In 2018, PPIG, the Psychology of Programming Interest Group, held their annual workshop at the Art Workers’ Guild building in Queen Square, London.

PPIG was founded in 1987 in order to bring together people from diverse communities to explore common interests in the psychological aspects of programming and in the computational aspects of psychology.

The Art Workers’ Guild was founded in 1884 by followers of William Morris, to teach the ethics of the Arts and Crafts movement to all the craft disciplines.

We believe, following Marshall McLuhan, that such an encounter between craftspeople and technologists could be hugely fertile for our culture:

“The serious artist is the only person able to encounter technology with impunity, just because he is an expert aware of the changes in sense perception.[…] The artist picks up the message of cultural and technological challenge decades before its transforming impact occurs. He, then, builds models or Noah’s arks for facing the change that is at hand.”

Guildsmen were invited to respond to the presence of technologists in their midst with postcards or writings, through the call for postcards.

This site collects their responses in a form which now invites further reflection and response via comments.