Courses for IMA Juniors and Seniors Only
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
Cooking programs with an image based language is a fundamental skill in the production and design of modern digital processes. Visual programming is not only an alternative way to code, but a solution to approach generative and interactive media. This class reviews the past, present and future of visual programming languages used to procedurally generate and manipulate media such as Max/MSP(Nato.0 55 3d), Isadora, Quartz composer, Touch designer, Houdini, cables.gl and Unreal Engine among others. The core of this course is the study of Unreal Engine’s Blueprint Visual Scripting system as a way to produce an interactive program in an executable form using only Visual Programing. We will study how to create actors, functions, interfaces and how they communicate with each other. We will also take a look into 2 other visual editors, The material/shader editor for the creation of HLSL like shaders and visuals and the new Metasound editor for the manipulation, generation and sequence of sound within the engine. A general understanding of Unreal Engine is a prerequisite for this class. Students will learn how to use blueprints to produce an interactive program that can be a video game, an installation or a Real Time digital Performance.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2367-000 (22316)01/23/2023 – 05/08/2023 Mon12:00 AM – 2:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Morales, Victor
This course will use the open source COVID-19 Impact Dashboard as a basis to explore ways to humanize the unfolding data on the coronavirus pandemic. Students are invited to collaborate on the COVID-19 Impact Project. Students will discover how data flows from public github repositories and tools needed to visualize the data. We will review other data-centric open source projects related to COVID-19 and discuss the questions they are trying to answer or problems they are trying to solve. We will examine historical and contemporary data visualizations. Using data visualization as a scaffold, we will explore ways to support community driven mourning and memorialization. Students can choose to participate as javascript coders, p5js explorers, UI/UX designers, citizen journalists, or data science explorers.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 8 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2338-000 (22314)01/23/2023 – 03/20/2023 Mon3:00 PM – 5:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Thompson, John · Jones, Shindy
Computational simulation and videogame engines offer thinkers and makers a new way to reflect on the question “If I can make a world, what would it be like?” In Worldmaking with Unity, students will be exposed to various theories and approaches of worldmaking, and realize their own creative visions by constructing an original, conceptual, and playfully simulated world with indie game development engine Unity. This seven-week seminar/studio course will include a gentle introduction to computer programming, 3D modeling, character and scene design, and rendering techniques with Unity, as well as related production tools such as Blender. Projects may address system, agency, narrative, generative design, critical computing, and more. Student projects created in Unity can be compatible with augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). This course is designed as an intro-level game design and development course. There is no prerequisite. More advanced production techniques such as shader language and AI might be introduced as optional topics only. More information at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UppRjSyFlMpGPNLMowqKmP7wwq29s5Oexnpvrj4Gubs/edit?usp=sharing
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 7 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2369-000 (22315)03/23/2023 – 05/04/2023 Thu6:00 PM – 8:00 PM (Evening)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Qi, Zhenzhen
This course will explore the history and meaning of the ubiquitous concept of “cursed” media, and provide students with a survey of digital art tools for the creation of their own cursed animation, video, photography, music, and web art. Many people were first introduced to the concept of cursed media when it exploded into mainstream internet discourse in 2016 with the @cursedimages Twitter account, which posted found photos bound by their unsettling effect on the viewer. Cursed media predates this account, however, stretching back to medieval notions of cursed objects. We will demonstrate how throughout time, cursed media has functioned like a slip of the tongue that provides a window into the cultural unconscious, where we encounter uncensored thoughts and feelings about race, gender, class, and what it means to be human. From Amazon Muzak generators to Artbreeder’s GAN tools for image creation, from machine learning text generators to robots who work at Walmart, cursed media and tools for its creation bring into view the ways that that culture reacts to tension between the increasingly precarious position of human beings in the capitalist 21st century and the threat of human erasure by the powerful forces of nature. Students will be introduced to digital art tools for creating music, manipulating photography and video, working with 3d animation, and building web art. Students will attempt to create their own cursed media, and in the process will gain a deeper understanding of the unconscious biases and ethical implications of contemporary digital creation tools.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2088-000 (22312)01/26/2023 – 05/04/2023 Thu6:00 PM – 8:00 PM (Evening)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Tarakajian, Catherine · Rokhsar, Adam
This course provides critical and curatorial insight into global art practices and interactive technologies from a post colonial perspective. Designed to provide a critique of imperialism the course is underpinned by ideas pertaining to the rise of the Global South, decoupling, indigenous knowledge and ancient and contemporary innovation through contemporary art, emergent technologies, new media and exhibition practices. Students will also investigate the role of shifting digital landscapes and conservation of new media coupled with museum collecting practices, from both a deconstructive and ethical lens, providing regular opportunities to reflect upon their own respective practices. Presented as a combination of presentations/ critiques, seminars, readings, virtual field trips as well as special guest visits with noted experts, the course presents a compact and timely overview of globalization, and the effects of rapid interactive and technological innovative, in lieu with ideating towards a more equitable and diverse art and technological ecosystem.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2097-000 (22306)01/23/2023 – 05/08/2023 Mon9:00 AM – 12:00 AM (Morning)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Raza, Sara
