This publication is a coalition — it brings together experiences of combined action. With a focus on labor organizing within the arts and tech industries, In Poetic Coalition explores the potential of creating alternative networks of education and challenging the material conditions that prevent us from enacting new realities with dignity and security. When we defy existing models for institution-building, what possibilities for gathering can materialize and what kinds of learning and unlearning can we practice together? Released alongside Pioneer Works’ eighth Software for Artists Day and the School for Poetic Computation’s 10th anniversary in November 2023, we invited educators, labor organizers and artists exploring experimental learning initiatives to be in solidarity and conversation with each other. Through coalition, we can build the worlds that we know to be possible.

About School for Poetic Computation

The School for Poetic Computation is an experimental school in New York founded in 2013. The school is cooperatively stewarded by teachers, participants, artists, and practitioners who are engaged in communities of practice spanning art, computation, poetry, critical theory, publishing, and community organizing. The school supports interdisciplinary study in art, code, hardware, political education, and critical theory.

About Software for Artists Book series

Driven by a desire to challenge existing frameworks and present creative alternatives, the Software for Artists Book series explores our complex and often slippery relationships with new technologies. Each book features the voices of critically engaged artists, researchers, writers, and organizers who are working at the forefront of the web, virtual embodiment, decentralized networks, AI, and beyond.