This course explores the fundamentals of storytelling through animation and takes students from traditional animation techniques to contemporary forms. In the first part of the course, students will focus on traditional animation, from script to storyboard through stop motion and character-based animation. The course then examines opportunities afforded by new technologies, such as interactivity, projection mapping and game engines. Drawing skills are not necessary for this course, however students will keep a personal sketchbook.
Category Archives: IMA Electives
All courses that count as IMA Major Electives
Interactive Multi-Screen Experiences (ITPG-GT 3002)
Credits: 2
Duration: 6 Weeks
Dates: Fri
Duration: 6 Weeks
Dates: Fri
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 6 Weeks
Mobile App Development Lab (ITPG-GT 2372)
One of the most transformative consumer products in history, the iPhone remains the standard bearer for great design and user experience. With the latest versions of iOS and iPhone, Apple puts depth sensing and augmented reality in our pockets. How do we take advantage of this incredible platform to produce our own compelling experiences? This course will be a hands-on workshop where we explore the world beyond generic apps and push the boundaries of what’s possible on iOS hardware. Each week, you’ll be asked to complete a programming exercise meant to foster your understanding of iOS application development. We’ll leverage existing open source libraries to quickly build out your app with features such as real time communication and cloud storage. We aim to create distributed instruments for computed expression. Full-time access to an iOS device and a Mac laptop computer running the latest operating system and development tools are required. Prereq: Some programming experience (such as ICM) and willingness to learn Apple’s Swift programming language.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
Sections (Spring 2025)
ITPG-GT 2372-000 (11411)01/21/2025 – 05/06/2025 Tue9:00 AM – 12:00 AM (Morning)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Thompson, John
Designing for Well-Being (ITPG-GT 3000)
This course would focus on the questions of 1) what makes people healthy? and 2) how can we design tools and environments that support healthy lifestyles? Key topics to be covered include public health concepts like the multiple determinants of health and the social-ecological framework, plus a little evolutionary biology; the role of behavior in health, key tenets of behavioral economics and behavior change strategies; and systems thinking concepts from Donella Meadows and others. Students will come away with a much more sophisticated understanding of the complex system of factors and forces that affect people’s health; understanding of key systems concepts and some techniques for understanding systems; and experience designing for behavior at scale. A potential final project could be to reimagine/redesign a popular commercial service so that it would have a more health-producing impact — or, alternatively, to focus on designing changes to the ITP environment that would promote better health for students, faculty and staff. About Steve Downs: www.stevedowns.net
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 6 Weeks
Sections (Fall 2025)
ITPG-GT 3000-000 (11381)10/24/2025 – 12/05/2025 Fri12:00 AM – 2:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Downs, Stephen
No Screens Allowed (ITPG-GT 3010)
“Since the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, the touchscreen has become the dominant manner for navigating Mobile devices. UX pattern best practices are enshrined in documents such as Apple’s ‘HIG’ (Human Interface Guidelines) or Google’s more recent Material Design. ‘No Screens Allowed’ is a class that challenges this ’Touchscreen first’ interaction approach. Taught in the Kotlin language, students will prototype solutions in response to Instructor directed assignments. The various projects structured to interrogate mobile device capabilities such as: Voice Recognition, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, and built in sensors. Students will be provided with identical hardware: Pixel 3 phones running Android, the chosen development platform for the class. Successful completion of Introduction to Computational Media and Introduction to Physical Computing are required for entry into class. “
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks
Sections (Spring 2024)
ITPG-GT 3010-000 (14801)01/25/2024 – 05/02/2024 Thu6:00 PM – 8:00 PM (Evening)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Jones, Brian
Serious Games (ITPG-GT 3001)
This introductory course will focus on giving students a practical understanding of how to make ‘serious’ video games. That is, games that challenge the player to think and learn. This is a class where we will be ideating and producing playable games each week over 7 weeks using the open-source Godot game engine. By the end of the course, you’ll have a small portfolio of ‘serious’ games to show and build upon. Throughout the course, students will become familiar with concepts such as iterative design, play testing, object-oriented programming, user-interface design, animation and basic art for 2D games. They will take a design-based approach to content creation, developing a proficiency in the Godot game engine and the overall indie-game development pipeline.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 8 Weeks
Sections (Spring 2023)
