This course explores the ways in which popular film, TV, and video cultures construct the historical past, the battles that arise among historians and the public over film versions of history, and how such films can be utilized as historical documents themselves. We consider films, TV, and video as products of the culture industry; as visions of popular history and national mythology; as evidence for how social conflicts have been depicted; and as evidence for how interpretations of the past have been revised from earlier eras to the present.
In numerical analysis one explores how mathematical problems can be analyzed and solved with a computer. As such, numerical analysis has very broad applications in mathematics, physics, engineering, finance, and the life sciences. This course gives an introduction to this subject for mathematics majors. Theory and practical examples using Matlab will be combined to study a range of topics ranging from simple root-finding procedures to differential equations and the finite element method. | Prerequisites: A grade of C or better in (MA-UY 2114 or MA-UY 2514) and (MA-UY 1044 or MA-UY 3034 or MA-UY 3054 or MA-UY 3113) | Anti-Requisite: MA-UY 4524Mathematics (Undergraduate) 4 credits – 15 Weeks
The course will provide a background study of all related areas of the multibillion-dollar music industry, including the evolution and operations of the record company, music publishing, artist management, live entertainment, copyright, business-to-business and consumer-facing digital services.
A follow-up complement to the first-year required Creative Entrepreneurs in Historical Context course that focused on entrepreneurs and producers, Artists and Audiences in Historical Context considers the history of popular (& semi-popular) music through the lens of iconic performers/recording artists and their audiences and communities, with special attention to issues of space and geography. Here are the central questions this class asks: Why do we have performing musicians and recording artists? What work do they do in the world, and how have our conceptions of the artist changed over time? And why do artists continue to need audiences? What role do fans and listeners play in our culture and politics? As we tackle these questions, we’ll look at how artists and audiences have been impacted over the decades by emerging media and technologies; we’ll look at auteur theory, crowd theory and cultural conceptions of musical genius; we’ll address taste and the rockism/poptimism debates; the pervasive role of stardom/celebrity as it determines what we might call today’s “pop industrial complex;” we’ll talk about issues of freedom of expression and political activism; we’ll think about the artist’s role in and against forces like war, terrorism and various forms of state and religious repression; and the artist’s struggle to reach audiences in, and against, categories of classification like genre and format. Artists and Audiences in Historical Context is an intensive reading and writing course, perhaps the most intensive one you will take at REMU: students read critical and historical writing about a diverse range of performers/recording artists, and then practice critical/creative writing themselves. Working with assistant editors/mentors as well as the instructor, students will be expected to learn how music writing improves through drafting, editing and stylistic refinement. Weekly audio/video playlists will supplement the reading and writing.
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 future communication technologies, students will speculate on the future of communication technologies 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 lab. 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 lab portions, students will participate in hands-on creative and technical activities 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.
This course focuses on programming strategies and techniques behind procedural analysis and generation of text-based data. We’ll explore topics ranging from evaluating text according to its statistical properties to the automated production of text with probabilistic methods to text visualization. Students will learn server-side and client-side JavaScript programming and develop projects that can be shared and interacted with online. This fall the course will also explore topics in machine learning as related to text. There will be weekly homework assignments as well as a final project.
We are inundated by data, but data alone do not translate into useful information. Statistics provides the means for organizing, summarizing, and therefore better analyzing data so that we can understand what the data tell us about critical questions. If one collects data then understanding how to use statistical methods is critical, but it is also necessary to understand and interpret all the information we consume on a daily basis. This course provides these basic statistical approaches and techniques. This course may not be acceptable as a substitute for any other Probability and Statistics course. For Sustainable Urban Environments (SUE) students, please see your advisor. Note: Not open to math majors or students who have taken or will take MA-UY 2054 or MA-UY 2224 or MA-UY 3014 or MA-UY 3514 or ECE-UY 2233 or equivalent.
This course examines the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable urban development. Some of the major themes explored include indicators of sustainability, urban demographic trends, environmental justice, green building, urban sprawl, sustainable energy and transportation, and global climate change. In addition, the role of information technology (IT) and social networks is discussed in the context of promoting ideas globally about sustainable development.
Examines both theoretical and applied aspects of research design, data analysis, and interpretation. Through readings, class discussion, guest lectures and written assignments, student will gain a thorough understanding of and practice in the components of good food-focused research. Topics include: articulating a research question, locating and using primary and secondary source information, conducting original research, and structuring and executing a research project.
4 points, discussion/seminar. First offered spring 2016, and every semester thereafter. Prerequisite (or co-requisite): Literary Interpretation (ENGL-UA 200). This seminar is a class in creative as well as critical reading. This class posits reading as an activity and explores reading and writing as reciprocal activities: no strong writers are not also strong readers. What can we learn from a text’s forms, modes, codes, and affects? What can we also learn from theories of literature (of poetry and poetics, or drama, of the novel or narrative in general)? How can we read both with and against the grain? And how can a profound engagement with criticism, commentary, and theory help us become better “makers” ourselves? This course assumes that writing is an effect of, and in a feedback loop with, reading: thus this seminar aims to strengthen your capacities for pattern recognition – i.e. sophistication about genre, style, mode. Regular assignments aim to provide a space for critical experiments in reading and writing; the syllabus offers models and goads for reflection and response. Students will direct and distill their inquiries into a substantial final paper (or project).
In the context of an increasingly polarized American society, this course seeks to train students to mobilize diverse faith communities together for the greater good. Unleashing the power of their own story, students will articulate their values and explore the ways it can be shared. The course will draw on case studies from historical and contemporary faith leaders who have achieved success in creating sustainable change, as well as interrogating relevant current affairs as they arise. Students will learn to recognize how stories are used to motivate action, to recognize the ways that race, power and privilege play a role in elevating and downplaying stories and to identify the role values play in motivating action.
In the context of a growing number of intersecting local, national, and global crises, each warranting political strategy, operational responses, and humanitarian planning across a range of states, agencies, movements, technical and political actors, this course focuses on exploring: the relationships between and among decision-makers and affected populations; the political economy of resource mobilization and distribution; the practical tools, frameworks, and blueprints used for response; questions of power in the context of emergency, and; historical determinants of humanitarian need, responsibility, and intervention. This course digs deeply into the political economy, politics, infrastructure, design, incentives, and dilemmas related to the current development and emergency paradigms, with specific exploration of what constitutes humanitarian action, aid, response, and ethics. Blending both practitioner and theoretical perspectives, this course takes a critical approach to the evolution of development concepts, slow and fast emergency, and structural inequality as they are shaped by historical events and processes, institutions, and ideologies – while simultaneously exploring the role of contemporary aid systems, political and social responses in perpetuating and remedying each. There is special emphasis on the perspectives and vantage points of people most directly affected by perpetual emergency. While not centered on or around the COVID-19 pandemic that has shaped our lives for the last three years, we will incorporate its context and reference it as an embodied case for better understanding the realities and power dynamics affecting “local populations” that we often speak about in this work, as well as a growing field of policy research and practice surrounding compounding crises, or “polycrises.” Throughout the course, which will utilize active learning modalities such as simulations, large and small group discussion, mapping and platform analysis, analysis of films, discussion of readings, guest speakers from other geographies, and individual reflection, we will engage (and often struggle with) fundamental (and technical) questions such as: • What are the political, social and economic underpinnings of contemporary development, emergency, and humanitarian discourse? • How does the design of development and humanitarian infrastructure and technical systems contribute to or alleviate structural inequality within and across societies as part of long-term development paradigms or short-term emergency response? • What does it mean to be an individual engaged in humanitarian, emergency, and development work as an affected population, as a decision-maker, as an insider or outsider? As an individual or as part of an institution? What are the historical and contemporary sources of these roles, norms, and practices? • What are the origins and starting points of an emergency? When can we say an emergency has ended? • How does a focus on underlying causes and power relations change our analysis of the problems and solutions? Should politics be removed from practice & intervention or amplified? • As people affected by an emergency are not a monolith, how can we define “local” and “sovereign” in mapping competing interests and power dynamics within communities affected by emergency? • Should we reform or abandon the current humanitarian/development aid system toward alternatives?
This course offers an experience with the intersection of technology and culture through collaborative teaching offered by faculty from Interactive Media Arts (IMA) and Global China Studies(GCS). Throughout the semester, students will dive into the world of Mixed Reality (MR) design, mastering space scanning technology, documenting historical sites, and conducting in-depth historical research. Students will use Unity, a cross-platform game engine, to craft immersive MR experiences that bring historical narratives to life. What sets this course apart is the real-world testing component, where students will refine their designs at actual historical sites. By the end, students will produce a digital immersive time-travel architecture, creating MR experiences that bring cultural heritage to life for modern audiences. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or above. Fulfillment: IMA Advanced Elective; IMB IMA/IMB elective; GCS Elective: Media, Arts, and Literature.
This multidisciplinary course allows students from a variety of backgrounds to work together to learn about and develop assistive technology, as well as cultivate a better understanding of the people being served. Students will work in teams to identify clinical needs relevant to their chosen client and learn the process of developing an idea and following that through to the development of a prototype product.
