I've occasionally thought it would be interesting to have a place where programmers and other people involved in "knowledge work" could live and work half of each day at intellectual tasks and spend the other half in physical labor to support themselves. So you get up and milk the cows, then go write some code, then later in the afternoon hoe the corn. I get most of my best thinking done when I'm doing a repetitive task like washing the dishes or maintaining the lawn, anyway.
It'd be hard because manual labor isn't that profitable, farms are so mechanized for a reason and that's because machines are better and more consistent than migrant workers who get paid very little and work way more than half a day. Manual labor on farms mostly exists in a few areas where mechanization hasn't happened yet like berry picking, etc.
You're not doing it to make money from the farming, you're doing it to grow fresh food for yourself and the other people there. Presumably your actual income would come from contracting or remote work, although part of the idea of raising your own food is so you don't need as much income.
> the other half in physical labor to support themselves
Sounded a lot like OP was talking about an artist colony type where the main programming you were doing wasn't for work/profit but for exploration (or maybe future projects but not current work). If it's a long term setup for the location to 'support' itself they'll have to make enough to buy the other food they want (growing all your own food limits your diet just because of seasonal foods), make money to pay taxes and utilities, and to pay for maintenance (even if they're doing the work with residents they'll need materials).
I don’t know of any residencies/colonies that are specifically oriented towards programmers. Many (like VCCA & McDowell, mentioned in the article) are focused towards fine art, and often aren’t interested in technological projects. However, there are several hundred residencies just in the US, and definitely some that are more progressive towards welcoming artists working in new media, including programming.
I ran a small-scale residency (in West Virginia) for four years. I had a couple of more technically-oriented artists attend, including a music composer who was developing an interactive/generative system to be installed in NYC’s Highline park. She’d built a custom Arduino controller that interfaced with light sensors, and spent much of her three weeks at my place programming the algorithms (in Cycling74’s Max and C++, as I recall). We tested the installation one night in my woods with a bunch of friends exploring with flashlights.
Years before, I did a residency in San Diego (at a site now closed) where I spent a week developing some network software. I had to make some effort to explain to the folks running the residency why a programmer could use this sort of time, but it was definitely worth it.
One of my favorite tech-oriented residencies is Wave Farm, which encourages ‘new transmission works (artist works made with, about, and for the airwaves).’
Most residencies are about making art in some way. That doesn’t mean you have to be a painter or writer, but it does mean that you need to be able to contextualize your work and consider how it might be socially useful or at least interesting. So if you decide to go this direction, spend some time understanding how other artists use this kind of experience, as well as what the residencies themselves are looking for.
I know at least a dozen RCers. Very smart people all getting together in one spot to hack on things and learn, and then it's an extensive support network for your career for life. Pretty nice. If I take a long break from full time work I would definitely do a batch.
I regularly take longish train trips (an hour or two each way) with my laptop and write code. I find it very productive, there's something about being on the train, traveling, no internet that helps me crank out the code.
It's a bit harder as a programmer, because we naturally have access to money in a way that artists don't, so people are less inclined to help us.
I do recommend taking significant sabbaticals in your career, finding a corner of the world, and writing some project by yourself. I've done this three times, and it was quite rewarding, though a bit lonely at the end.
I vaguely remember a chapter in the book The Dark Net by Jamie Bartlett talking about some kind of techno-commune in Spain(?) where people just kind of worked on their personal projects. There was a lot of cryptocurrency related work iirc. Didn't sound as formal or nice as the art colonies described in the article.
The only way to know if you'd be crap is to try writing. Short stories are a fun place to start, just pick a genre you like and give it a shot. Like everything else, it takes practice and your first few attempts will be crap. Advice: don't spend any time on writing forums or subreddits, they're full of people who'd rather talk about writing than actually do it, but despite all their theorizing they still can't turn out a decent page.
The only way to know if you'd be crap is to try writing. Short stories are a fun place to start, just pick a genre you like and give it a shot.
It's enough to simply read the right authors, or at least it was for me. You can tell if you belong in their company or not. If you can't, well... that's a strong hint in itself.
Find their first published stories. Find their earlier stories, sometimes they get used to fill out a shorts collection for laughs. Then ask yourself if you belong in that company.
And then ask yourself if you care, maybe you'll never write enough to have a shot at a publishing deal, much less a bestseller, but maybe you just like telling stories to yourself and maybe a few friends.
