mentorship!
How can we support you on your journey to imagine, create, and enact change?
• In-person or online!
• Pricing (per hour)
Artist / Student (Full Time)
€120 regular fee / €100 alumni
Freelancer
€150 regular fee / €125 alumni
Professional
€180 refular fee / €150 alumni
For business consultancy, technical or other inquiries, get in touch.
program
description
Introducing the School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe mentorship program! After ten years of offering programs in all realms of creative technology, we are excited to hold space for individual mentorship. The current mentors are each distinct artists and researchers with rich and varied practices. What we hold in common is the shared goal to help artists, designers, technologists, makers, researchers and the like build a sustainable practice, and to have the confidence and courage to enact creativity and positive change in the world through their unique practice.
Through personal support and feedback, a mentor can help you with a particular aspect of your practice or project. This can include conceptual or technical guidance.
who is mentorship for?
Are you working on a project that uses tools or ideas that are new to you? Have you taken a School of Machines* (or different) course on a new method you’re keen to explore, but would like a bit more support as you dive deeper? Are you intrigued by applying one of our topics or method areas to your practice, but prefer a more tailored, focused approach? Do you feel uncertain or lost in some aspect of your practice, and wanting a space to explore your ideas more deeply? We would be happy to support you in realizing your goals through individual mentorship!
This opportunity is for anyone who would like to deepen their practice. Topics do not have to be limited to prior course topics. Get in touch!
*Alumni receive a 20% discounted rate with checkout code: ALUMNIMENTORSHIP
location
Online (Zoom) or if both mentor and mentee are in Berlin, at the School of Machines location in Berlin, Mitte.
how to begin
To get started, please connect with one of the mentors for a short (15 minutes) call about your interests, needs, and expectations. You will find a scheduling or contact link under the bio for each mentor.
Each mentor can offer support for artistic, craft, practical, and emotional aspects of your practice based on their own experience - you can find the individual bios below by clicking on the images.
meet the mentors
Mario Guzman
Researcher, New Media Artist
Mario, with a Master in Theory and Aesthetics of Electronic Art, offers comprehensive guidance in both technical and conceptual aspects of artistic practice. Technically, he specializes in p5.js for creative coding, web development, Twine, and Arduino-based projects. Conceptually, Mario can guide practices rooted in language, culture and historical and contemporary approaches to robotic art and speculative AI. His expertise spans new media, algorithmic poetry, experimental cinema and photography, storytelling, and non-linear narratives. Additionally, Mario can provide ample feedback at any stage of an artistic or academic research project, as well as valuable insights into writing, editing, and conceptual representation of ideas.
Mario Mu
Visual Artist, Director
Holding a diploma in painting and experimental cinema, Mario has experience of working with major art institutions and museums, as well as gaming industries and publishing. He can mentor you extensively in artistic research and game-based projects, giving technical and conceptual support about developing digital environments, virtual reality, live-action role-play, spatial computing, bringing drawing or painting practice into digital space, video game software, real-time filmmaking, animation, moving images, digital cinema and video editing tools, expanding the reference field that includes history of painting, cinema and the new media theory.
Michele Walther
Artist Advisor, Project Manager
Michele Walther has been a studio manager and an advisor to artists and small businesses in the arts since 2010. Trained as a corporate lawyer, she helps artists think critically about the professional aspects of their career. She offers assistance in developing career goals; grant research and writing; drafting and building CVs, bios, and portfolios; and time and project management. She can also help anyone feeling stuck, whether professionally or on a specific project, through developing next steps, problem solving difficult tasks, and providing an objective outside assessment.
Rachel Uwa
Founder
Rachel is an artist, community organiser and educator currently concerned with inviting curiosity and connections between living beings, so that we can all observe the world together because alone it makes no sense. She believes we humans are the missing pieces to each other's puzzles, for better and for worse. In 2014, she founded School of Machines and since then has designed, curated, and facilitated over 30 unique four-week full-time programs and over 40 five-week online courses. In doing so, she has helped countless students successfully realize projects from conception to completion, often involving a new-to-them tool or technology.
As a mentor, Rachel offers guidance, feedback, and support on 1) creative ideas and project concepts, 2) considerations for navigating tools and technologies for interactive art tech projects and installations, 3) instruction/course design in the realm of art, technology, design, and human connection and 4) finding the courage to say something with your work.
Being bold and brave these days is important and confusing. If you would like any extra support in these areas, she is happily here for you.