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
1 credits – 16 Weeks
On October 8th, 2015, a team in Ecuador identified 431 species of birds – the world record for number counted in a single day. Earlier that year in Myanmar, a scientist counted one Jerdon’s babbler, the first in nearly eight decades. In December of 2019, eBird announced that its database held over 737 million bird observations. This morning, in Brooklyn Bridge park, I counted 38 house sparrows, 4 black-and-white warblers and an ovenbird. This course will consider birding as a practice, and will dive deep into the processes by which observations become data. As a collective, we will investigate how crowd-sourced data is transforming ornithology, and will explore ways to tell stories about the natural world through visualization and more radical forms of data representation.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 7 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2085-000 (22309)03/23/2023 – 05/04/2023 Thu9:00 AM – 12:00 AM (Morning)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Thorp, Jeremy
Listening is not something we do through hearing alone. Engaging with multiple perspectives, from Deaf studies and critiques of ableist hearing ideologies, to the possibilities and pitfalls presented through machine listening and imaginative sonic speculation, we will playfully deconstruct and question what it means to listen at all. Each week, readings will be assigned and students are asked to respond to prompts in the form of light-weight exercises that will orient most of our in-class discussion. Time will be spent discussing readings, presenting, and providing critique for each other’s projects in order to help draw connections between theory and practice. Through in-class presentations, we will encounter works by Christine Sun Kim, George Lewis, Pauline Oliveros and read from Jennifer Lynn Stoever, Tina Campt, and François Bonnet. The class has no technical prerequisites, and students are welcome to respond with works using tools and techniques from other classes (audio/video presentation, programming and physical computing, installation and fabrication, etc.). Through this work, we will unpack how the way in which we attend to the physical world and its inhabitants through our listening has real consequences. In much the same way our interpretation of the world is informed and influenced by factors outside of ourselves, our capacity to listen is conditioned through societal, political, economic, historical, and racial dimensions. We will disentangle listening from hearing and consider listening as a practice that begins not with how we hear sounds but how it allows us to (or prevents us from) interfacing and relating to our exteriors (and interiors). By the end of the class we will attempt to converge and coalesce our own ideas and perspective of what it means to listen.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 7 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2328-000 (22308)03/24/2023 – 05/05/2023 Fri3:00 PM – 5:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Diedrick, Johann
The class will focus on the many overlooked aspects of paper, and how it can be used as a three-dimensional material. We will learn the disciplines of making Pop-Ups, Origami, Paper Crafting, and Visual Design. Using these methods as a starting point, students will build prototypes to explore new ways to tell stories, inform, interact, play with, engage, and challenge a younger audience. Most classes are hands – on. The rest, dedicated to criticism (including from children), analysis, and refinement, technical and conceptual. We will discuss how they could be mass produced and distributed. Students will build three prototypes, during the semester. From these, each student will select a favorite to fully develop as the final.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 6 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2187-000 (14760)01/25/2024 – 03/07/2024 Thu9:00 AM – 12:00 AM (Morning)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Ita, Sam
Language is more than just words and meanings: it’s paper and ink, pixels and screens, fingertips on keyboards, voices speaking out loud. Language is, in a word, material. In this course, students will gain an understanding of how the material of language is represented digitally, and learn computational techniques for manipulating this material in order to create speculative technologies that challenge conventional reading and writing practices. Topics include asemic writing, concrete poetry, markup languages, keyboard layouts, interactive and generative typography, printing technologies and bots (alongside other forms of radical publishing). Students will complete a series of weekly readings and production-oriented assignments leading up to a final project. In addition to critique, sessions will feature lectures, class discussions and technical tutorials. Prerequisites: Introduction to Computational Media or equivalent programming experience.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2051-000 (11394)01/23/2025 – 05/01/2025 Thu6:00 PM – 8:00 PM (Evening)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Parrish, Allison
Introduces problems raised by the nature of art, artworks, and aesthetic judgment. Considers the expressive and representational properties of artworks, aesthetic attention, and appreciation, as well as the creation, interpretation, and criticism of artworks. Readings from classical and contemporary sources.
Philosophy (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
PHIL-UA 60-000 (10283)01/22/2024 – 05/06/2024 Tue,Thu3:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Hopkins, Robert
Considers contemporary science fiction as literature, social commentary, prophecy, and a reflection of recent and possible future trends in technology and society. Writers considered include such authors as Isaac Asimov, J. G. Ballard, Octavia Butler, Arthur C. Clark, Samuel Delany, Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Ursula K. Le Guin, Neal Stephenson, and Bruce Sterling.