This course, aimed at second semester sophomores, is the launch pad of Television Writing in the department. Before taking any other TV writing courses, students must take Introduction To Television Writing. The course will introduce sophomores interested in TV writing to all aspects of what goes into the creation of a script for a TV program. It is also recommended for non-writers who wish to learn the fundamentals of TV writing as preparation for creating shows and working with writers. The course will also prepare students for other TV-writing courses in the departmental Television Progression. The course is also open to seniors with an interest in television writing who haven’t taken other TV writing courses. This course allocates as Film & TV, Scriptwriting for Film & TV majors.
This course will cover a variety of academic topics within the field of Interactive Telecommunications. For further details, please refer to the individual class section notes and topic subtitle.
This course will cover a variety of academic topics within the field of Interactive Telecommunications. For further details, please refer to the individual class section notes and topic subtitle.
In this class, we’ll learn TouchDesigner, a powerful software hub for live audiovisual content, and control it with DIY props and digital interfaces that we’ll build to connect to our art directly from the stage. With a cutting-edge buffet of inputs and outputs at our disposal, what new, evolved, or remixed types of performance can we create? If you’re a musician, you’ll build and play instruments 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 filmmaker, you’ll shoot a real-life scene with a virtual camera or light a physical set with real-time VFX. If you’re a visual artist, you’ll warp color, distort images, and push pixels to the brink of destruction. If you’re all of the above, you’ll have fun in this class. To connect to TouchDesigner, we’ll build hardware props using Arduinos, tiny computers that we can hook up sensors, buttons, and LEDs to, and create unique thematic interfaces that augment our performances and interactive installations. Weekly assignments explore AI tools, electronic circuits, fabrication, camera input and livestreams, 3D models and procedural animation, and more. Midway through the semester we’ll begin performing live using our connected props for DJ/VJing and projection-mapped interactive spaces, with the class culminating in a final public performance bringing together the best of student work. No previous coding or performance experience necessary. There is a lab fee for the hardware we’ll use to build our devices.
With an important history of immigration, France has long been a site of cultural contact and exchange. This course considers the country’s multicultural make-up and the ideologies, institutions, conflicts, and paradoxes that shape how that diversity has taken form through time. Conflicts and controversies of the past 40 years, which include the rise of the extreme right, the problem of the disadvantaged suburbs, the question of Islamic headscarves, and more, have in particular pushed these questions to the front of the country’s domestic agenda. Looking historically and across several case studies, we ask as well as what the French example can add to our understanding of culture, diversity, and race. Conducted in English.
This is a hands-on course designed to introduce the student to narrative and documentary editing techniques, and to the role of the editor in shaping the final form of film and video productions. Good editing is crucial to the success of every film and video. This class is recommended to students pursuing directing or producing who want a better understanding of how the post-production workflow functions, as well as to any student, from sophomore to senior, who would like to gain a clearer understanding of the role of the editor as an artist, a technician and a collaborator. To achieve this, the class will delve into the methods, objectives, and technical aspects of post-production. It will thoroughly explore two major editing programs (Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro) used in today’s professional post-production environment, and acquaint the student with every stage of the editing workflow from capture to final output. Students will learn to approach these and other non-linear programs as variations on common themes rather than as completely new and foreign tools. In addition, the class will present examples of edited sequences from both narrative and documentary films for discussion, and have invited guests who will share their experiences in bringing films to completion. There will also be a course pack of assigned readings. This course allocates as a Craft for Film & TV majors.
This course examines the artistic career and creative work of Walter Murch, Oscar-winning film editor and sound designer, and the first and only artist to win Academy Awards for both film editing and sound mixing on a single film (The English Patient, 1997). The class will provide an unprecedented inside look into Mr. Murch’s processes of sound designing, editing, mixing, writing, and directing on such acclaimed and memorable films as THX 1138, American Graffiti, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, Return to Oz, The English Patient, Touch of Evil, and Cold Mountain. Through interviews, articles, and materials from his private archives never before publicly available, students learn about the creative world of an artist who has brought the importance of sound and editing to a new level. In addition to his work in film and his inventions used in the filmmaking process, two additional areas of interest of Mr. Murch will be examined: translations of Curzio Malaparte’s writings and his passion for astronomy. Mr. Murch will participate on several occasions in the course as a guest lecturer by visiting the class and/or via video conferencing.
This course unites the liberal arts experience with a specialization in food and nutrition. It contains three areas of focus: food and nutrition history; ethical issues in food and nutrition; and emerging technologies as they related to food and nutrition.
The course on “Media, Activism & Democracy” aims at, first, introducing students to the complex and fascinating topic of civil society activism; second, at illustrating them the linkages between activism and media; third, at showing them the impact of civil society’s advocacy on contemporary political systems. In a nutshell, the course aims at providing students with a closer understanding of the civil society activism-media-politics conundrums at the national and global levels.
This is a 2-credit repeatable course designed for students who have completed Intermediate Chinese II or equivalent, and wish to get additional opportunities to further expand their vocabulary and grammatical knowledge with a focus on strengthening their conversational skills and/or get more chance to practice speaking outside of their regular Advanced Chinese I/II classes. Students will perform in various conversational tasks, such as presenting, discussing, debating, etc. and improve the description and narration skills that the advanced level learners are expected to have. Students will engage in conversation in a clearly participatory manner in order to communicate information on autobiographical topics, as well as topics of community, national, or international interest.
“Designing for” classes focus on working with a real-world client or partner, preparing students for professional collaborations with institutions, publishers and media companies beyond the game industry who partner with game developers on playable experiences. Outside partners have included museums, non-profit organizations, non-digital publishers and digital media platforms. In each version of this class, students will interact directly with representatives from one outside partner and collaborate with other students on a single semester-long project tailored to the client’s goals, developing an initial idea from conceptualization through pitching and prototyping, based on criteria and feedback provided by the partner. Students will learn to follow a structured process for ideation, collaboration and prototyping, while taking care to understand the audience, content and goals of the partner organization’s industry and the context of play. The semester culminates in a final presentation of playable prototypes to the partner.
In this special format studio class, students will investigate techniques and frameworks to challenge the socioeconomics of planned obsolescence. We will research, design, and develop projects that rethink our strained relationship with smartphones and re-imagine the future of “old” devices. This is a production-heavy, four-credit course, where students will contribute to original research, and develop projects that combine HCI, design, and critical theory. Prerequisites include an open mind, the drive to make, and graduate-level Physical Computing.
This course examines magazines as collaborative sites for artists and writers internationally, leading the way to a global, networked cultural sphere. We will consider periodicals as both commercial and artist-driven enterprises and as material objects to be studied through the lens of the history of photography, journalism, and design.
Specifically for students in the Global Media Scholars program, this course is the required culminating experience taken in the senior year, alongside a travel component during the January term. Course topics reflect faculty research interests, offering students a chance to explore emerging issues in the field of media studies, and will be site-specific based on the country chosen for January travel.
MCC Research Inquiry Seminars, taken early in the major, expose students to the department’s culture of scholarly inquiry. Course topics reflect faculty research interests, offering students a chance to explore emerging issues in the field of media studies.
This course evaluates marketing as a system for the satisfaction of human wants and a catalyst of business activity. It presents a comprehensive framework that includes a) researching and analyzing customers, company, competition, and the marketing environment, b) identifying and targeting attractive segments with strategic positioning, and c) making product, pricing, communication, and distribution decisions. Cases and examples are utilized to develop problem-solving abilities.
This course provides an introduction to the dramatic work of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Students read and attend representative comedies, tragedies, and histories, their selection to be determined by the plays actually in production in and around London, particularly at the Barbican, New Globe, and Stratford to which at least one excursion will be made. Special attention will be given to the playhouses and the influence they had on the art of the theatre, actors’ companies, and modes of production and performance. Lectures and discussions will focus on the aesthetic quality of the plays, their relationship with the audiences (then and now), the application of the diverse attitudes and assumptions of modern critical theory to the Elizabethan stage, the contrasting structures of Shakespearean and non-Shakespearean drama, the new emphasis on selfhood and individuality, and the major themes of hierarchy, order, and justice, the conflict of Nature and Fortune, the role of Providence, the ideals of love, and the norms of social accord. Opportunities will be given to investigate the interrelations of the plays and other arts, including film, opera, and ballet.
TV Nation: Inside and Out of the Box gives students the opportunity to experience, first hand, how the world of network television works from two points of view: business and creative. Students will gain an understanding of the business aspect through the vantage point of the network executives and programmers. They will also learn the creative process from development to pitching, from the vantage point of writers and producers in the industry. In TV Nation, students will role play the entire process as the key players who put together a season for broadcast and cable networks. This course allocates as a Craft for Film & TV majors. COURSE SUBJECT TO DEPARTMENTAL FEES.
This course is designed to hone the student journalist?s ability to research and report deeply and to be able to imagine and develop fresh ideas, test their ideas with the strength of their reporting and research, and then present them in story form.
