Resources

Required Readings 

• Norbert Wiener – The Human Use of Human Beings (1950) -  Chapter IV: "The Mechanism of Language"
• Lauren Slater for Harper's Magazine – Dr. Daedalus: A Radical Plastic Surgeon Wants to Give You Wings (2001)
• Gilbert Simondon – On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects (1958/2017) - Part II, Chapter 1, "The two fundamental modes of relation between man and the technical given"

• Jonathan Crary – Techniques of the Observer (1990, Chapter 1, “Modernity and the Problem of the Observer”)

• Walt Whitman – I Sing the Body Electric (1855) 
• Stacy Alaimo – Trans-corporeal Feminisms and the Ethical Space of Nature (2008) 
• Lynn Margulis - Gaia Is a Tough Bitch (1995 Interview)
  
• Bruno Latour – We Have Never Been Modern (1991)  Chapter 1, “Crisis”

AI-Based Tools 

• Claude - Anthropic LLM with capable coding and integration into other tools like Blender via MCP 
• ChatGPT - OpenAI LLM 
  
• Gemini Pro - link to free student year 
  
• Cursor - AI coding tool 
  
• Fusor - node based AI 

• Windsurf
• n8n 
  
• emergentic.ai (contact me if you’re interested)
  
• Midjourney

• Dream Studio by Stablility.ai 
  
• UI for running Stable Diffusion
  
• OpenAI Playground
• Veo3.1
  
• RunwayML

Miscellaneous Tools and Apps 

• Natural Reader App - this is an app that uses AI TTS (text-to-speech) to read documents out loud. The voices are very natural and you can follow along on each page in the app. It’s currently the best option for this service that I’ve tried. It is free to download, but you’ll need to upgrade to a paid subscription to read longer texts ($20/mo). 
• Pureref - streamlined referencing/mind mapping app (no collaboration)