​From Lore to Logic: Building Interactive Worlds with AI + Figma

​Workshop led by Erik Brown

​What happens when you treat AI not just as a tool for generating content, but as a creative partner for building interactive experiences?

​In this hands-on workshop, participants will explore a workflow for moving from story and concept to functional prototype using Figma, AI, and vibe coding. Using the civic simulation project Supertino as a case study, we’ll break the process into stages: developing the storyboard, UX, narrative, characters, and visual assets; working with a large language model to translate intended behaviors and interactions into code and logic; and bringing those pieces together inside an interactive prototype.

​Participants will then have an opportunity to apply the same process to a small experience of their own, experimenting with how far they can move from idea to working interaction without a traditional coding background.

​We’ll close with Q&A, troubleshooting, and a discussion of where these tools succeed, where they break, and how to work with them more intentionally.

​Workshop Prerequisites:

• ​Please bring a laptop.

• ​A Figma account and access to an LLM such as ChatGPT are recommended.

• ​No coding experience is required, basic familiarity with Figma is helpful but not necessary.

​⚠️ Please note ⚠️ Space is limited, so if you’re no longer able to attend, please cancel your registration so we can offer your spot to someone else. Thank you!

​About the Instructor:

​Erik B is a creative producer, educator, and founder of The DreamLab Collective, a studio exploring how media, storytelling, and emerging technology can help people imagine and build better futures. Before founding DreamLab, he spent seven years at Stanford Digital Education and six years at MIT, helping translate complex academic and research-based ideas into accessible, engaging experiences. Across that work, he has produced more than 120 online courses and educational projects.

​His broader practice sits at the intersection of filmmaking, experience design, education, AI, and speculative storytelling. Erik has presented his work internationally, including at SXSW in Austin and Sydney and VRDays in the Netherlands.

​His latest project, Supertino was recently presented at Gray Area's Incubator Showcase.

​This Workshop is part of our new Patch Bay series:

​A weekly series of workshops, demos, and talks for media artists creative technologists in the Bay Area

​​Wednesdays, 6 PM

​Patch Bay is a new weekly series for anyone in the Bay Area who wants to get hands-on with emerging technology, grapple with the big questions AI is raising in creative fields, and connect with the wider world of media arts, design, and engineering. It's a space to plug in for newcomers who want to get involved at Gray Area for the first time, and for longtime members of our community ready to share new, experimental work.

​We keep the format flexible from week to week, so there's room to experiment, talk, and learn. You might catch a workshop on building poetic tools for the web, a round of lightning talks on agentic AI experiments, an artist talk on immersive installations, or a live-coded audiovisual performance that turns code into sound and image in real time. No two weeks look the same.

​All Patch Bay events are sliding scale, NOTAFLOF.

​Got an idea for a future session?
Email learn@grayarea.org and tell us about it.
We especially want to hear from people who've been looking for a way to share their bold, critical, and creative work at Gray Area but weren't sure where to get started.

​Event Logistics:

​Workshops and talks are open to all ages. Children under the age of 16 should be supervised by a parent.

​Workshop attendees should bring their own laptops.

​Workshops will take place in the classroom and are not ADA accessible.

​Talks will be seated in the theater.

​View our FAQ page for more info, or contact us at info@grayarea.org with any accommodation requests.