This interdisciplinary course combines ethnographic readings, representations, and interpretations of city and urban cultures with a video production component in which students create short documentaries on the city of Accra. The interpretative classes will run concurrently with production management, sights and sound, and post-production workshops. The course will have three objectives: (1) teach students the documentary tradition from Flaherty to Rouch; (2) use critical Cinema theory to define a document with a camera; and (3) create a short documentary film.
This interdisciplinary course combines ethnographic readings, representations, and interpretations of city and urban cultures with a video production component in which students create short documentaries on the city of Accra. The interpretative classes will run concurrently with production management, sights and sound, and post-production workshops. The course will have three objectives: (1) teach students the documentary tradition from Flaherty to Rouch; (2) use critical Cinema theory to define a document with a camera; and (3) create a short documentary film.
This text analysis course is designed to provide a platform for an in-depth study of how the story of a film is presented, what choices are made by the author, how information is offered or withheld and what effect this has on the drama. This class will be an “anthology” of different works, each selected for a different aspect of storytelling, exploring how the stylistic choices, themes, and dramatic devices reveal themselves within the body of work. The course is designed to better help students organize their own narratives by analyzing the techniques employed by various screenwriters in constructing their screenplays. A selection of films will be screened and discussed in terms of continuity of theme; delineation of plot, development of structure, protagonist’s story purpose, dialogue as action and character. After each screening, the instructor will lead a group discussion and analysis of the film, focusing further on the techniques, conventions and devices employed by the screenwriter to both tell a good story and satisfy the demands of the audience.
The course is focused on exploring Franz Kafka’s work – stories, novels, diaries and letters – in the context of fin de siècle Prague and the birth of modernism. We will take a closer look at the cultural and social context of Central Europe (literature and the arts, but also the Modernist architecture of Adolf Loos, Simmel’s sociology of the metropolitan life, Freud’s analysis of the unconscious, Brentano’s psychology, the resonance of Nietzsche’s philosophy, or the emergence of new media like phonograph and silent film) in the first two decades of the 20th century. In addition, we will discuss the adaptations of Kafka’s work and its impact on later art, fiction and film (Borges, Welles, Kundera, Roth, Švankmajer). The topics discussed through Kafka’s writings and other related works include: man and metropolis, family, estrangement, authorship, time, writing and media, travelling, territories and identities, languages, animals, art and pain. We will be especially interested in how these phenomena transform when represented in and through the medium of literary fiction.
City, territory and architecture have been, from the beginning of photography, privileged objects for its practice. Photography has become a tool to strengthen the understanding of architecture, to highlight aesthetic and design ideas and to critically interpret the space. This class focuses on architectural photography and the photography of urban space, both in relation to their historical roots and contemporary practice. Florence offers a perfect environment to develop one’s artistic talent while learning the art of photography and discovering the secrets of one of the most fascinating cities in the world. Assignments are designed to help explore options for technical control as well as visual experimentation and individual style. Keeping in mind the inseparability of photographic technique and expression, students are expected to articulate their particular choices in relation to the overall conceptual approach of the projects. Critiques of assignments are important to the progress of each individual in the class, to help verbalize visual concepts, and to learn to see actively. The final exam consists of the presentation of a portfolio of photographs and an artist’s statement. Students are expected to work on their projects to develop an aesthetic and coherent photographic language and a personal approach to the photographic medium in a different environment. An emphasis is also placed on refining craft in relation to ideas, and to research on an individual basis, since it is crucial in developing an artistic practice. The course includes lectures, shooting sessions and field trips, discussions and critiques of the photographs. Each student must have a camera with manually adjustable aperture and shutter speed.
This course introduces students to the range of mechanical engineering and emphasizes the basic principles and devices for storing and using energy, directing motion and satisfying needs. Case studies look at design issues and related ethical and professional practice issues. Emphasis is on a mindset of exploration. Engineering standards and standard parts. Teams work on and present two design challenges. | Prerequisite: Only first-year students are permitted to enroll in this course.
A continuation of MPATE-UE 1010. This is an advanced & detailed study of the audio-visual production & post-production process including digital recording techniques, with special emphasis on synchronization & the interfacing of SMPTE time code. Sound design, advanced Foley topics, * creative workflow in audio post production will also be discussed.
Combining science and the art of storytelling, this course will tackle one of the most pressing issues facing the future of humanity: Abrupt Climate Change. In a unique collaboration with NYU physical climate scientist Professor David Holland, students will research and create work that bridges the divide between science and the public through accurate, creative science-based storytelling. This highly multidisciplinary, hands-on course welcomes students from all backgrounds and fields of study to imagine and invent creative ways of telling stories about this global phenomenon and to investigate solutions. Weekly assignments will lead to a final collaborative project and an exhibition open to the public.
Offered in the spring semester only. Course level: Intermediate. 4 points. No prerequisite. Over the last 50 years the American Cinema has produced a remarkably rich abundance of entertaining, exciting, and challenging films. This course is designed to provide a survey of the wealth of styles, forms, purposes, and approaches to filmmaking that developed and emerged in this era. While Hollywood has obviously served as the dominant mode of filmmaking in this country, a significant of other filmmaking practices have continued to operate and sometimes thrive outside of it. Beyond the attention paid to Hollywood narrative cinema as it has changed and evolved over this half-century, we will also consider documentaries, avant-garde and experimental works, independent narraive cinema, and “cult” films. Consequently, we will be screening a variety of films, including works by such notable American filmmakers as Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Quentin Tarantino, George Romero, John Singleton, and Michael Moore.
The goal of the first half of the course is to build a basic understanding of how information about traits is encoded in our genes, how this “blueprint” is interpreted by cellular machinery to build a complex human being, and how our heredity has resulted in our evolution. In the senond half of the course, we will continue the exploration of how environment, experience and random errors affect the process of building our traits, what happens when these processes fail, and the promise and possible peril of genetic technologies for human life. Fulfillment: CORE ED (with CCEX-SHU 137)
This Praxis course is an exploration of contemporary and traditional artistic printmaking practices, with an emphasis on expanding notions of conventional printmaking techniques and forms. Students will be introduced to various printmaking techniques, and experiment with traditional and non-traditional forms, in conjunction with their histories and consider what constitutes a hand-made print in an artistic framework. Students will gain an understanding of printmaking – its history based in China, development across the globe and inventive contemporary practices which include sculptural forms. They will learn techniques, modes, forms, and applications of printmaking – with an emphasis on relief prints (stamps and wood cuts) – in a conceptual framework of contemporary printmaking practices and global visual culture. Note: attendance in the first class meeting is mandatory, otherwise you will be dropped from the course. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: This course satisfies IMA/IMB elective.
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.
As you know, projection mapping and Light Art are becoming popular again because of large-scale pop-up installations worldwide: ARTECHOUSE, SuperReal, Meow Wolf, and TeamLab. Technology has advanced over the years, but how people enjoy light art have not changed so much. How do your ideas and artwork fit into these site-specific installations? This class is for anyone interested in creating a site-specific installation using mapping technologies to create new experiences for the public audience. This class guides students through conceptual and technical processes of project and artist development. It consists of three parts: Project & Artist Development, Projection Mapping, and LED Mapping. We will research and discuss the history of visual artwork, public engagement, and technical exercises using real international contests and festival sites. The student will learn the latest Projection and LED Mapping techniques using Madmapper. And we will also focus on advanced techniques like multi-projector projection, projector calculation, Interactive Mapping, and software & hardware to culminate in a final project. The class will also invite guest speakers to discuss the nuts and bolts of their art and business. About Chika Iijima: www.mappathon.com, www.imagima.com
WEB ART AS SITE addresses the history and practice of art made for and inseparable from the web, while teaching basic coding for the web. We explore key examples of web art from the early days of the internet through today, asking questions about this idiosyncratic artistic medium like: How do different forms of interaction characterize the viewer and/or the artist? What happens to our reading practice when text is animated or animates? How is an internet-native work encountered, and how does the path we take to reach it affect our reading? Who is able to see a work of web art, and what does access/privilege look like in this landscape? How are differently-abled people considered in a web artwork? What feels difficult or aggressive in web art, and when is that useful? How do artists obscure or reveal the duration of a work, and how does that affect our reading? What are the many different forms of instruction or guidance online? As we ask these questions, we exploit the internet pedagogically, collaborating online, playing with anonymity, and breaking the internet spaces we know. Students learn web coding through specialized online tutorials; most of class time is reserved for discussion (of web art and supplementary readings) and critique. Throughout the semester, students will produce two major works of web art. Students need only a standard laptop, and will not be expected to purchase any software or text (cost of materials: $0).
The course explores how design can respond to environmental problems and climate change. In analyzing past attempts, the course starts with decolonizing turn of the century admirations for primitivism and ends with the cyber punks planning new environments online. Following the work of architects, artists, urban planners, graphic designers and fashionista, the course will review histories of adaptation and ways to design with climate. The class will decolonize modernist design schemes, and focus on better ways to design with climate. We will also devote time to discuss topics such as building closed ecological systems, counterculture designs, cyber environments, sick building syndrome, biomimetics, eco-fashion, earth art, and other methods to design within the realm of nature. The overall objective is twofold; to survey the larger historical context of ecological design and define specific contributions to the climate change debate. Ultimately, the students will be asked to design, develop, and participate in an ecologically driven conceptual final design project of their choice.
