Forty-Four Esolangs: A Book Launch with Daniel Temkin

​The new book Forty-Four Esolangs collects programming languages by a single artist who poses code as prayer to the Greek gods, patterns of empty folders, or typed in tandem by two programmers, the rhythm and synchrony of their typing determining commands. Temkin will share projects from the book in the context of thirty plus years of esolangs (the “esoteric” class of programming languages), showing the poetic possibilities of this medium. As Douglas Coupland puts it: "Every new spread in the book makes a reader feel like they’re discovering new territory with a worthy explorer who’s there for the joy of it."

​Daniel Temkin makes photographic and computational art exploring logic and human irrationality. He began interviewing other esolangers and code artists in 2011, creating the blog esoteric.codes. ZKM exhibited the blog and commissioned videos of Temkin explaining esolang history for their Open Codes show in 2018–19. Esoteric.codes earned an ArtsWriters.org grant and a residency at New Museum’s NEW INC, the first museum-led cultural incubator. Temkin has written about esolangs for Hyperallergic and Leonardo, and his aesthetic theory of the form was published by Digital Humanities Quarterly. You can see his work at danieltemkin.com.

This event is hosted in collaboration between Plot 田 and Catalyst with support from Assembly. Please note a suggested donation of $10 will be collected at the door.

Plot 田 is (becoming) an interdisciplinary workspace and practice in Los Angeles Chinatown, led by artist Alice Yuan Zhang. The space shapeshifts to accommodate various exercises in critical inquiry, skill-building, community-making and resource-sharing.