ultralight.school

Hi everyone,

This summer 2025, beginning in June, we are hosting a few exciting classes based physically in NYC!

This is happening under a new educational umbrella project called “ultralight.school” (and also the website you are on right now) — which we will share more about momentarily; but first, the classes, which all encourage creative practice and research:

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Our summer 2025 classes:

TWA: Total Work of Art — In this 7 week class, meeting on Thursday evenings and Sunday afternoons in June, July, and part of August, participants come in with one core concept (“point of departure”) and shapeshift it through multiple modalities: 1) digital, 2) physical, and 3) temporal. Inspired by wide-ranging examples of design as world-building — think Bauhaus, Beyoncé, Bernadette Corporation — this class responds to how culture is experienced today, inviting participants to develop across multiple forms, points, and moments of access. This class is taught by Bryant Wells, Stephen Kwok, and Laurel Schwulst and hosted at telos.haus in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Here is more info and the link to apply.

Sense to Sense — In this 5 week class, meeting on Sunday evenings and Monday evenings in June and July, participants explore translation and the senses through writing exercises and a final group publication. We’ll also engage in readings and discussion about the five senses and what it means to carry sensations over into written form. How can a fragrance become a poem? What are the different ways to write an image, or to document a sound? This class is taught by Meg Miller and Laurel Schwulst and hosted in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. (This class is launching soon, stay tuned.)

Walking the Internet — In this 3 week class, we will meet three consecutive Saturday afternooons in July to explore physical and cultural infrastructure in New York City. How does one “see” the internet, anyway? Through walking plus some supplemental readings and dialogue, we will explore how the internet is not some ethereal, untouchable thing, but physically rooted — connected by underwater submarine cables and served from data centers containing many literal computers worldwide. This class is taught by Alex Wolfe and Laurel Schwulst and begins in different places in Manhattan each week. (This class is launching soon, stay tuned.)

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So what is Ultralight School, anyway?

We keep returning to this quote:

Speaking of strawberries, Ultralight School is a next evolution of Fruitful School (2020–24), which explored how contemporary artistic practices engaged with the world wide web or technology at large.

Initiated by Laurel Schwulst, Ultralight School (Summer 2025) is rooted in Laurel’s research around the word “ultralight” — including her various workshops and publications — and what lightness means from literal and literary points of view, which both support growing artistic practices.

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Let’s look at the word “ultralight” in some detail:

Ultralight — Ultralight is a word that means extremely lightweight.

Ultra — The prefix “ultra-” can mean “very” or “extremely.” And it also means “on the other side of” or “beyond.” For example, the word “ultraviolet” is “light beyond the visible spectrum,” and “ultrasound” is “sound waves or vibrations of a frequency beyond what human ears can hear.”

Light — In the word “ultralight,” the suffix “-light” refers to weight. For instance, the word ultralight is shorthand for a lightweight aircraft. Ultralight also describes a genre of lightweight backpacking equipment (r/Ultralight) which ideally makes your journey less burdensome.

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When applied to artistic and research-based practices today, we believe “ultralight” can be a helpful guide —

Historically, design and art styles are largely a result of the limitations and powers of the technology available at that time. There are ways of making have been lost in the quest to modernize everything. Inspired by the literal definition of ultralight, we wonder: How can working with intentional limits enable us to create in nourishing ways for ourselves, our audiences, and our environments?

On the other hand, when taken from a more literary or metaphorical vantage, lightness can be about seeing the world in a new way:

In this way, ultralight embraces different ways of experiencing something — utilizing multiple mediums, senses, and ways of being. Translating something into new forms often helps us understand its primary essence better, anyway. Through this, we can increase surface area for entry, rendering something more accessible to different audiences and contexts. And in today’s fragmented information landscape, this light-handed, flexible, shapeshifting approach often works well — as there are no longer primary ways of experiencing anything.

This is not to say that heaviness does not also have its merits. Life is about balance — “light” is only possible because of “heavy,” and vice versa. In an ultralight world, we must anchor to some gravity: something true worth returning to. This might be our “point of departure,” a mantra, a core concept — something timeless to us. Or maybe it’s less a thing and rather an ongoing way of being...

Ultralight School’s symbol is a sunbeam emanating in all directions from an invisible house. Relatedly, this summer, we are exploring multiple entrances into unique worlds through 3 classes: “TWA: Total Work of Art” encourages shapeshifting a project across multiple forms and points of access. “Sense to Sense” is about translating sensorial experiences into writing and publication. And in “Walking the Internet,” we learn about the internet in a new way: through physicality and movement.

Note that our classes this summer are all in-person in New York City. If they go well, we may explore some virtual classses or aspects later. For now, we want to begin locally — but do let us know if you’d take a virtual class! This is a beginning.

Feel free to follow along through our website (ultralight.school), our mailing list, Google Calendar, and/or @library_of_light.

We welcome you to apply!

See you this summer :)