TouchDesigner is a powerful software hub for live audiovisual performance and installation art. With a cutting-edge buffet of inputs and outputs at our disposal, what new, evolved, or remixed types of art can we create? If you’re a musician, you’ll make and play an instrument that didn’t exist before. If you’re a dancer, your movements will become the music and visuals, instead of the other way around. If you’re a visual artist, you’ll collage with code, sculpt with magic, and create installations that respond to your audience instantly. If you’re all of the above, you’ll have fun in this class. The course starts with video art — live camera feeds, visual effects, and projection mapping — then weaves in audio reactivity and sound generation for DJ/VJing. We will use the MediaPipe plugin to detect our faces, bodies, and objects and use that data to make music, control systems, and modulate visual effects. We will scan objects, people, and environments with our phones to create virtual scenes and 3D animations rendered live. We will learn communication protocols — MIDI to send input and receive output from MIDI controllers or DAWs such as Ableton; OSC to wirelessly connect to other computers, software, and livecode environments; and NDI to send high-resolution and low-latency video feeds between devices. By the end of the course, students will be able to use TouchDesigner to connect and control any modern art/performance/game software. Assignments are time-intensive: creating original work to be shown in class and watching recorded lessons of the next week’s concepts. Classtime is a mix of homework performances, collaborative exercises, concept walkthroughs, and studio time. The final is a small group performance or interactive installation that is a part of a public show. No previous coding, fabrication, or performance experience necessary. Note: There is no longer mandatory use of Arduino in this course, though students with interest in Arduino microcontrollers can still create custom hardware interfaces that send sensor input or receive command signals and turn TouchDesigner into a hub for interactive installations or performance props.
Category Archives: Fall 2026
Analog Photography (OART-UT 11)
Analog Photography is a course designed for students eager to learn the traditional methods of making photographs with black & white film and crafting prints in a darkroom. Using a 35mm SLR camera, students will learn how to properly and creatively expose film, process their own black & white negatives and use gelatin silver paper to make prints in a darkroom with an enlarger to produce museum quality archival photographs. Emphasis is placed on the application of technique in terms of personal expression through the selection and composition of subject matter. The course consists of technical lectures and demonstrations, working sessions in the darkroom, photography and written assignments, lectures on historical and contemporary photography, discussions about readings and assignments and several group critiques. Smaller photography assignments begin the semester; each student will work on a single larger project after mid-term. Each student must have access to a camera with manually adjustable focus, aperture and shutter speeds by the first week of class. In addition to the lab fee for this course, students will need to pay for a minimum of 7 rolls of film and 100 sheets of photographic paper.
The Directors Process (FMTV-UT 125)
This class is an introduction to the craft of directing. We will take a step-by-step look at the director’s process and responsibilities in this most collaborative of arts. Our focus will include script, character and scene analysis; performance, casting and rehearsal; design and visual style; assembling the final form. We’ll talk about what an actor wants from a director, how to talk to the cinematographer and production/costume designers and why we look at editing as the final rewrite. Through lectures, screenings, assignments and discussions with working professionals, the class will offer a comprehensive foundation for the director on which to build a rich creative experience at Tisch and a long and satisfying professional career thereafter.
Life Drawing: The Figure (FMTV-UT 1112)
Reccomended for students studying both animation and live action. This course is designed to train animation students to think visually, and to strengthen their overall drafting and design skills. The focus of the course is drawing humans and animals from live subjects, thereby learning to translate the three-dimensional world into two-dimensional terms. Drafting skills are important to all animators, regardless of their chosen media or focus. In particular, strong drafting skills are essential for character animators. This course allocates as a Craft for Film & TV majors. COURSE SUBJECT TO DEPARTMENTAL FEES.
Storytelling Strategies (FMTV-UT 20)
The ability to understand “what makes a good story well told” is a skill that is crucial to your growth as a filmmaker whether you become a writer, director, producer, actor, editor, cinematographer, etc. Storytelling Strategies looks at how narrative stories work through an examination of the structural and mythic elements first established by the ancient Greek playwrights and recognized by Aristotle in his “Poetics” thousands of years ago. The course continues this examination up to and including such contemporary story models as Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” as well as the current Hollywood paradigm, “the three-act structure.” We will seek to find those principles that form the backbone of successful narrative screenplays and contribute to a film’s ability to resonate with an audience. The lecture is for analysis. The recitations are for applying what you have learned, through writing exercises and a completed short screenplay. This course allocates as Scriptwriting for Film & TV majors. Course may not be repeated.
