MyFi Studio, a Miami-based artist duo known for building custom electronic instruments and computer systems for live art and music performance, has partnered with Churchill’s Pub to offer a series of free public workshops called How to Play Computer. The sessions, held on Wednesday evenings at the storied Little Haiti venue, teach attendees how to use computers as creative tools for music production, visual art, and real-time media making, with no cost and no prior technical experience required.
Key Takeaways
- MyFi Studio and Churchill’s Pub are hosting How to Play Computer, a free workshop series on Wednesday evenings at Churchill’s Pub at 5501 NE 2nd Avenue in Miami’s Little Haiti corridor near Wynwood.
- The sessions cover music production, creative coding, visual art, and hands-on experimentation with computer-based creative tools, targeting anyone from working artists to residents with no technical background.
- MyFi Studio co-founders Aimee Rubensteen and Dr. Josh Eisenberg framed the initiative as a public-goods effort, stating that art, music, and technical knowledge should be accessible to all.
- MyFi Studio is a 2025 Ellies Creator Award winner with institutional partnerships including The Bass Museum of Art and the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science.
- Admission to all How to Play Computer sessions is free with RSVP; Churchill’s Pub has hosted live music and community programming for more than 40 years.
How to Play Computer Workshops Turn a Dive Bar into a Creative Lab
The How to Play Computer series operates on a straightforward premise. Most people use their computers for browsing, word processing, video calls, and photo editing, and leave the machine’s deeper creative capabilities untouched. MyFi Studio’s workshops walk attendees through those capabilities in a hands-on, informal setting, using the same tools and techniques the duo employs in its own art and music practice. Sessions cover topics including music production with free and open-source software, creative coding, visual media generation, and the use of custom digital instruments that MyFi Studio has built and made publicly available online.
The workshops take place on Wednesday evenings at Churchill’s Pub, the dive bar and live music venue at 5501 NE 2nd Avenue in Little Haiti that has operated for more than 40 years. Churchill’s has long served as a proving ground for punk, alternative, and experimental music in Miami, and its indoor and outdoor stages have hosted hundreds of emerging and touring acts over the decades. The pairing of a creative technology workshop series with a venue known for raw, community-driven programming is deliberate. MyFi Studio designed the sessions to feel more like an open studio night at a neighborhood bar than a formal classroom, encouraging attendees to grab a drink, ask questions, and experiment without pressure.
Admission is free with RSVP. The workshops are open to artists, musicians, programmers, students, and anyone else who wants to learn what a laptop can do beyond its default applications. No prior experience with coding, music production, or digital art is required to attend.
MyFi Studio Brings Institutional Credentials to a Community-Level Initiative
MyFi Studio is co-founded by Aimee Rubensteen and Dr. Josh Eisenberg, both based in Miami. The duo builds custom electronic instruments and computer systems designed for creating art and music in real time, and has performed and exhibited from Miami to Tokyo to Seoul. MyFi Studio won the 2025 Ellies Creator Award for its multimedia project “tie the knot: the twilight years that connect us,” which contextualizes Miami as a shared home for the duo and Nam June Paik, the founder of video art who lived in Miami from 1988 to 2006. The project included a new film and live performances at Florida International University’s Miami Beach Visual Arts Gallery, Locust Projects, and FilmFest Akizuki in Japan.
The duo’s institutional track record in South Florida runs deep. The Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach commissioned MyFi Studio to create a new instrument collection inspired by Paik’s Internet Dweller (1994), resulting in the Internet Dweller Electronic Music Labs, a series of interactive sessions where the public could play MyFi’s custom instruments and create new media onsite at the museum. The Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science featured MyFi Studio as part of its nightLAB programming, where the duo premiered an immersive experience called “Look Over Here” inside the Frost Planetarium. MyFi Studio’s instruments are also available for free online, playable from any laptop with an internet connection.
That institutional presence is what makes the Churchill’s Pub partnership notable. MyFi Studio is channeling the same creative tools and methods it has deployed in museum settings into a neighborhood venue where the barrier to entry is zero. Rubensteen and Eisenberg have been explicit about the reasoning. The duo stated that the classes are offered for free because they believe art, music, and technical knowledge should function as public goods, not gated resources available only through expensive programs or institutional affiliation.
The Workshops Land in a Corridor Where Creative Access and Development Pressure Coexist
The location of the workshops along NE 2nd Avenue places them at the intersection of two neighborhoods navigating rapid change. Churchill’s Pub sits in Little Haiti, directly adjacent to the Wynwood Art District, which has transformed over the past two decades from an industrial zone into one of the most visited cultural destinations in South Florida. That transformation brought galleries, restaurants, and global attention to the area, but it also brought rising rents and commercial development that pushed out some of the independent creative spaces and artists who helped define the neighborhood’s identity in its earlier years.
Little Haiti has experienced its own version of that pressure. Development projects along NE 2nd Avenue and the surrounding blocks have accelerated in recent years, raising questions about displacement and cultural preservation in a neighborhood with deep roots in Haitian, Caribbean, and independent arts communities. Free programming like How to Play Computer operates in that context, offering creative resources to residents and emerging artists in the corridor without requiring them to pay for studio time, software licenses, or enrollment in a formal program.
The workshops also reflect a broader pattern in Miami’s creative ecosystem. Institutions like The Bass, Frost Science, and the Adrienne Arsht Center have expanded their community engagement programming in recent years, bringing free or low-cost arts and technology education into neighborhoods beyond the traditional museum and performing arts circuit. MyFi Studio’s Churchill’s series operates at a smaller scale but with a similar logic: meeting people where they already gather, in a venue with four decades of credibility as a community space, and offering tools that are designed to be used rather than admired from a distance.
FAQs
Where and When Are the How to Play Computer Workshops Held?
The workshops take place on Wednesday evenings at Churchill’s Pub, located at 5501 NE 2nd Avenue in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood. Admission is free with RSVP. Specific session dates are announced through MyFi Studio’s social media channels and the Churchill’s Pub event calendar.
Who Is MyFi Studio?
MyFi Studio is a Miami-based artist duo co-founded by Aimee Rubensteen and Dr. Josh Eisenberg. The duo builds custom electronic instruments and computer systems for creating art and music in real time. MyFi Studio is a 2025 Ellies Creator Award winner and has partnered with The Bass Museum of Art, the Frost Museum of Science, and Florida International University on public-facing creative technology programming.
Do Attendees Need Technical Experience to Participate?
No prior experience with coding, music production, or digital art is required. The workshops are designed for anyone curious about what a computer can do as a creative tool, from working artists and musicians to residents with no technical background.
