeneous group. The aim of this program is to enable more people to share their points of view and tell their stories through the medium of game making.
In this program, you’ll learn a variety of skills for creating video games: from asset creation, non-linear writing, self-building alternative controllers, to putting it all together inside of a game engine. We’ll approach ideation from a feminist perspective and learn from games of the past, while looking more closely at the systems of power we want to understand and explore, in order to dismantle them.
Through art, technologies, and deep and truthful discussions about the current issues of our time, and a thoughtful approach, this program aims to bring out new perspectives in all of us.
Come join us!
August 2026
Performative Media as Artistic Practice, Research, and Public Action
This is a practice-based course that explores the intersection of the physical body and real-time audio-visual media. In a world where our sense of meaning is increasingly fragmented by a flood of digital content, this program reframes performance not as a spectacle, but as a vital form of public action and a tool for reconnection. By placing the human body at the center of immersive, real-time environments, we will investigate how we have shifted from "reading" the world to "sensing" it, and explore how we can reclaim agency in both digital and physical spaces.
Over the duration of the course, you will learn to build your own audiovisual performances using tools like TouchDesigner, Ableton, and MadMapper. More importantly, you will learn to use these technologies as an extension of your own physical expression. Through a combination of mindfulness exercises, technical workshops, and public experiments, you will develop the skills to create work that moves beyond the gallery and into the world. The program culminates in a final public performance where you will translate your conceptual research into a live, mediated experience.
Come join us!