ITPG-GT 3001-000 (22327)01/23/2023 – 03/20/2023 Mon3:00 PM – 5:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Grewell, Christian
Introduction to Quantum Technologies (ITPG-GT 3003)
Quantum technologies are the next frontier of electronics and computing. Quantum Computers, Quantum Sensors, Quantum Materials are just beginning to emerge from laboratories and enter the realm of practical application. The course introduces the underlying principles of quantum physics, and reviews emerging capabilities of quantum computers and related technologies. Coursework will include programming quantum algorithms on a simulator, and running programs on actual cloud-based quantum computing hardware. The topics will be highly technical and will require the study of scientific principles and experimental apparatus. We will cover some basic mathematical operations in linear algebra, and we’ll be encountering some equations from physics and computer science.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 7 Weeks
Sections (Spring 2025)
ITPG-GT 3003-000 (11429)03/17/2025 – 05/05/2025 Mon6:00 PM – 8:00 PM (Evening)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Shakar, Gregory
Modern Artifacts: Interactive Public Art for the People (ITPG-GT 3005)
Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Thu
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Thu
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks
Code Your Way (ITPG-GT 3007)
Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks
Media-making as Healing Practice (ITPG-GT 2358)
Where does healing reside in media-making? How do we approach creating artistic processes and tools that move towards minimizing harm, supporting collective care, and understanding what healing means for ourselves and with one another? This course examines socially-engaged artistic processes and frameworks that reconstruct, reclaim, and decolonize ‘healing.’ Together, we will gather embodied data from our bodyminds, build language through readings, and map out artists in the field exploring disability, racial trauma, queerness, and diaspora within media and performing arts. Subsequently, we will develop our own processes as our final project: weaving together storytelling, embodied strategies, tool-making, performances, and/ or space-making.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
Sections (Spring 2023)
ITPG-GT 2358-000 (22317)01/25/2023 – 05/03/2023 Wed3:00 PM – 5:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Lin, Yo-Yo
Blockchain Aesthetics (ITPG-GT 2360)
This1-pt course examines the evolving paradigm of “Blockchain Aesthetics” using an interdisciplinary Art History and Science and Technology Studies (STS) perspective. Students will learn and discuss the dominant methods, concepts, and strategies of applied blockchain technology in contemporary digital art, and together attempt to analyze and theorize the potential affordances and harms of this new artistic medium as it intervenes in established visual art institutions and communities (e.g., from museums and galleries to auction houses, social media and the decentralized web). The class will also look backwards in history to situate “Blockchain Aesthetics,” and the wide artistic realm of “Crypto Art,” in a broad cultural and technological history beyond NFTs, highlighting how ideas around cryptography, contracts, reproducibility, decentralization, scarcity and financialization developed in modern and contemporary art. Approaching the blockchain as a novel artistic tool and a technology of power, this course considers recent aesthetic evaluations of Crypto Art against its sociopolitical, infrastructural, and ecological impact, centering its contested potential for—and negation of—equity.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
1 credits – 16 Weeks
Sections (Spring 2023)
ITPG-GT 2360-000 (22318)
Biophilic Experiences – activating our sensory relationship to nature (ITPG-GT 2361)
Credits: 2
Duration: 6 Weeks
Dates: Fri
Duration: 6 Weeks
Dates: Fri
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 6 Weeks
Future Mapper (ITPG-GT 2362)
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Tue
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Tue
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
Through the Lens: Modalities of AR (ITPG-GT 2368)
Credits: 2
Duration: 7 Weeks
Dates: Thu
Duration: 7 Weeks
Dates: Thu
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 7 Weeks
World-Making with Unity (ITPG-GT 2369)
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
Sections (Spring 2023)
ITPG-GT 2369-000 (22315)03/23/2023 – 05/04/2023 Thu6:00 PM – 8:00 PM (Evening)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Qi, Zhenzhen
Noodles Prototyping in Performance (ITPG-GT 2367)
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
Sections (Spring 2023)
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
Web Art as Site (ITPG-GT 2094)
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Tue
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Tue
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
CAD for Virtual and Reality (ITPG-GT 2086)
Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks
Blessed/Blursed/Cursed (ITPG-GT 2088)
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
Sections (Spring 2023)
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
The COVID-19 Impact Project: Extracting Stories From Data (ITPG-GT 2338)
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
Sections (Spring 2023)
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