ChinatownJS: Temporal Engines

​Web experiments in emotion, memory, and time.

​Temporal Engines is a night of talks about code and consciousness, software and selfhood, and how we build systems to hold our most fleeting thoughts. At this edition of ChinatownJS, our speakers explore what it means to create with, and against, the clock: tools that decay, games that heal, algorithms that remix our reality.

​Join Sanctuary Computer at Index to discuss and explore time machines, memory rituals, and personal protests in executable form.

​Program

​Jamie Brew and Jenn Schiffer
Computational Techniques For Making Karaoke Harder

​We are the hosts of Robot Karaoke, a live show where we programmatically replace karaoke lyrics with fragments of text from an ever-expanding catalog of datasets (Craigslist vehicle ads, perfume reviews, fraudulent emails and more) to create new songs that have never been sung before. This talk covers how we source the data, annotate the songs, run the show and develop our core software, the Weird Algorithm. We'll end with a demo of the future of karaoke.

​Aparna Krishnan Reshmy
Game Over: Building Games to Transform Fear Talk

​Gamifying your fears can be a powerful way to process them and further unlock deeper truths about their origins. In an attempt to conquer my paralyzing phobia of waterbodies and my existential curiosities about mortality and the afterlife, I created a 3D interactive experience that visualizes the Buddhist concept of Samsara, which explores the cyclical nature of life, death, and rebirth. In this 3D game, players are encouraged to create their own narrative and make choices that mirror the chain of Dependent Origination, where each action creates the conditions for the next life. During the process of creating and playing this game, it helped me understand the origins of my fear being rooted in control and impermanence, but more importantly that sometimes the best way to face your fears is to gamify the confrontation.

​Connie Liu
Creating software with a point of view

​This year I created linkdump.connie.surf, a ephemeral link canvas designed to eventually disappear, as protest against data capitalism and simultaneously as a tool for creatives to create with a sense of urgency. However creating software imbued with value is different from the traditional product design process. What does it mean if the inherent principle makes it difficult to use? Is there a meaning for software beyond utility? Beyond my perspective on values-based software, I'll talk about my struggles and learnings creating linkdump as a nontechnical designer, from the pitfalls of "vibecoding", to how designing for yourself can be both liberating and myopic.

​Sanctuary Computer

​Sanctuary Computer is a technology studio building artful software for clients like Google, Stripe, Brooklyn Museum, Mill, and Light Phone. We are based in Chinatown, with a distributed team worldwide.

​Join our creative network to work on projects together →