This course will examine the emergence of advertising as a form of communication, its influence upon other forms of mediated communication and its impact upon culture and society.
Public relations means different things to different things to different people but it has one undeniable element: communication. This course is concerned with arranging, handling, and evaluating public relations programs. Students work with actual case histories and deal with contemporary topics such as the use of the computer in public relations.
This course introduces selected aspects of the history, philosophy, methodology, tools, and contemporary topics in engineering. Also included are basic engineering experimentation, data analysis, and a team-design project. This course will provide an understanding of what professional engineers do. In this context, an emphasis will be placed on developing oral and written communication skills. EG1004 is a survey course that introduces students to NYU Tandon academic opportunities, professional and career development, and teamwork skills. Design and project management skills are developed throughout a semester-long design project. Disciplines within engineering will be introduced during lecture, and explored through practice in laboratory assignments.
Data structures are fundamental programming constructs which organize information in computer memory to solve challenging real-world problems. Data structures such as stacks, queues, linked lists, and binary trees, therefore constitute building blocks that can be reused, extended, and combined in order to make powerful programs. This course teaches how to implement them in a high-level language, how to analyze their effect on algorithm efficiency, and how to modify them to write computer programs that solve complex problems in a most efficient way. Programming assignments. Prerequisite: ICS or A- in ICP. Equivalency: This course counts for CSCI-UA 102 Data Structures (NY). Fulfillment: CS Required, Data Science Required, CE Required.
This course introduces students to the use of statistical methods. Topics include: descriptive statistics; introduction to probability; sampling; statistical inference concerning means, standard deviations, and proportions; correlation; analysis of variance; linear regression, including multiple regression analysis. Applications to empirical situations are an integral part of the course. Pre-requisites: None Fulfillment: This course satisfies the following: Major req: BUSF, BUSM, ECON, CS, DS Foundational course; Social Science: methods course; IMB Business elective.
Addresses current problems facing our society and threatening our mental health, such as the opioid epidemic, gun violence, video game addiction, legal use of marijuana, and prolonged separation of children from their parents. Students contrast what is scientifically understood with what is commonly believed and learn critical reading and thinking skills as they parse fact from fiction, reality from supposition. Given the topical nature of this course, themes may vary by semester and instructor expertise (including a focus on social and cultural issues, novel neuroscience, digital health technology, etc.).
Provides the background necessary to make decisions about computer-based information systems and to be an “end-user”. Two major parts of the course are hands-on experience with personal computers and information systems management. Group and individual computer assignments expose students to electronic spreadsheet analysis and database management on a personal computer. Management aspects focus on understanding computer technology, systems analysis and design, and control of information processing by managers.
Down by the water’s edge we find the color contrast delineating wet and dry to the rhythm of nature’s tidal flux. The ebb relinquishes 12 hours of waterborne mystery; the flow’s 12 hours blanket refreshes the shore’s human impositions. New York City’s 578 coastal miles inspire this photojournalist/ documentary workshop to explore ongoing changes in commercial development, political innovation and environmental climate. The gradual cleansing of New York City waterways has encouraged neighborhood communities to revive their historical, artistic, and literary traditions along shorelines once occupied by industry. Now attracting vibrant cultural activity, New York City coastal communities are again looking at the water, seeking inspiration in its beauty. Embarking on a photographic project of their design, students will develop their own personal viewpoint on society’s relationship to New York waterlines, determine their own perception (vantage point, angle, point of view, framing) and establish a unique relationship with the audience (through scale, rhythm sequence, position, color). Classes will offer technical instruction, critiques of student work, and visual analysis. Open to highly motivated students with experience in photography; digital or film cameras welcome.
This course introduces the essentials of web design and production, emphasizing the integration of AI tools like ChatGPT to enhance learning and creativity. Students will build a solid foundation in HTML and CSS, learn to optimize graphics, design layouts, and develop the technical skills needed to launch their own websites. The class explores using social media platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, and Instagram as promotional tools while incorporating AI to brainstorm design concepts, troubleshoot code, and refine messaging. We focus on the Internet as a promotion and distribution medium for the independent artist and filmmaker. A consistent and integrated communication strategy across digital channels is emphasized to prepare students for the demands of modern media. To deepen their learning experience, students will actively use ChatGPT to support various aspects of the curriculum. This includes generating creative ideas, drafting content, and exploring coding solutions. AI will also assist in tasks like creating compelling website copy, optimizing branding strategies, and scripting social media posts. By weaving AI into their workflow, students not only master essential web design skills but also gain hands-on experience with tools shaping the future of digital media.
Multichannel Media Installation & Performance is a course designed for composers & artists who want to work in a performance or installation context with immersive sound & image technology. The course focuses on software & hardware workflows for the creative applications of multi-channel sound & immersive video for the creation of fixed, generative, reactive, performance-based, & interactive systems that can be experienced in a gallery context or a live performance. Students will develop a semester-length project to use scale & immersion to creative effect. The course will feature regular creative critique as well as an overview of relevant interaction design strategies for creating interactive spaces using sensors & cameras.
Introduction to the physical aspects of sound, psychoacoustics, basic electricity, principles and practice of magnetic recording and an overview of the recording studio, including an introduction to multi-track recording techniques. Students perform various duties just as they would in a professional recording session with live musicians in the recording studio. Open to students without previous experience in recording technology.
Introduction to the concepts of live concert recording. Microphone selection, characteristics & placement as well as acoustic problems encountered in concert halls will be discussed. Students will have the opportunity to apply the lecture material by recording undergraduate rehearsals & recitals.
Design Your NYU Shanghai is a first-year course to help you make the most out of your college experience. You’ll be introduced to design thinking as a creative approach to explore majors and interests, craft global opportunities, and engage in intercultural connections. This action-oriented course uses rapid prototyping and reflection activities to ignite personal growth as you navigate this transformative time of your life.
This course explores the disruptions and creative possibilities that realtime emerging media provides through the lens of learning how to design, create, produce and perform in realtime. Students will be learning how to design and produce for realtime interactive audiences, understand the modern streaming media pipeline, the fundamentals of virtual production, digital content creation and the basics of game engines and other software – all in the service of delivering a more engaging and intimate connection between audience and performer. Students will design and perform 2 distinct realtime performances as well as work together with peers to conceptualize, design and produce a short realtime ‘pilot’ using the tools and techniques you’ve learned in the first two projects. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Interactive Media Business Elective ; Interactive Media Arts Elective
This course explores image making, writing and their juxtaposition, as a method of thinking through and evoking ideas. At times, images lead, and text follows, providing descriptions of images, and at other times, text leads and images illustrate that text. In the realm of the contemporary American meme, just about every time images and words are present they have an effect upon each other in the mind of the viewer, which changes the meaning of both, producing something which is more than what is present in both image and text. That third and phantasmic image exists in the mind. The examples of Chinese Literati painting, and Surrealism will provide a historical point of departure, from which we to engage 21st century examples of image and word juxtapositions that create new ideas. This course will provide students with a general history of the relationship between the image and word, and a critical understanding of the composition and decomposition of image-word printed and digital matter. Along with skills in Lino-cut printmaking, Risograph printmaking, and publication design, students will also write poetry, short essays, and art criticism. Students will participate in the content production, design, and publishing of a book and magazine, zine and poster.
Design seems to be omnipresent, but what is it? This course (whose title is Latin for usage, beauty, and stability) explores how design influences our life and investigates the fundamentals of “good design.” It takes a look at the status quo of the use of design in media, objects, and architecture, and observe its influence on art and technology from past to present. Design tools and processes will be highlighted. Based on the fusion of readings, study, discussion, and experiences, over the course of the semester students will develop an understanding of how mutually reinforcing and beneficiary a mix of Arts, Design, and Technology can be. Lecture and discussion will help develop the design of a bricolage: Every student will realize a product prototype to be displayed in an exhibition and a personal philosophy of about Arts, Design, and Technology.
An introduction to the fundamentals of computer programming. Students design, write, and debug computer programs. No prior knowledge of programming is assumed. Students will learn programming using Python, a general purpose, cross-platform programming language with a clear, readable syntax. Most class periods will be part lecture, part lab as you explore ideas and put them into practice. This course is suitable for students not intending in majoring in computer science as well as for students intending to major in computer science but having no programming experience. Students with previous programming experience should instead take Introduction to Computer Science. Prerequisite: Either placed into Calculus or at least a C in Pre-Calculus Fulfillment: Core Curriculum Requirement Algorithmic Thinking; EE Required Major Courses. Note: Students who have taken ICS in NY, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai cannot take ICP.
