Gray Area Creative Code for the Web Intensive 2025

Apply for the Intensive:
Where creative studio practice meets Computer Science

Our Creative Code for the Web Intensive is an online 13-week course in creative technology, offering a comprehensive introduction to foundational and advanced tools for programming interactive experiences that live online. Adapted from Gray Area’s Creative Code Intensive, this course equips participants with the skills to create richly interactive websites and enhance technological literacy. Guided by expert instructors, participants gain technical skills and creative inspiration to design, prototype, and publish an interactive experience to share with the general public. The course culminates in a public salon to showcase student work on Monday, December 15. Students who complete the final project will receive a certificate of completion for the course.

In keeping with emerging trends in technology, this course critically explores generative artificial intelligence tools and introduces core concepts for building machine learning models. The course also emphasizes the fundamentals of computer programming for creative media alongside experimental approaches to interaction design, from gestural mobile interactions to embodied interactions with a webcam. Through playful experimentation, Gray Area’s Creative Code for the Web Intensive fosters creativity by encouraging participants to both use and interfere with new technologies as a mode of critical engagement.

Whether you’re an artist exploring new tools, a designer crafting interactive media, or an industry professional advancing your AI expertise, this interdisciplinary course will provide opportunities to expand your skills and prepare you for new career pathways in creative technology.

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, apply now to secure your spot.

APPLY TO THE CREATIVE CODE INTENSIVE

Dates & Location

Location:
ONLINE / Remote

Course Dates:
September 22 – December 6, 2025
Thanksgiving Break: No class November 24 – 30

Course Meetings:
Mondays & Wednesdays, 6:00 – 9:00 PM PT
Saturdays, 1:00 – 2:00 PM PT with office hours 10 AM – 1:00PM PT

Project Salon: Presentations and Demos
Monday, December 15, 2025 | 6:00 – 9:00 PM PT

Online Program Features

Creative and professional development for technical and design skills
70 hours of online instruction and facilitation
Production of a portfolio of 10+ creative code projects
Access to a network of hundreds of peers, alumni, and professionals to build connections with potential collaborators and employers
Affordable enrollment fee of $3,500 (monthly payment terms are available)
Scholarships available for students, prioritized by need

Course Outline

Unit 1 — Getting Started: Coding Fundamentals for the Web

Week 1: Building Websites with HTML & CSS
Week 2: Drawing and Interaction with p5.js
Week 3: Visualization and Animation with p5.js

Unit 2 — Advanced Web

Week 4: JavaScript and the Document Object Model
Week 5: Web Audio
Week 6: Multi-user Interactivity with Node.js & Web Sockets

Unit 3 — Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

Week 7: Intro to Machine Learning with ml5.js
Week 8: Large Language Models

Unit 4 — Synthesis

Week 9: 3D Scenes on the Web with three.js
Week 10: Thanksgiving Break
Week 11: Project Deployment and Hosting
Weeks 12–13: Development, 1:1 project meetings, and final public salon

Learning Outcomes

Students in the course will:

Apply coding fundamentals (e.g., variables, loops, conditionals, functions, arrays, objects) to create visual and interactive websites
Practice advanced coding topics (e.g. handling user input, networked communications, object modeling, machine learning) through hands-on creative projects
Recognize and debug technical issues in code
Develop a creative voice by building time-based works, poetic websites, and interactive applications
Engage with emerging technologies including Artificial Intelligence and examine their potential, limitations, and risks
Contextualize their work in the fields of creative code, media arts, and technology
Present and critique their own creative work and provide constructive feedback on the work of others
Plan, scope, and execute complex technical projects
Apply workforce-ready skills such as project planning, advanced technical proficiency, and professional presentation techniques
Prepare and showcase professional-grade projects in an online final public salon, including deployment and documentation

Prerequisites

The pace of the course requires that students enter the class with some foundational programming knowledge. We recommend that applicants have some practice working with concepts covered in Code! Programming with p5.js and HTML/CSS/DOM on The Coding Train to be successful in this course. These tutorials are excellent starting points for beginners who need more practice before enrolling in this course.

Gray Area Creative Code Showcase — Summer 2025

Instructor(s)

Kate Hollenbach
Education Director

Kate Hollenbach is an artist, programmer, and educator. She is passionate about using open source tools and teaching in interdisciplinary environments where art and technology meet. Kate is also a contributor to p5.js and serves as President of the Board of Directors for the Processing Foundation. Before joining Gray Area, she was an Assistant Professor of Emergent Digital Practices at the University of Denver. In her creative practice, Kate creates video and interactive works examining critical issues in user interface and user experience design with a focus on user habits, data collection, and surveillance. Her work is informed by years of professional experience as an interface designer and product developer. She has presented, published, and exhibited work in venues such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, SIGGRAPH, INST-INT, Piksel Festival, and Taper.

alm (alice) chung

alm (alice) chung is an artist and researcher working at the intersection of media art and computing education. They had developed video games for life science education, contributed to open source tools (🌸p5.js!), and created several comics (both hand-drawn and procedurally generated). They are currently a PhD student in Cognitive Science at University of California, San Diego, researching the practices and challenges of artist-organized tech communities and exploring new ways to learn technology together. They love mango shaved ice.

Tonz Beglari

Tonz is an interactive artist designing fantastical transmedia experiences that ask players to playfully dissect social issues. They have an M.F.A. in Interactive Media & Game Design from USC and their commercial work specializes in mixed reality attractions for virtual or IRL locations.

Jeffrey Hawkins

Jeffrey Hawkins is an education and data visualization expert with a PhD in physics focusing on physics education research. He has worked with organizations ranging from leading design studios to Head Start programs in developing data visualizations for use in education, community building and other domains. Recently he has present artworks utilizing technology and AI at Art Hack Day and Fidget Camp Showcase. Additionally, he also has a decade of experience teaching physics at the university level and leading education research projects.