Studies/Seminar (Old Structure)

Useless Machines +

Blair SimmonsSyllabus | IMNY-UT.260 | Last updated: March 12, 2024 4 Point, 9.75 Ready to Schedule (Do not edit) YES, All, Art and Design (Old Structure), Elective, Fall 2024, Studies/Seminar (Old Structure), Tech and Society (New Structure)

Useless Machines is about redefining “usefulness.” Through making, we will explore what it means, on an ideological, political and historical level, to create something ‘useful’ or ‘useless.’ We will play with these definitions and explore how these objects serve to be humorous, critical, disruptive and at times… useful. We will study ‘useless’ machines throughout history, which will provoke conversations and disagreements around the implications of existing and emerging technologies. The students will design ‘useless’ machines for their final project.  Examples of ‘useless’ machines are drawn from Kenji Kawakami’s The Big Bento Box of Unuseless Japanese Inventions, Dunne & Raby’s Speculative Everything, Stephanie Dinkins’ Conversations with Bina 48, https://esoteric.codes/, CW&T, Mimi Ọnụọha’s  Missing Data, Jacques Carelman’s Catalog of Impossible Objects, viral videos/objects and much more.

Topics in Media Arts:Communications and Technology +

Shawn Van EverySyllabus | IMNY-UT.260 | Last updated: March 12, 2024 4 Point, 9.75 Ready to Schedule (Do not edit) YES, All, Elective, Fall 2024, Studies/Seminar (Old Structure), Tech and Society (New Structure)

From alphabets to virtual realities, this course will explore the development, reaction, and long term impact of various communication technologies. How have these technologies, such as writing, printing, the telegraph, television, radio, the internet and beyond, transformed society? And what changes can be observed both today and tomorrow? After students look closely at past and current inventions, students will speculate on the future of communication in a connected world by proposing their own transformative technology. Readings and discussion will cover communication theory, technical processes, creative applications, and critical investigation. Writing assignments will be paired with practical assignments where students will be challenged to bring their analysis and ideas to life. The web will also be utilized as a test bed for experiencing and experimenting with various forms of communication both old and new.

This course will be part seminar and part studio. In the seminar portion of the class, time will be spent engaging in short lectures, critical discussions, and reviews of both reading and writing assignments. In the studio portions, students will participate in hands-on creative and technical activities, share and evaluate project ideas, and present practical assignment work. Throughout the class, students will be encouraged to learn through play, experimentation, collaboration, and exploration. Both individual and group work will be assigned.

Topics in Media Art: The Art of Perception +

Duncan FigurskiSyllabus | IMNY-UT.281 | Last updated: October 20, 2023 2 Point, 9.9 YES, Elective, IMA Major Elective, Media and Entertainment (Old Structure), New, Spring 2024, Studies/Seminar (Old Structure)

“How does our auditory and visual perception influence our understanding and interaction with the world? In this course, we will delve into the science and application of these senses, employing this knowledge as a foundation to create new works and challenge our perception of familiar ones.

Each week, we will dissect a particular aspect of our senses, investigate works that have capitalized on this understanding, and produce new creations that stretch the boundaries of our sensory comprehension. Drawing on fields from cognitive psychology to media theory, from psychoacoustics to philosophy, this highly interdisciplinary course will pull from a breadth of research to form a holistic perspective on how we perceive the world.

This course will be technology agnostic, instead emphasizing a format based on critique, any technical aspects will be taught in online tutorials outside of class. Students should be comfortable with sharing and discussing their work in class.”

Big Ideas in the History and Future of Technology +

Theodora RivendaleSyllabus | IMNY-UT.203 | Last updated: October 20, 2023 2 Point, 9.9 YES, Elective, IMA Major Elective, In-Person, Spring 2024, Studies/Seminar (Old Structure), Tech and Society (New Structure)

Big Ideas: The History and Future of Technology
This class will provide students with a critical perspective on contemporary issues in media technologies and discuss the history, controversies, consequences, and ethical questions in emerging media. The first half of the class charts a history of media technologies from the 1940s to the present, focusing on the idealogical and social conditions that led to the creation of the technologies that exist now. The second half examines possible futures, and the tools we can use to predict (and build) those futures.

Instructor Website: http://alden.website

Topics in Media Art: Useless Machines +

Blair SimmonsIMNY-UT.260 | Last updated: October 20, 2023 4 Point, 9.9 YES, Elective, IMA Major Elective, Spring 2024, Studies/Seminar (Old Structure), Tech and Society (New Structure)

Useless Machines is about redefining “usefulness.” Through making, we will explore what it means, on an ideological, political and historical level, to create something ‘useful’ or ‘useless.’ We will play with these definitions and explore how these objects serve to be humorous, critical, disruptive and at times… useful. 