This course has three goals. First, the mastering of a modern object-oriented programming language, enough to allow students to tackle real-world problems of important significance. Second, gaining an appreciation of computational thinking, a process that provides the foundations for solving real-world problems. Finally, providing an overview of the very diverse and exciting field of computer science – a field which, arguably more than any other, impacts how we work, live, and play today. Prerequisite: Introduction to Computer Programming or placement exam. Equivalency: This course counts for CSCI-UA 101. Fulfillment: Core Curriculum Requirement Algorithmic Thinking; Computer Science Major Required Courses; Computer Systems Engineering Major Required Courses; Data Science Major Foundational Courses; Electrical and Systems Engineering Major Required Major Courses.
This course explores the possibilities and challenges of designing alternate physical network interfaces. Through weekly readings, class discussions, and a series of projects, students will create physical objects that talk to each other over distance. Various wireless communication mechanisms such as radio (Bluetooth, Zigbee, WiFi, and raw), infrared, and ultrasonic are used in the context of creating novel “smart” devices. Topics of discussion in this course include networking protocols and network topologies; network time versus physical time; mobile objects; and wireless networks. Opportunities to build collaborative and creative campus-wide networked projects and systems will also be explored.
What does it mean to become a “temporary expert?” How does one develop one’s own creative research-based practice? This course will address these questions by engaging with Abu Dhabi’s environmental and social dimensions as a subject for research, context and imaginative art and design opportunities. Students will adopt a wide variety of tools and strategies in order to lay the foundations for a research-based art practice that considers materials, media, context, and audience, as well as one’s personal strengths and desires. Over the course of the semester, students will develop art and design projects that interface with a multiplicity of other disciplines, and engage in idea exchange with experts in the field. Through hands-on practice, case studies, and readings on systems thinking, communication, and the idea of “the public,” we will explore method, documentation and presentation of research, as well as the merits of both success and failure.
This course offers students the opportunity to develop a self-initiated project with close mentorship from a faculty member. Projects undertaken can span the areas of conceptual research, business development, creative practice, and media production. The course includes structured weekly workshop and critique times with peers and special guests. It is expected that students will be invested in the work of their peers by providing feedback and carefully consider the feedback they receive during critiques. In addition to weekly meeting times, students are expected to also participate in regular one-on-one meetings with faculty, peers, and guests. A formal project proposal, weekly assignments and documentation, a final project presentation, and participation in the IMA End of Semester show are all required. Although students are encouraged to continue work they may have initiated in a prior class, they may not combine or in any way double count work from this class in another class taken in the same semester. Group work is allowed assuming all group members are enrolled in this class. Students may take this course in either the first or second 7 weeks for 2 credits or repeated across 14 weeks for 4 credits. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing. Fulfilment: IMA/IMB elective; IMA advanced elective.
Iampolski. Offered every year. 4 points. An examination of the history of Russian cinema from its beginnings. The main focus is on landmarks of cinematic art and on the cultural specificity of Russian cinema. The survey also includes questions of cinema and politics (cinema as a propaganda tool), and cinema and the market. Artists discussed include Eisenstein, Vertov, Pudovkin, Kuleshov, Barnet, Shub, Kozintsev, Trauberg, and Tarkovsky. Topics include cinema and revolution, the cinema of the Russian avant-garde and constructivism, cinema and totalitarianism, and socialist realism in film.
Gollwitzer, Trope, Uleman. Offered every semester. 4 points. Introduction to theories and research about the social behavior of individuals, such as perception of others and the self, attraction, affiliation, altruism and helping, aggression, moral thought and action, attitudes, influence, conformity, social exchange and bargaining, group decision making, leadership and power, and environmental psychology.
AndersenAndersen. Offered every semester. 4 points. Introduction to research in personality, including such topics as the self-concept; unconscious processes; how we relate to others; and stress, anxiety, and depression.
McElree, Murphy, Rehder. Offered every semester. 4 points. Introduction to theories and research in some major areas of cognitive psychology, including human memory, attention, language production and comprehension, thinking, and reasoning.
The notion of cannibalism is a recurring concern in the history of ideas regarding the primitive, the animalistic, the monstrous, or any of the other classifications frequently invoked to mark others, regardless of their actual culinary preferences. Reflection upon cannibalism as an intellectual phenomenon suggests how people eating people, or at least the possibility of it, says a great deal about those that do not. In some regions of the Caribbean and Brazil, ideas regarding cannibalism have made an important turn, such that the cannibal has become a provocative affirmation of self. The aim of this course is to think about cannibalism, not, as it often is, as a theme for anthropologists and ethnographers, but rather as an intellectual problem that has enjoyed a very long life in the history of ideas about self. In this course, we shall revisit a selection of texts regarding cannibalism from Columbus’ diaries to the present, and including works by, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Oswald de Andrade, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, and Suely Rolnik, in the company of some key notions involving postcolonial theory. Readings will be made available in Portuguese, Spanish, and English, and course papers may be carried out in any of the three languages according to student interest and ability.
New research is the most exciting and important aspect of political science: we are able to pose novel questions, construct fresh theories, and provide new evidence about the way the world works. But before we start doing research, we have to learn how it is done. With this in mind, this class will introduce students to quantitative techniques used for research in the study of politics. Part of this task is conceptual: helping students to think sensibly and systematically about research design. To this end, students will learn how data and theory fit together, and how to measure the quantities we care about. But part of the task is practical too: students will learn a `toolbox’ of methods–including statistical software–that enable them to execute their plans.
Offered every semester. 4 points. Analysis of state behavior and international political relations; how things happen in the international state system and why. Emphasizes the issue of war and how and in what circumstances states engage in violence. Topics include different historical and possible future systems of international relations, imperialism, the Cold War, game theory and deterrents, national interests, and world organization.
Offered every semester. 4 points. Major concepts, approaches, problems, and literature in the field of comparative politics. Methodology of comparative politics, the classical theories, and the more recent behavioral revolution. Reviews personality, social structure, socialization, political culture, and political parties. Major approaches such as group theory, structural-functionalism, systems analysis, and communications theory and evaluation of the relevance of political ideology; national character; elite and class analysis; and problems of conflict, violence, and internal war.
A survey of national political institutions and behavior in the United States, which introduces students to a variety of analytical concepts and approaches useful for the study of domestic politics. Concepts typically covered include public goods and collective action; preference aggregation and the median voter theorem; delegation, representation, and accountability; agenda control; inter-branch bargaining; and the mechanisms of private influence on public policy.
Designed to deepen the insights into quantum mechanics introduced in PHYS-UA 103, 104 and to provide an introduction to the more formal mathematical structure of quantum mechanics. The Schr?dinger and Heisenberg description of quantal systems; perturbation theory; spin and statistics; coupling of angular momenta; scattering theory; and applications to atomic, molecular, nuclear, and elementary particle physics.
Continuation of PHYS-UA 11. Topics include electric charge, field, and potential; magnetic forces and fields; resistive, capacitive, and inductive circuits; electromagnetic induction; wave motion; electromagnetic waves; geometrical optics; interference, diffraction, and polarization of light; relativity; atomic and nuclear structure; elementary particle physics.
We will investigate different approaches to understanding space and time, and how the account of space-time structure has evolved in physics. One of the main objectives is to have a clear and accurate understanding of the Special Theory of Relativity, detailed enough to allow the student to solve some physics problems. This will require a bit of mathematics, but not more than algebra. We will discuss the General Theory of Relativity in a more qualitative way, including an account of the structure of black holes. Philosophy students do not need any further background in physics or mathematics, and physics students will not benefit from greater mathematical sophistication. We will also study the relevant history of physics and philosophy, particularly the debate between Newton and Leibniz about the nature of space and time. There will be two lectures each week and a recitation section.
Lecture and laboratory course that provides students with broad exposure to current questions and experimental approaches in cellular neuroscience. Lectures and laboratories are organized into three areas: cell structure aLecture and laboratory course that provides students with broad exposure to current questions and experimental approaches in cellular neuroscience. Lectures and laboratories are organized into three areas: cell structure and organization of the vertebrate central nervous system, mechanisms underlying neural signaling and plasticity, and control of cell form and its developmental determinants. Laboratory instruction in anatomical, physiological, and biochemical methods for investigating the biology of nerve cells.
Historical-political background of the Middle East and its contemporary social and political problems, including the impact of the West; religious and liberal reactions; conflict of nationalisms (Arab, Iranian, Turkish, and Zionist); and revolutionary socialism. Specific social, political, and economic problems?using a few selected countries for comparison and analysis?including the role of the military, the intelligentsia, the religious classes, the legitimization of power, urban-rural cleavages, bureaucracy, and political parties.
Addresses the rich literary product of modern and contemporary South Asia. Offers more advanced undergraduates a window on a rich and culturally varied area of the world, as well as an understanding of aspects of South Asian history and society as represented in translations of modern prose writing (short stories and novels) originally written in South Asian languages.
Any one of the following: a score of 670 or higher on the mathematics portion of the SAT, a score of 650 or higher on the SAT Subject Test in Mathematics 1, a score of 650 or higher on the SAT Subject Test in Mathematics 2, an ACT mathematics score of 30 or higher, a score of 3 or higher on the AP Calculus AB exam, an AB subscore of 3 or higher on the AP Calculus BC exam, a score of 3 or higher on the AP Calculus BC exam, a grade of C or higher in Algebra and Calculus (MATH-UA 9), or a passing score on a departmental placement exam. Derivatives, antiderivatives, and integrals of functions of one variable. Applications include graphing, maximizing, and minimizing functions. Definite integrals and the fundamental theorem of calculus. Areas and volumes.