Class #
Section #
Meets
Class #: 16547
Section #: 001
Meets: T 6:20-8:20p
Class #: 16548
Section #: 002
Meets: T 3:30-5:20p
Class #: 16549
Section #: 003
Meets: R 9:30-11:20a
Class #: 16550
Section #: 004
Meets: R 12:30-2:20p
Class #: 16551
Section #: 005
Meets: W 6:20-8:20p
Class #: 16552
Section #: 006
Meets: M 4-5:50p
Class #: 16553
Section #: 007
Meets: T 4-5:50p
Class #: 16554
Section #: 008
Meets: T 7-8:50p
Class #: 16555
Section #: 009
Meets: W 6:20-8:20p
Class #: 16556
Section #: 010
Meets: W 3:30-5:20p
Class #: 16557
Section #: 011
Meets: F 9:30-11:20a
Class #: 16558
Section #: 012
Meets: F 12:30-2:20p
Class #: 16559
Section #: 013
Meets: T 6:20-8:20p
Class #: 16560
Section #: 014
Meets: W 9:30-11:20a
Class #: 16561
Section #: 015
Meets: W 12:30-2:20p
Class #: 16562
Section #: 016
Meets: W 3:30-5:20p
Class #: 16563
Section #: 017
Meets: M 6:20-8:20p
Class #: 16564
Section #: 018
Meets: W 12:30-2:20p
Class #: 16565
Section #: 019
Meets: R 9:30-11:20a
Class #: 16566
Section #: 020
Meets: R 12:30-2:20p
Class #: 16567
Section #: 021
Meets: M 9-11a
Class #: 16568
Section #: 022
Meets: M 12:30-2:20p
Class #: 16569
Section #: 023
Meets: W 9:30-11:20a
Class #: 16570
Section #: 024
Meets: W 12:30-2:20p
Creative Music Entrepreneurs in Historical Context (REMU-UT 1201)
This 14-week class introduces students to the history of innovative entrepreneurs and institutions in American recorded music. We recount the stories and make arguments about famous executives, managers, producers, performers, DJs, and journalists/publishers from the dawn of the music business until the present day. We study how and why the fields, fiefdoms, and empires built by these impressive and sometimes controversial icons have transformed the course of popular music. Along the way, students become well versed in the history of 20th and 21st century recorded music, and in various music genres and styles; and we place the art and business of creating and selling recorded music in historical, political, cultural and social context. Throughout, we look at approaches to crafting successful oral and written arguments about popular music with clear, compelling writing about sound.
Auto Fictions (ITPG-GT 2066)
Auto Fictions is a studio class focusing on the creation of immersive, multi-path and interactive experiences based on personal narrative. Documentary art has included the art of installation for decades, but new technologies have given artists affordable tools that allow them to rapidly prototype and then refine immersive media experiences. Auto Fictions is an interdepartmental course that may include students from Film, ITP and Theater disciplines. Students will create production teams. Each team will make a project and each student will help the other create their work through intensive collaboration. The intention here is to practice collaboration across disciplines, methods, values, and artistic cultures to create a work of immersive fiction based on materials gathered from the past, captured or created in the present and/or imagined for the future. We will look at several possible approaches to the creation of immersive media works. Including multiplexing software programs. Students with the requisite knowledge in these tools or gaming engines with similar capabilities may use them for the creation of their works. But it is not required. There may be an opportunity for building intuitive interactivity into some of the experiences. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic we will be exploring how to adapt our working methods and our work itself to these conditions as they develop. The goal of the course will be to physically realize the works but to do that we will go through a detailed comprehensive design, planning and budgeting process so that if conditions permit all aspects of the work will be fully created or planned and ready to build. If conditions permit, we will meet one day at the beginning of the semester to install and introduce the platform, create teams, and review the assignment. Otherwise we will meet online and begin work there. Students will be provided with access to online tutorials for relevant software and systems.
Politics of Portraiture (OART-UT 826)
This course explores the pictorial articulation of individual human likeness and its fiction in the public forum. The art of portraiture has survived its own origins in myth making and archetype building. The human image, or icon, forever landmarks the voices, textures, physicality, spirituality, symbols, politics, aesthetic concerns and military contexts, religious rituals, government, calendar ceremonies, daily functions, heroic acts and social disorders of diverse cultures throughout recorded history. It is the history of creation, the story of romance, the mark of progress, the record of royalty and the profile of democracy. It is the revolution of fine art and a catalyst of discipline. Imaging the individual in the public eye is the story of humankind. This course bridges the worlds of the oral and written mythologies which inhabit and empower us and the creative manifestation (conscious and unconscious) of these ancient archetypes into contemporary art, media and design. Students will critically rethink the implied and material presence of portraiture in everyday life. Students will gain practical knowledge and insight into the origins and potential power of the archetypes which permeate our collective unconscious.
