To loosen up, to put together.

Have you ever tried to simply look at something? To take in the colors and shapes, and nothing more? It’s not as easy as it sounds. We tend to instantly interpret what we’re seeing, to apply labels, categories, identifiers; a level of symbolic interpretation. This helps us to make sense of the world, but it can prevent us from seeing what’s really there. Similarly, in a programming setting, we might find ourselves searching fruitlessly for a bug, only to realize it was in front of us all along.

Our mental state predisposes us to behave in certain ways. But what if that mental state was just a tool, much like a paint brush? To explore uncharted territory or discover the unexpected we need different modes of thinking. This talk will explore these different modes of thinking, how they apply to arts, engineering, and how to practice seeing things differently.

About Yulia: A former professional painter, Yulia Startsev now works for Mozilla on the Firefox DevTools, and is part of the TC39 committee which standardizes ECMAScript (JavaScript). She is currently based in Berlin, where she enjoys fine teas, video games, and working on the future of the free and open web.