A state-of-the-art survey of the cognitive neuroscience of language, a rapidly developing multidisciplinary field at the intersection of linguistics, psycholinguistics, and neuroscience. Covers all aspects of language processing in the healthy brain, from early sensory perception to sentence-level semantic interpretation, as well as a range of neurological and development language disorders.
How linguistic practices reflect and shape our gender identity. Do women and men talk differently? Are these differences universal or variable across cultures? How does gendered language intersect with race and class-linked language? What impact does gendered language have on social power relationships?
How languages organize sounds into highly constrained systems. Topics: What do the sound systems of all languages have in common? How can they differ from each other? What is the nature of phonological processes, and why do they occur?
Today’s content creators must be entrepreneurs, navigating dynamically changing industry. How does emerging talent gain traction in a ’tsunami wave’ of independent films, episodics, webisodes and podcasts? This class explores development, funding, and legal strategies to make, market and distribute DIY low and ultra-low budget projects. Ones you can make now. Students will develop core competencies, culminating in a pitch deck for a viable indie feature film.
The following semester, honors students are required to take a specially designed honors senior seminar, which culminates in each student?s writing a large (6,000-10,000 word/15-20 minutes for broadcast) feature, completing the capstone. The student has to defend his/her work orally before at least two members of the faculty and perhaps a member of the profession.
This course offers a broad survey of American cinema from its beginnings (and even its pre-history) up to 1960. While the emphasis will be on the dominant, narrative fiction film, there will be attention to other modes of American cinema such as experimental film, animation, shorts, and non-fiction film. The course will look closely at films themselves — how do their styles and narrative structures change over time? — but also at contexts: how do films reflect their times? how does the film industry develop? what are the key institutions that had impact on American film over its history? We will also attend to the role of key figures in film’s history: from creative personnel (for example, the director or the screenwriter) to industrialists and administrators, to censors to critics and to audiences themselves. The goal will be to provide an overall understanding of one of the most consequential of modern popular art forms and of its particular contributions to the art and culture of our modernity.
Studies a selected section of the Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Babylonian Talmud, utilizing both traditional and academic methods of study. Emphasis is on mastering the themes and concepts while studying the text and its commentaries in depth.
Historically, the music business has generally relinquished the most significant inventions and innovations to third parties. And while many can recite the contemporary Pavlovian catch phrases of the moment, what about the next wave of science and thinking that will impact music? This class will seek to identify, understand and predict the latest advancements in science that will serve to influence and transform music consumption in the next 20 years.
Environmental philosophy encompasses questions in metaphysics, the philosophy of science, and the history of philosophy, as well as in such normative areas as ethics, aesthetics, and political philosophy. Presents basic concepts in value theory and introduces some major controversies.
Introduction to the principles and practices of experimental methods widely used in analytical and research laboratories. Emphasizes understanding of background physicochemical theory as well as capabilities and limitations of methods and interpretations of data. Covers instrumental methods, such as UV/visible spectroscopy, FT-IR, NMR, and fluorescence, for the systematic characterization of compounds and the use of interfaced computers for data collection and spreadsheet analysis. Studies also include an introduction to computer modeling of molecular properties. Optional experiments include fluorescence studies of protein denaturation and laser studies of excited state kinetics.
This course constitutes a continuation of the study of chemistry of organic compounds. The material is presented in the functional group framework, incorporating reaction mechanisms. Topics include structure and bonding of organic materials, nomenclature, conformational analysis, stereochemistry, spectroscopy, and reactions of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, alcohols, ethers, amines, and carbonyl compounds. Multifunctional organic compounds are covered, including topics of relevance to biochemistry, such as carbohydrates, amino acids, peptides, and nucleic acids. Laboratories provide training in the syntheses of organic precursors in high yields and high purity needed for multistep procedures. An extensive research project involving unknown compounds is conducted. The use of IR and NMR spectroscopy is explored.
See General Chemistry I and Laboratory (CHEM-UA 125), above. Laboratories are a continuation of CHEM-UA 125, with emphasis on the analysis of quantitative data rather than its collection. Experiments are selected to provide illustration and reinforcement of the topics covered in the course, including solution chemistry, kinetics, equilibrium, buffers, solubility, and electrochemistry.
This course looks at the terms and conditions of Japanese animation (primarily, though not exclusively, anime) as, in many ways, a new and unique mode of expression. The course is framed in which anime might, or might not, shift earlier modes of expression (both literary and animated): the prevalence of mythology in animation and the tension between mythology and ideology; the importance of genre; and the impact of ?old? and ?new? media on narrative structure and reception. Implications of these conditions for thinking about ?Japanese? culture are also considered.
Sound is physical. It can move objects, vibrate surfaces, perceptually alter our emotions, and shape the way viewers engage with spaces. As artists, we are conditioned to aspire to situate our work within traditional settings. How can we reposition sound as a main element of a work within unconventional contexts? This course will use the question of a sonic utopia as a platform to create interdisciplinary projects that exist between installation, sculpture, video, performance, movement, and music. Students will learn sound theories through lectures and in-class workshops and are encouraged to incorporate their individual interests into each of the four main projects that aim to position sound as a primary element of a work in order to expand the possibilities of working with sound.
The intermediate workshops offer budding fiction writers and poets an opportunity to continue their pursuit of writing through workshops that focus on a specific genre. The workshops also integrate in-depth craft discussions and extensive outside reading to deepen students’ understanding of the genre and broaden their knowledge of the evolution of literary forms and techniques.
Lecture and laboratory course that focuses on how the brain uses both sensory and stored information to generate behavior. Lectures and laboratories cover four main areas: sensory process, learning and memory, motivational and attentional mechanisms, and the motor system. Laboratories employ a range of electrophysiological techniques, lesions and pharmacological manipulations, and various behavioral techniques to examine the integrative processes by which the brain governs behavior.
This is an upper-level undergraduate course that will teach students about the environmental determinants of disease vectors, and the molecular techniques used to measure prevalence of a pathogen in these vectors. Students will partake in a semester-long research project on Lyme disease, the most prevalent vector-borne disease in the United States. The aim of the project is to determine the prevalence of Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme disease causative agent, in tick populations from selected New Jersey or New York forests. Students will collect ticks, bring them back to the lab and analyze them for the presence of the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria. Then collected and analyzed data will be fed into epidemiological models to assess human risk of Lyme disease in the studied areas.
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.
This laboratory course applies concepts learned in the Molecular and Cell Biology course (BIOL-UA 21) to a molecular biology research project. The research project will introduce students to standard genetic and biochemical techniques common in a molecular biology lab, such as DNA isolation, agarose-gel electrophoresis, and transformation. The project also will provide students with a hands-on understanding of how modern DNA-sequencing technology, along with bioinformatic tools, can be used to discover genetic differences and understand cellular function.
Intended for majors and minors in biology as a comprehensive description of microbes, the most abundant and diverse organisms on the planet. Organized into four modules: the microbial cell, microbial genomics, microbial development and adaptation, and microbial interactions with the host and the environment. Through lectures and critical analysis of primary literature, students are led to realize how the advent of genomics has revolutionized microbiology, a scientific discipline that is more than a century old.
In-depth study of cell biology, with an emphasis on the molecular aspects of cell function. Topics include protein structure and synthesis, gene expression and its regulation, cell replication, and specialized cell structure and function. The course provides an introduction to genomics and bioinformatics and examines developmental biology, evolution, and systems biology.
Introductory course mainly for science majors, designed to acquaint the student with the fundamental principles and processes of biological systems. Subjects include the basics of chemistry pertinent to biology, biochemistry and cell biology, genetics and molecular biology, anatomy and physiology, neurobiology, ecology, population genetics, and history and classification of life forms and evolution. Laboratory exercises illustrate the basics of experimental biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, and genetics, as well as the diversity of life forms and organ systems.
How do we conceptualize the elusive phenomenon of “play”? Is there a biological imperative to play? How does play influence child development and maintain psychological health as we mature? In this course we survey the historical, scientific, clinical, cultural, and artistic perspectives on the role of play through the life cycle. Is the play-element a catalyst for creativity and innovation? We explore various theories of creativity through the lens of neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and mysticism. We consider the use of improvisation and free play in life, art, clinical work, and scientific discovery. Topics include: exploration of play styles, observations of animal play, the role of play in child development and education, how play influences attachment and social bonding, the aesthetics and cultural value of play, the consequences of play deprivation, the art and science of creativity, and the relationship between creativity, mental illness, and genius.
Formerly ARTH-UA 80. Identical to SCA-UA 787. Survey of art of West and Central Africa and the South Pacific. Although art from these areas is popularly thought of in terms of its impact on the West, the art is primarily studied in relation to its meaning and function in its own society, where art socializes and reinforces religious beliefs, reflects male and female roles, and validates leadership. Films and field trips to a museum and gallery supplement classroom lectures.
