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How can fixed forms and ideas shift through playful systems of making?
• Fall Dates Coming Soon!
• Online!
• Five-weeks, 6-8pm CET
• Small class of participants
Artist / Student (Full Time)
€225* (Reg. €245)
Freelancer
€245* (Reg. €265)
Professional
€275* (Reg. €295)
Generous Supporter Ticket
€295* (Reg. €305)
*Early enrollments (by 28. Sept.) keep our courses sustainable and help us plan ahead. Thank you for supporting!
course
description
What is ideation? It’s the noisy birth of ideas: asking *what if?*, unlearning assumptions, taking risks, and failing so well it gives you joy.
In animation, from hand-made to AI, ideation is circular. It’s a storm. You move fast, break your own rules, and let materials misbehave until something alive stares back at you.
This course uses short experimental animation as a creative case study, but its true subject is a transferable method for turning any idea into a prototype, and a lens on the culture of creativity itself. Through a series of small, cumulative experiments, it transforms animation into a lab for curiosity and invention.
We’ll work with the *Tiny Storms Method,* five phases of observation, constraint, breaking norms, prototyping, and remixing, to generate, test, and adapt ideas across any medium or discipline. Transformation is central to our approach.
We’ll choose *difficult* materials that resist control, observe how movement in the body and friction in materials influence processes, and treat machines as collaborators, introducing tension, feedback, and negotiation. We’ll examine how these dynamics shape our relationships with technology, with others, and with ourselves. You’ll also see my process in action through two distinct animation projects — one in mathematical visualization, one in autofiction. By dissecting these works from concept to completion, I’ll show how a single method can adapt to radically different contexts, from science communication to personal narrative.
Alongside making, we’ll engage with thinkers who challenge the myths of creativity, from neuroscientist Le Cunff’s *Tiny Experiments* to architect Leski’s *Storm of Creativity* to historian Franklin’s *The Cult of Creativity*. Together, we’ll question what *creative* means in an age of automated tools and algorithm-shaped culture, and learn to situate our own practice in that broader historical and cultural frame.
By the end, you’ll leave with: - A personal workbook documenting experiments and reflections. - An annotated bibliography, curated animation references, and an AI tool list for continued exploration. - A one-line statement on creativity and technology in 2025. - Four short experimental animations combining analog, digital, and AI. - Contributions to a shared archive of fragments and remixes that evolves with future cohorts. - A flexible creative workflow (*Tiny Storms Method*) adaptable to art, design, creative technology, performance, or science communication.
course
outline
Week 1: Observation (Instead of Imagination)
*Which detail is so ordinary you’ve stopped noticing it… and what if it became a superhero?* 1. Do a blind-drawing of moving objects, documenting sensory details. 2. Overview of workbook as a metacognition tool and introduction to ideation frameworks (*Tiny Experiments*, *Storm of Creativity*). 3. Examples of *difficult* materials (e.g., watercolors, 3D software, miscalibrated pen plotter) and animation principles. 4. Presentation of Maïm’s hybrid animation pipeline, including mathematical visualization and autofiction. 5. Homework: Collect 2–3 personal *obsessions* and start assembling a shared *rich mess* inspiration board. Choose one *difficult* material to experiment with next week.
Week 2: Constraint (Fragments & Materiality)
*What if you erased every option except the one that scares you most?* 1. Create a 12-frame flipbook animation from last week’s blind-drawing. 2. Discussion on how constraints and fragments fuel the creative process. 3. Brief overview of AI tools (Runway, LumaLabs, Sora, Midjourney, Kling, Leonardo, ElevenLabs, Suno AI, ComfyUI, Stable Diffusion, Adobe Firefly, Topaz). 4. Introduction to prompt engineering and AI bias awareness. 5. Homework: a. Select 2 images from unrelated disciplines (e.g., scientific diagram, Y2K fashion, horror, nature documentary). b. Create a 5-second animation based on today’s mini experiment and your *rich mess* board, using one chosen AI tool and your *difficult* material.