Media Moguls in the 20th Century (OART-UT 562)
This course attempts to track the American entertainment industry from its plebian origins through its rise to becoming the predominant mass entertainment culture in the world. Students discover the origins of the production practices that are employed in the entertainment industry today by following the legendary characters, movie moguls, and media titans of the early 20th century and the companies they built. The emphasis is on the way the visionaries of the time impacted seemingly risk-averse systems to invigorate and sometimes completely revolutionize them. These innovative men and women include, but are not limited, to Louis B. Mayer, George Lucas, Maya Deren, Shirley Clark, Nam Jun Paik, Lucille Ball, Russell Simmons, Clive Davis, Julie Taymor, and Steve Jobs.
Multi-disciplinary Arts Practice with Community Groups: Theories and Practice of Group Work in Arts (OART-UT 1017)
Whether you are a filmmaker looking to better understand how to build a cohesive and productive film crew; a theatre maker excited about building a performance project or theatre company; a multi-media artist looking for ways to innovate your ideas for artistic work in collaboration with others; an artist looking for tools for building an artistic ensemble, or a multi-disciplinary artist looking to take your creative work out into communities as social practice, this combination lecture/activity-based class provides you with tools for better understanding how to enter into and engage others in collective creative work of purpose. Multi-Disciplinary Arts Practice with Community Groups: Theories and Practice explores the challenges and benefits of making artistic work with others and the tools needed to create meaningful collaborative projects. In this class we interrogate definitions of community and group, explore the balance between group process and producing an artistically excellent project, and examine the processes of creating artistic work with others to strengthen our own artistic voices while helping raise the creative voices of others. With its focus on social practice, this course provides a foundation for working with small group structures in a variety of community settings and professional creative work environments. The course satisfies a CA major requirement as well as a social science requirement for all other Tisch students.
The Language of Film (FMTV-UT 4)
Language of Film is an introduction to the craft, history and theory of filmmaking and film-watching. The main challenge facing all filmmakers is to show the story: in other words, to visualize the drama. Over the past century, narrative, experimental and documentary filmmakers have developed a variety of creative strategies and techniques designed to give their audiences compelling, multi-sensorial experiences. The goal of this class is to explore how filmmakers in different historical and cultural settings have contributed to the evolution of film as a powerful, complex and captivating art form.. This course allocates as History & Criticism for Film & TV majors.
Class #
Section #
Meets
Class #: 16539
Section #: 001
Meets: W 6:20-9:50p
Class #: 16540
Section #: 002
Meets: W 2-3:15p
Class #: 16541
Section #: 003
Meets: R 9:30-10:45a
Class #: 16542
Section #: 004
Meets: R 11a-12:15p
Class #: 16543
Section #: 005
Meets: R 12:30-1:45p
Class #: 16544
Section #: 006
Meets: F 11a-12:15p
Class #: 16545
Section #: 007
Meets: F 12:30-1:45p
Class #: 16546
Section #: 008
Meets: F 2-3:15p
World Dance Cultures (OART-UT 701)
This class used to be called History of Dance. This course explores why and how dance acts as a vital participant in cultural practices around the world. Looking back through the perspective of present research, we will examine how dance is inherently a reflection of the culture it represents. A wide overview of dance and its myriad purposes will be covered, from a means of worship in India, Turkey, and Haiti; its inclusion in the rituals of Bali; noh and kabuki theatrical traditions of Japan; fertility and death ceremonies of the Wodaabe, Yoruba, and Dogon tribes of Africa; the healing zar dances of North Africa, and the rituals/activism of Native American tribes. The presentation of court dance as a symbol of power will be examined in Hawai’i, Java, and Cambodia, as well as in Catherine de Medici’s Renaissance pageants and in the French Baroque spectacles of Louis XIV’s Versailles and the Paris Opera. The inevitable impact of politics on dance will be examined in viewing the bloody genocide of Cambodia’s Royal Dancers; the propagandist works of China’s Cultural Revolution; the French Revolution’s influence upon Romantic ballets such as La Sylphide and Giselle; and how the repression of a Gitano culture led to the emergence of flamenco in Spain. In addition to written texts and video documentation, we will review examples of related art forms (visual arts, music, and drama).
History of Children’s Television (FMTV-UT 1022)
Through lectures, discussion, program viewing, projects, guests, and our own lives, this course explores the state of children’s media for pre-schoolers to adolescents. The goal is to understand how we all have been affected by the media and how we can determine change for the next generation. We will consider the role television, videos, and the internet play in regard to family and peer relationships, education and social issues. We will also examine the broadcasting and cable industry as well as the success and failure of the government and such media groups as ACT (Action for Children’s Television) in regulating content of children?s programs. Assignments will include interviews of pre-schoolers and adolescents, website presentations, critique of children’s programs, and a proposal for children’s media. This course allocates as History & Criticism for Film & TV majors.