We will study ‘useless’ machines throughout history, which will provoke conversations and disagreements around the implications of existing and emerging technologies. The students will design ‘useless’ machines for their final project.  Examples of ‘useless’ machines are drawn from Kenji Kawakami’s The Big Bento Box of Unuseless Japanese Inventions, Dunne & Raby’s Speculative Everything, Stephanie Dinkins’ Conversations with Bina 48, https://esoteric.codes/, CW&T, Mimi Ọnụọha’s  Missing Data, Jacques Carelman’s Catalog of Impossible Objects, viral videos/objects and much more.

Instructor Blair Simmons Website: www.Blairsimmons.com

Topics in Media Art: Politics of Code +

Joerg BlumtrittSyllabus | IMNY-UT.260 | Last updated: October 20, 2023 4 Point, 9.9 YES, Elective, IMA Major Elective, New, Spring 2024, Studies/Seminar (Old Structure), Tech and Society (New Structure)

Current description based on NYUAD iteration of the course (https://github.com/jbenno/nyuad_politics_of_code). Please be advised this is in the process of being-updated by the instructor.

Deconstructing the design and implementation of software as a political medium and re-building functional alternatives.

Code is political. It is a means of political processes and activism. It is political inherently by the ethical choices often hidden in the black box of The Algorithm. In the course we aim to deconstruct the design, implementation, and data of software as a political medium. We will work through political applications such as simulations, ownership of intangible assets, predictive policing, algorithmic recommendations, suggestions, and filters, social networks, and the blockchain.

Along with an introduction to the related political theory and media studies, students will work on several hands-on projects to offer actual or speculative alternatives to the existing systems. To that end, this course will include several workshops in JavaScript, Python, and other tools.

Topics in Media Art: Geopositioning Genealogy: Personalizing Histories of Plants, Peoples and Places +

Tanika WilliamsIMNY-UT.260 | Last updated: October 20, 2023 4 Point, 9.9 YES, Elective, IMA Major Elective, In-Person, Spring 2024, Studies/Seminar (Old Structure)

Can a plant tell the story of your people and the planet?

This course aims to facilitate student relationships to the planet through the construction of personalized genealogies from family narratives, historical migrations, and plant relationships. Plants, like people, are intelligent life forms that hold memory and transmit knowledge. Students will study edible medicinal plants (herbs) to unlock their expertise on the past, present and future of the planet and its peoples. Participants will learn how to grow medicinal plants, employ ethical research practices, and develop their family archives.

Students will begin by examining various ways plants establish communities across the planet and studying the complex chemical and social lives of plants. Next, learners will parallel postcolonial theories of plants and peoples to connect the ways plants, like humans, seeded themselves across the globe for survival. Finally, students will incorporate primary sources from the family narrative, oral history, and government archives to help students visualize botanical imprints on their ethnic, racial, and national identities.

Learners will survey the research of botanists, horticulturalists, folk medicine practitioners, and urban gardeners. The works of Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Jamaica Kincaid, and Fred Moten will provide the course’s literary foundation. The art practices of Fred Wilson, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Alison Janae Hamilton, and Deb Willis will create avenues for social art exploration. Importantly, students will read research from a cross section of postcolonial theorists challenging Western cartography and naming conventions of land.

About Tanika Williams: www.tanikawilliams.net

Topics in Media Art: Design Skills for Responsible Media +

Art Kleiner | Juliette PowellSyllabus | IMNY-UT.260 | Last updated: October 20, 2023 4 Point, 9.9 YES, Elective, IMA Major Elective, New, Spring 2024, Studies/Seminar (Old Structure), Tech and Society (New Structure)

Generative AI and other digital media affect people in unexpected
ways. This is a course in the skills of responsible design and development of all forms of
media covered by IMA and ITP. We will look critically at the belief systems that affect
design, and will build skills for assessing the unexpected implications and consequences
of any new digital project, including generative AI projects. Together, we will create
personal and group processes to bring these issues safely to the surface, and create
standards and guardrails (a “calculus of intentional risk”) that you can apply to your own
work and to work you do in the future.
This course is structured around three comprehensive group assignments:
1. Group project: Produce a case study of an ethical dilemma in a real-world tech
company, based on news reports and other sources. How did this dilemma come
about? How did the company respond? What could they have done differently?
We will discuss these cases, and others, in class.
2. Group or solo project: Produce work in any format [not too elaborate] that brings
an ethical issue to light.
3. Solo project: Propose a design practicum – a set of ethical standard – that would
help you evaluate the impact of one or more pieces of your own work (or
someone else’s you know well). Use this “calculus of intentional risk” to explore
how you would change the design and use of these projects.
The class lectures will cover themes related to these three assignments, drawing on the
instructors’ extensive research in the fields of organizational and technological ethics and
responsibility. The recently published book, The AI Dilemma: The 7 Principles of
Responsible Technology, will be one resource for the class. We will also draw on work
on responsible technology going on elsewhere throughout NYU.