Week 3: Breaking Norms (Imagining New Realities)
*If your work could insult you, what would it say… and would you let it judge you or answer back?* 1. Genre collision exercise: fuse your chosen frames in motion. 2. Translate a movement principle (e.g., squash-and-stretch) into your body and apply it in a non-traditional context (architecture, typography, skin). 3. Introduction to *The Cult of Creativity*. 4. Identify one “truth” you’ve
absorbed about creativity and trace its origin. 5. Homework: a. Develop an “If this were my last animation” prompt. b. Create a second 5-second animation. extending the world as an ongoing invention and arrangement of seeing. The workshop emphasizes that technology is not just an instrument but an extension of social relations, making space for personal experiences to be expressed. Finally, we will examine how perception in these environments is embodied, making space not an abstract grid but something lived and experienced through the body.
Week 4: Prototyping
*What is the smallest, fastest thing you could make that would still scare you to show?* 1. Sketch a series of transitions (e.g., morphing, blur, loop). 2. Introduction to transitions in moving images and cinematic terminology. 3. Feedback methodologies: 2–3 participants share unfinished or imperfect work, listening without defending, using responses as raw material. 4. Homework: a. Write a one-line manifesto for making moving images in 2025: Where do you stand in relation to creativity and technology? Which myths do you carry, resist, or rewrite? b. Create a fourth 5-second animation.
Week 5: Remixing
*If you were a parasite and your work the host, how would you feed on it… and what scraps would you leave behind?* 1. Remix a peer’s fragment from the *Remix OK* folder, respecting consent, crediting all sources, and using the default CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license unless otherwise stated. 2. Insights from *Tiny Experiments*, *Storm of Creativity*, and *The Cult of Creativity*. 3. Destroy to create: remove one essential element or delete 50% of the content, replacing it with something unexpected. 4. Peer-learning: 2–3 students teach a technique they discovered. 5. Upload final work and reflections to the collective archive.
about tools
Participants will work with both AI and traditional tools as part of the *Tiny Storms Method,* a 5-stage creative process moving from observation, to constraint, to breaking norms, to prototyping, and finally to remixing. Tools are introduced through short, focused presentations that emphasize creative ideation, experimentation, and cross-media workflows, rather than technical mastery. Their role is to expand a sense of possibility, showing what can be done, rather than to provide step-by-step software or physical media training.
Topics and tools touched on include: AI, algorithmic, and procedural animation tools: Runway, LumaLabs, Sora, Midjourney, Kling, Leonardo.AI, ElevenLabs, Suno AI, ComfyUI, Stable Diffusion, Adobe Firefly, Topaz, EbSynth, Houdini, TouchDesigner, Adobe After Effects, Photoshop.
Plus, physical media: drawing, body movements, watercolor, pen plotter, and other materials that resist control.
who is this
class for?
This class is for artists, designers, creative makers and really anyone interested in breaking away from the idea of only using images to be inspired and create. No prior experience is necessary,
about online classes
Classes are 'live' meaning that you can directly interact with the instructor as well as with the other participants from around the world. Classes will also be recorded for playback in case you are unable to attend for any reason. For specific questions, please email us and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
about
scholarships
We are offering a limited number of reduced fee scholarships for this online class for those facing financial hardships. These allow participants to pay a reduced fee and are reserved for women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ who otherwise would be unable to attend. To be considered for one of these scholarships, please use this form.
To apply for a reduced fee scholarship, you must fill in the form no later than two weeks before the course begins. We will not accept any class sign-ups or scholarship applications after this date, as our regular sign-ups will determine the amount of scholarships we can accommodate. We will notify you only shortly thereafter if your application has been approved.
We are a small organisation with no outside funding and like many, we are also in survival mode. We depend on tuition fees for reimbursing class instructers, space fees, and operational costs. We ask you to consider this when applying for a reduced fee scholarship. <3
meet the
instructor
Yaron Maïm
Media artist, Creative Technologist
Yaron Maïm is a media artist and creative technologist, who is making joyful queer abstraction. Driven to use their extensive artistic skills and knowledge to benefit others, they have been fortunate enough to collaborate at the intersection of art and technology with brilliant creatives worldwide, engaging in a diverse range of freelance projects, artistic partnerships, educational and commissioned work. Their collaborations span across researchers, choreographers, organizations, and businesses dedicated to social justice, ecological sustainability, and promoting diversity within the creative field.
Their educational journey includes a BA and an MA in Fine Arts/Critical Curatorial Cybermedia Studies from HEAD, Geneva University of Art and Design (2012), an MA in Solo/Dance/Authorship from HZT, UdK, Berlin University of Art (2018), and a Diploma in VFX/3D Animation from SAE Institute Berlin (2022).