This class explores the role of literature in creating empathy – how can it help us imagine the lives of “others” & that of animals? By querying the politics of meat mainly through contemporary literature, we put three similar (yet often disconnected) disciplines in conversation with each other: food studies, environmental studies, and animal studies. Two key questions we will address are: 1. What relationship – if any – is there between what we eat and who we are? 2. How are the intimate spaces of both human and nonhuman bodies – and their cultivation – related to notions of ecological violence?
The current design methods and technologies in the field of digital entertainment, from design concepts to design tools, are still based on 2D screens, but the product is often 3D. This contradiction results in the designers not being able to see the final consequences of their work directly. Can existing VR technologies solve this contradiction? Immersive design is a new design method for digital creativities beyond the screen. It usually takes VR, AR, or MR devices as design interfaces to craft 3D models, textures, game environments, and other gaming experiences. Not only game assets creation but also game design concepts can be changed with these new technical inputs. In this course, students will answer the following questions: ○ Is immersive design more intuitive? ○ Is immersive design more efficient? ○ Do immersive design techniques have lower learning costs? ○ What traditional design lessons and concepts can be applied in an immersive design environment? In view of these questions, students from different disciplines will give answers through discussions, projects, collaboration, documentation, and VR games. Prerequisite: Communications Lab. Fulfillment: IMA/IMB Elective.
This course investigates digital art and new media from creative, theoretical, and historical perspectives. We will examine the paradigm shift resulting from the rise of digital art and its expansion as well as explore current ideas, creative strategies, and issues surrounding digital media. The topics of study will include digital image, digital sound, net art, systems, robotics, telematics, data art, and virtual/augmented reality. The course provides students with the means to understand what digital media is, and establish their own vision of what it can become, from both a practical and a theoretical perspective. The course consists of lectures, field trips, and small studio-based practices. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: IMA/IMB Elective.
Web Page to Web Space is a course that explores virtual interactive experience in the context of Virtual Embodiment, Virtual Space, Telepresence, and Metaverse. Students will investigate new possible ways of using the Web to create new immersive environments in a web platform, by utilizing algorithmic 3D animation and server-side programming. This is an advanced course with technically challenging concepts with three.js and node.js and suitable for students with prior knowledge in visual programming. Prerequisite: Nature of Code or Machine Learning for New Interfaces or Critical Data and Visualization or ABC Browser Circus or Kinetic Interfaces or Machine Learning for Artists and Designers or Expanded Web or Movement Practices and Computing. Fulfillment: IMA/IMB Elective, Advanced IMA Elective.
Organization and management of commercial and institutional food service facilities in hotels, restaurants, and educational and community program sites.
This course surveys the history and development of jazz music in America from the mid 1800s to current trends in popular music. Through a historical timeline, student will study jazz music’s range of styles as informed by social, regional, cultural, technological, and political trends. Realizing that all music is a reflection of historical events and the cultures they are informed by, students will analyze the close connection between jazz music and why it is known as America’s true original artform.
The “sublime” evades simple definition. In everyday conversation, it is often synonymous with the wonderful or the excellent. But, in the arts, humanities and aesthetic theory, the “sublime” is a topic of deep and extensive writing and reflection amongst poets, artists, theorists, and philosophers. The sublime, in this context, goes back to classical times and forward to the present. Common examples of the sublime included natural or artistic representations mountains, avalanches, waterfalls, stormy seas, human ruins, or the infinite vault of the starry sky. This course examines theoretical and creative representations of the sublime in writers and artists from ancient to postmodern, including Aristotle, Longinus, Sappho, Kant, Schiller, Wordsworth, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Newman, Rosenblum, Du Bois, Lyotard, Battersby, Chopin, Freeman, Malick, Wagner, Viola, and von Trier.
THIS COURSE TAKES PLACE AT NYU-LONDON. This course offers a survey of key aspects of British fashion from 1500 to the present day, including womenswear, menswear, accessories, and more. We will examine selected features of producing, consuming, and representing dress, relating important shifts in fashion to historical developments in areas such as trade, economics, politics, and visual culture. Students will study examples of historical clothing as well as depictions of it, and become familiar with a variety of methodological approaches to its study. The majority of classes will take place in Bedford Square, London, and be formed of illustrative lectures, class activities, discussion of set readings, and student presentations. Each lecture is described in the syllabus and includes discussion questions, required as well as recommended readings, and recommended films. Several classes will take place on location, at museums and archives, and will explore important collections of British dress and of British everyday life and fashionable consumption.
THIS COURSE TAKES PLACE AT NYU-FLORENCE. The aim of this course is to explore the history of Italian fashion with an interdisciplinary approach focused on social, cultural, economic and political aspects. By focusing on select topics of key interest students will acquire a basic knowledge of the history of Italian fashion from the Renaissance to the present, understand the complex and multivalent clothing codes that help to order social interaction and learn to decode it. These abilities will provide students with a useful basis for understanding the capital role of the fashion of the past both as the origin of a ‘language’ of clothes still in use and as a boundless source of inspiration for contemporary designers. Conducted in English.
Colonialism left indelible marks on the cultures and societies of its colonized subjects. While nation-states have emerged, the colonial legacy and its various effects continue to haunt post-colonial societies and the modes in which they represent their history and subjectivity. The novel is a particularly privileged site to explore this problem. This course will focus on the post-colonial Arabic novel. After a brief historical introduction to the context and specific conditions of its emergence as a genre, we will read a number of representative novels. Discussions will focus on the following questions: How do writers problematize the perceived tension between tradition and modernity? Can form itself become an expression of sociopolitical resistance? How is the imaginary boundary between “West” and “East” blurred and/or solidified? How is the nation troped and can novels become sites for rewriting official history? What role do gender and sexuality play in all of the above? In addition to films, readings (all in English) may include Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, Naguib Mahfuz, al-Tayyib Salih, Abdelrahman Munif, Ghassan Kanafani, Elias Khoury, Sun`allah Ibrahim, Huda Barakat, Assia Djebbar, and Muhammad Shukri.
David Bowie’s life and work offer a template for how to survive and continue to evolve as a musical artist. David Bowie has kept the music industry, his fans and the world guessing throughout a career that spans over four decades. Bowie himself put his secret best in his prophetic 1972 song, “Ch-ch-ch-ch Changes”; a multi-talented performer, writer and visual artist, Bowie has played his career like an instrument, selecting trends of every generation to process, absorb and adapt into successive phases of his ever-evolving chameleon persona. In this day of ceaseless multiple media, Bowie’s most recent, and typically perverse, coup was keeping secret the recording of his 2013 album, The Next Day, over a two-year recording period. The manipulative bravado of knowing when and how to keep a star’s inaccessibility and mystery, or to expose oneself, as Bowie did on TV in his own darkest days, has given David Bowie a singular, enduring mystique, glamour and respect. Examining the arc of his work is a window into significant scenes of every decade since the 1950s, and offers insight into: the British Blues scene that produced the Beatles and the Rolling Stones; the hippy free festival counter-culture; r’n’b; futurism; electronica;glam and gender games, improvisation; soul; funk; dance; disco; minimalism; ambient; avant-garde theater; and above all, the endlessly evolving sound of US and UK young clubland, including recent jungle and garage, to which Bowie consistently returns to recharge and find a new direction to make his own.
In 2021, New Zealand pop star / singer-songwriter Lorde released a five-song EP of tracks from her Solar Power album, rerecorded in the indigenous Māori language. Five years prior, pop stars like Pharrell Williams, Dave Matthews, Radiohead, and Sia raised their voices at Standing Rock, North Dakota in support of the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline—one of many increasing threats to the sovereignty of Indigenous Nations. Their celebrity presence was key to attracting mainstream media coverage. However, those artists were largely following the lead of Native hip-hoppers like Supaman, Snotty Nose Rez Kids, and Prolific, who’d already been at Standing Rock since the start of the protests, rallying their own communities. This course will engage students around the growing globalization of Indigenous Peoples movements that intersects culture, politics, and economics. These days, Indigenous musicians like Aboriginal Australian rapper Baker Boy and Canadian First Nations vocalist Jeremy Dutcher are gaining in visibility, topping critics’ year-end Best-Of lists and taking home awards. This “Creative Natives” wave is being felt far outside of music, too: Tzotzil fashion designer Alberto López Gomez from Chiapas, Mexico was featured in New York Fashion Week; Māori filmmaker Taika Waititi won an Oscar for JoJo Rabbit; influential art critics heralded White Mountain Apache music performance artist and film scorer Laura Ortman at the 2020 Whitney Biennial, and Seminole/Muscogee Creek showrunner Sterling Harjo’s Reservation Dogs is the new hit on FX/Hulu. Over the course of seven weeks, students will engage with a wide range of international Indigenous performers and music(s) they may have never heard before—from Māori metal to Saami yoik-rap, Quechua huanyo-pop, Inuit throatsinging, Maasai hip-hop, Hawaiian reggae, Tokelauan dance-pop, and even Tuareg rock. Meanwhile, they will discover how Indigenous artists have not only achieved national, even international, acclaim in popular mainstream music genres, they are increasingly “indigenizing” them with languages, instruments, and vocal techniques from their own cultural traditions. We will also look at some Indigenous stars who broke barriers to achieve mainstream fame as singular personalities and cultural ambassadors: artists like Yma Sumac, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, and more. And also, we’ll survey the impact of Indigenous artists and music on the both the mainstream recording industry, as well as the growth of Indigenous-directed business entities doing things on their own terms. Through readings, lectures, and class discussions, students will be introduced to important scholarship on Indigenous identity, (de-)colonization, cultural appropriation, aesthetics, and so on. Any student interested in socio-cultural movements, roots music trends, arts-centered activism, and the ways in which music introduces audiences to the messages within each of these—especially regarding themes like climate justice, human rights, social inclusion, and sovereignty issues—will benefit from taking this class. Students can also expect to leave the course with a greater awareness of, and hopefully appreciation for, the growing global presence and popularity of Indigenous sounds, voices, and views.