English (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks
If so much of life is circumstance, being in a certain place at a certain moment in time… Can we shape a life or at least a few brief moments of a life by designing the circumstances in which that life inhabits a space? In this course, we will treat space as a time-based medium and ask how interactive spaces can generate narratives that are lived rather than told. We will do so by interrogating four so-called “space-narrative” forms: Wandering The Desert, Processions, Circles and Territories. Through play, discussion and hands-on workshopping of both technical topics and ideas we will ask and attempt to answer some of the following questions: What constitutes a space? How do we experience a space over time? How does space shape our experience of time? How can space form a personal narrative? Media outputs we will employ include: lights, projection and sound. Interaction input sources will come from cameras and microphones. We will use p5.js, websockets and node.js for real-time interaction. Class time will be split between group improvisation exercises, playing with and critiquing examples and translating design strategies into code and logic.
Interactive Media Arts (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
IMNY-UT 226-000 (22297)01/24/2022 – 05/09/2022 Fri12:00 AM – 3:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Yin, Yue
Course description (optional): Not all innovation starts in the West and gets exported to other parts of the world. In many places with less developed capitalist economies and infrastructures, technology is rapidly developed and adapted for hyper-local use. We’ll gain inspiration from a broad spectrum of creative uses of technology in the developing world(s) — from art and design, hacktivism, and community-oriented work that increase social good, and then conceive of and prototype our own projects. Special attention will be paid to speculative 3D fabrication tools and processes, web-based platforms, circuit bending and making them all work together! Students will experiment and research at the intersections of art and technology to develop the beginnings of work grounded in post-colonial reality and the late capitalist near-future.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 7 Weeks
This course equips students with the skills and tools necessary to address applied data science problems with a specific emphasis on urban data. Building on top of the Principles of Urban Informatics (prerequisite for the class) it further introduces a wide variety of more advanced analytic techniques used in urban data science, including advanced regression analysis, time-series analysis, Bayesian inference, foundations of deep learning and network science. The course will also contain a team data analytics project practice. After this class the students should be able to formulate a question relevant to urban data science, find and curate an appropriate data set, identify and apply analytic approaches to answer the question, obtain the answer and interpret it with respect to its certainty level as well as the limitations of the approach and the data.
Ctr for Urban Sci and Progress (Graduate)
3 credits – 15 Weeks
CUSP-GX 6001-000 (7539)01/23/2023 – 05/08/2023 Thu2:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Sobolevsky, Stanislav
CUSP-GX 6001-000 (7540)01/23/2023 – 05/08/2023 Thu5:00 PM – 7:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Sobolevsky, Stanislav
Visualization and visual analytics systems help people explore and explain data by allowing the creation of both static and interactive visual representations. A basic premise of visualization is that visual information can be processed at a much higher rate than raw numbers and text. Well-designed visualizations substitute perception for cognition, freeing up limited cognitive/memory resources for higher-level problems. This course aims to provide a broad understanding of the principals and designs behind data visualization. General topics include state-of-the-art techniques in both information visualization and scientific visualization, and the design of interactive/web-based visualization systems. Hands on experience will be provided through popular frameworks such as matplotlib, VTK and D3.js.
Ctr for Urban Sci and Progress (Graduate)
3 credits – 15 Weeks
CUSP-GX 6006-000 (7543)01/23/2023 – 05/08/2023 Wed8:00 AM – 10:00 AM (Morning)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Sun, Qi
The course targets current and future urban practitioners looking to harness the power of data in urban practice and research. This course builds the practical skillset and tools necessary to address urban analytics problems with urban data. It starts with essential computational skills, statistical analysis, good practices for data curation and coding, and further introduces a machine learning paradigm and a variety of standard supervised and unsupervised learning tools used in urban data science, including regression analysis, clustering, and classification as well as time series analysis. After this class, you should be able to formulate a question relevant to Urban Data Science, locate and curate an appropriate data set, identify and apply analytic approaches to answer the question, obtain the answer and assess it with respect to its certainty level as well as the limitations of the approach and the data. The course will also contain project-oriented practice in urban data analytics, including relevant soft skills – verbal and written articulation of the problem statement, approach, achievements, limitations, and implications.
Ctr for Urban Sci and Progress (Graduate)
3 credits – 15 Weeks
CUSP-GX 1003-000 (23062)09/02/2021 – 12/14/2021 Tue6:00 PM – 7:00 PM (Evening)at ePolyInstructed by Sobolevsky, Stanislav
The UCSL at CUSP is a series of online sessions designed to build a common skillset and familiarity with techniques, concepts, and models for urban informatics computing. The online sessions focus on data explorations, programming skills and statistical methods needed for scientific computing in the field of Urban Informatics.
Ctr for Urban Sci and Progress (Graduate)
3 credits – 15 Weeks
CUSP-GX 1001-000 (7738)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Balestra, Martina