Introduction to Digital Fabrication (IMNY-UT 252)
Do you want to MAKE THINGS with your computer? Are you an artist, engineer, designer, sculptor or architect? Are you a few of those things? How are 3D scanning and 3D modeling different? What materials should I be using? Should I be 3D printing or CNC-ing this CAD file? What is a Boolean operation and why is it my new best friend? This class will answer all of your questions. Don’t know what any of these things are? This class will answer those questions also. By the end of this course, you will be familiar with all that digital fabrication has to offer. We will cover everything from laser to 3D to CNC. You will learn how to identify which digital fabrication technique works best for your projects. But more than that, you will learn what kinds of questions you should be asking in order to complete a project from start to finish. As technology advances at rapid speeds, digital making machines and software are changing just as fast. So instead of just being taught about the machines of today, you will also be given the tools to teach yourself the machines of tomorrow. Emphasis will be put on learning how to ask the right kind of questions to successfully finish a project. What do you want to make? Let’s make it.
Critical Experiences (IMNY-UT 206)
“Critical Experience is an experiential journey through a research driven art practice rooted in care, community, and somatic inquiry. This class is based on the premise that there are many ways to know things and we can draw upon these ways of knowing and our desire to know in order to nurture a creative practice grounded in research, clear intention, and a critical lens. Critical here means: discerning, eager to participate differently, cast new light on, re-examine, course-correct. You will be guided through traditional research methods (library and interview techniques, citations, informal ethnographies) and experience design while also being asked to cultivate intentional awareness of your own positionalities, communities, personal strengths, emotions, and desires through experimentation, hunch following, rituals, and contemplative practices.This class was created for or artists/designers who are interested in participation/interaction and its relationship to social practice, critical design, and change-making as well as individuals curious about knowing what moves them. Why experience? The work in this class will be looked at through the lens of its ability to transform (a user, participant, audience, viewer). Interactivity is one way of doing that, but through the lens of experience design, all art is temporal and embodied.”
UI/UX for Games (GAMES-UT 241)
This course explores the intersection of UI UX thinking and game experience/interface design. Students will be introduced to UI UX concepts and methods, and then supported in adapting them for game specific contexts. Game design – in fact all interactive design – is a conversational undertaking. Students will become better conversationalists both by adding to their store of experience design knowledge and by learning to focus on, empathize with, and draw out their conversation partners – the players.
Stop Motion Animation (FMTV-UT 214)
Includes all techniques in which the animator works directly in front of the camera. Examples include: Claymation, puppet animation, paint under the camera, in-camera special effects, and pixillation. Demonstrations on character building, set construction, and design, armatures, and lighting for miniature. Several short assignments are required to introduce students to intricacies of stop-motion animation and relationship to 3-D computer animation. Each student will produce a short film with sound. This course allocates as a Craft for Film & TV majors. COURSE SUBJECT TO DEPARTMENTAL FEES. THIS COURSE HAS PREREQUISITES. Non-majors must process a “Permission Notice for Non-Majors” form to register for the course (subject to availability).
Podcasting Workshop (FMTV-UT 1006)
“True stories in sound” podcasts are among the most popular and innovative formats in audio, driven by the success of shows like Serial, 99% Invisible, and Ear Hustle. While challenging to produce, these podcasts offer a compelling mix of intimacy and urgency, making them a powerful medium for storytelling. In this course, students will navigate the full production process—pitching, recording, writing, and producing a complete episode in formats such as audio documentary, memoir, essay, how-to, or experimental. We’ll refine interview and writing techniques, develop individual storytelling voices, and explore creative approaches to sound editing. Additionally, students will craft a podcast pitch deck to support their episode and learn strategies for marketing, distribution, and monetization.
Art on the Edge (OART-UT 1019)
Taking off from the practices of medium-based art categories, this course is structured across key topics in contemporary art – “art of today, produced by artists who are living in the twenty-first century”. During the semester, via the framework of readings, projects and assignments, we will consider the importance of the visual arts in the larger context of society. Each week we will look at a different topic, which will be organized around key concepts, artists and artwork examples. The main goal is to allow us to contemplate the process of interaction between visual art, history, cultural, socio-economical, and technological forces. The stress of our gatherings will be on the artist as a thinker and a maker.
Introduction to Performance Studies (PERF-GT 1000)
Majors Only:This course will introduce incoming Master’s students to some of the concepts, terms, and theoretical genealogies that they can expect to encounter in Performance Studies. What makes performance studies performance studies, and why do it? In considering this question we will consider the specificity of performance as an object of study, a mode of inquiry, a practice of self-hood and sociality, and as an aesthetic practice; we will also focus on the specific challenges and potentialities in writing about/as performance.