Classes

SPfA runs classes regularly. We also partner with other organizations and businesses to reach a broader audience and provide professional development workshops to educators, designers, and others. Email alex@solarpowerforartists.com to bring solar power art and design workshops to your organization's audience or employees. All classes are taught by Alex Nathanson, unless otherwise specified.

Need-based tuition assistance is available by request.

Sustainable Energy for Artists and Arts Organizations

This workshop introduces artists and art organizations to the possibilities for solar powered artwork and events. We will discuss the opportunities for incorporating sustainable energy, with a particular focus on solar power, into outdoor artworks and performances, both as a power supply and as an integrated part of the work. Participants will be introduced to some basic concepts for determining if their project and/or location is suitable for incorporating solar power.

Provide context for sustainable energy in artistic contexts Introduce conceptual approaches about SES in response to its affordances Identify your values and priorities for solar in an artistic context. Outline technical possibilities and limitations Provide basic guidance to assess whether your project might be technically and financially feasible for solar power.

Solar Powered Sound Art

This workshop will introduce participants to a range of techniques for creating solar powered instruments. We will discuss the history of the field, common conceptual approaches, and a number of technical methods. In-person hands on and online versions are available.

Three techniques for building instruments will be demonstrated.

• Direct drive acoustic instruments
• Solar powered analog synthesis
• Sonifying light frequencies

Solar Powered Bots

This workshop will introduce participants to a range of techniques for creating small solar powered robotic devices that can be applied to making sculptures, draw bots, percusion instruments, and more. We will discuss the history of artists working in the field, common conceptual approaches, and a number of technical methods. All participants will build their own solar powered mechanical creature or device.

Energy and the Internet

In this workshop we will explore the relationship between internet infrastructure and energy consumption. The internet is often presented as removed from the physical world. Words like the “cloud” and “cyberspace” obscure its relationship to the environment and the physical world.

Participants will learn about internet infrastructure and they ways in which it consumes energy. We will look at a number of projects exploring this topic. We will learn about tools for estimating energy consumption and carbon footprints online. We will discuss whether there is a relationship between the resource consumption of websites and the ways in which users interact with them. Additionally, we will identify opportunities for technical, artistic, activist interventions in this space.

Designing Solar Power Products and Services

This remote Zoom-based workshop will introduce participants to the range of types of PV products and services that exist. These include product integrated PV, residential PV, and PV interfaces, among others. We will apply human-centered design principles to the creation of PV products and services in a number of design exercises.

Consultations

Individuals and organizations can schedule 1-hour consultations to discuss a particular project. The price varies based on the project. The cost of the consultation can be deducted from future design, consultation, and fabrication services. Email alex@solarpowerforartists.com to schedule a consultation.

Q&A Sessions

Q&A events are semi-regular free events that give people working in their communities, like activists and community garden members, the chance to ask questions relating to a particular solar power theme. These events are usually organized in response to SPfA receiving a lot of inquiries about a given subject. Past Q&A events have focused on solar powered community refrigerators and solar power for community garden composting operations.