Fortnite’s concerts with Marshmello and Travis Scott. Open Pit’s DIY music festivals in Minecraft. League of Legends’ K-pop and hip-hop groups. Indie label Monstercat’s deals with Rocket League and Roblox. Sony Music’s gaming imprint Lost Rings. Grand Theft Auto’s 75 billion minutes of in-game music listening. “Fantasy record label” apps like FanLabel that allow fans to assemble their own “brackets” of artists that they think will do best on the charts. These are just a handful of examples of how music and games are increasingly overlapping as industries, experiences and cultures. There are strong mutual incentives at play: Game developers are blooming into full-fledged media brands and are looking to the music business for both financial and cultural capital, while music companies are looking to diversify their revenue, experiment with more interactive technologies and tap into the power of highly engaged communities online. In the process, this merging of entertainment worlds is also rewriting conventional wisdom of what it means to be an artist, a performer, gamer and especially a fan. This course will give students the critical frameworks and vocabulary to dissect how games are being incorporated into every corner of the music industry — from the moment music is created, to the strategies that inform how music is then disseminated, marketed, monetized and performed. We will draw from a combination of theoretical readings and real-world case studies to dissect video games that center music in their player experience on the one hand, and musical projects that draw direct inspiration from games in their approaches to design, marketing, business and fan engagement on the other hand. Because this field is relatively new, many of these case studies may emerge in real time as the course unfolds. This course will be reading-, writing- and play-intensive, with required and suggested games and soundtracks for students to play, watch or listen to every week. Throughout the course, students will have the opportunity to workshop their own creative, marketing and/or business strategies for hybrid music/game projects, walking away with a concrete plan of action for incorporating the fast-paced gaming industry into their own careers.
The name “Taylor Swift” has become synonymous with a number of big ideas. To some in the music industry, the eleven-time Grammy winner (including three Album of the Year awards) defines 21st century country music’s pivot to pop radio. To others, Taylor Swift is the pop star of the 2010s (with the album sales and chart history to back it up— With sales of over 200 million records worldwide, Swift is one of the best-selling music artists of all time). When deployed pejoratively, however, the name “Taylor Swift” can signal anything from white privilege to white feminism to white taste in an era of intersectionality and Black Lives Matter conscientiousness. Taylor Swift may be a loaded phrase for some, but the career of Taylor Swift is more simply an embodiment of music’s American Dream. Raised on a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania, teenage Swift would move to Nashville and become one of the most lauded young songwriters in history. Her music was infatuated with love, innocence and romantic fantasias that would sour in the natural way those fairy tales do as a young woman grows up. By her early twenties, she was a full-fledged pop icon, having ditched Music Row for producers like Max Martin and Jack Antonoff, and tabloid fame. Along the way, there were feuds, squads and political discourses aplenty. Swift has encountered the type of controversies that would destroy most pop stars’ careers and acclaim. But at age 31, she has never been more awarded or acclaimed as a singer-songwriter. Meanwhile, her impact is felt in the success and style of younger singers/songwriters like Olivia Rodrigo, Conan Gray, Phoebe Bridgers and Clairo. This course proposes to deconstruct both the appeal and aversions to Taylor Swift through close readings of her music and public discourse as it relates to her own growth as an artist and a celebrity. Through readings, lectures and more, the class delves into analyses of the culture and politics of teen girlhood in pop music, fandom, media studies, whiteness and power as it relates to her image and the images of those who have both preceded and succeeded her. We’ll also consider topics like copyright and ownership, American nationalism and the ongoing impact of social media on the pop music industry.
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.
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.
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 the foods of various world regions and the techniques used to prepare them through hand-on food preparation, demonstrations, lectures and field trips.
Carrasco, Heeger, Landy, Pelli. Offered every semester. 4 points. How do we construct a conception of physical reality based on sensory experience? Survey of basic facts, theories, and methods of studying sensation and perception. The major emphasis is on vision and audition, although other modalities may be covered. Represen-tative topics include receptor function and physiology; color; motion; depth; psychophysics of detection, discrimination, and appearance; perceptual constancies; adaptation, pattern recognition, and the interaction of knowledge and perception.
Investigates the evolutionary origins of humans. The study of human evolution is a multidisciplinary endeavor involving a synthesis of concepts, techniques, and research findings from a variety of different scientific fields, including evolutionary biology, paleontology, primatology, comparative anatomy, genetics, molecular biology, geology, and archaeology. Explores the different contributions that scientists have made toward understanding human origins and provides a detailed survey of the evidence used to reconstruct the evolutionary history of our own species.
While traditional forms of art such as painting and sculpture only expect intellectual communication with the spectator, interactive arts consider the audience as active participants and directly involve their physical bodies and actions. Interactive art invites its audience to have a conversation with the artwork or even be part of it. Well designed interactions add new meanings to the artwork and enhance effective and memorable communication with the viewer through their magical quality. Artists have achieved interactivity in their art through different strategies based on various technologies. For example, some projects have physical interfaces such as buttons and knobs, some projects react to the audience’s presence or specific body movements, and yet others require collaborations between the audience as part of the interaction process. Some artwork involves interactions that require a long period of time for the engagement. In many of these interactive art projects, interaction methods are deeply embedded into the soul and voice of the work itself. In this class, we will explore interaction as an artistic medium. We will be looking at interactive media art history through the lens of interaction and technology to explore their potential as art making tools. Every 1-2 weeks, you will be introduced to a new interaction strategy along with a group of artists and projects. You will learn about relevant technologies and skills for the interaction strategies and build your own project to be in conversation with the artists and projects. You will also explore and discuss the future of interactions and how interactive art can contribute to innovations in interactions, and vice versa. You will also learn about how to contextualize and articulate your project in an artistic way. The assignments include reading, short writing, hands-on labs, and production assignments. Technical topics covered in class include but are not limited to: physical computing, sensing, and interaction design.
This class focuses on the art of computer graphics and image processing. We explore the concepts of pixilation, image representation and granularity and the tension between reality and image. Students are introduced to the tools and techniques of creating dynamic and interactive computer images from scratch, manipulating and processing existing images and videos, compositing and transitioning multiple images, tracking and masking live video, compositing and manipulating live video as well as manipulating depth information from Kinect. The class uses Processing and the Java language and also introduces students to shaders and the glsl language.
This course is an introduction to Renaissance Art by exploring in depth the historical, political and cultural evolution of Italy and Europe between the 14th and the 15th centuries. This overview will be not confined to works of art but will include social and patronage issues – i.e. the role of the guilds, the differences in private, civic and church patronage – that affected the style, form and content of the Italian rich artistic output, which reached a peak often nostalgically referred to by later generations as the “golden age”. Themes such as patronage, humanism, interpretations of antiquity, and Italian civic ideals form a framework for understanding the works of art beyond style, iconography, technique and preservation. The course analyzes the historical and social background of the beginning of the Renaissance during the 14th century and the impact of patronage on art. It then focuses on the early 15th century art in Italy and Europe and deals with the Medici Family’s age. Lastly it analyzes the ‘golden Age’ of the Renaissance, specifically focusing on Verrocchio, Botticelli, Perugino and Ghirlandaio. By the end of this course, students gain a thorough knowledge of the Italian and European Renaissance Age, developing practical perception and a confident grasp of the material, understanding the relationship between both historical and artistic events and valuing the importance of patronage. As the Renaissance works are often still in their original physical settings, during field-studies to museums and churches in Florence students will have a unique opportunity to experience the works as their original viewers did and as their creators intended.
This course aims to provide students with the means to understand immersive media experiences, and conduct experiments from both a practical and a theoretical perspective. The course consists of lectures, research, discussion and studio-based practice. Students will learn to produce stereoscopic – 3D images and photogrammetric 3D models, utilize multi-channel video and sound systems, and be introduced to the Unity game engine and VR hardware. For the final project, students produce VR environments in experimental and meaningful ways. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
This course investigates and illuminates the concepts and the aesthetics of kinetic sculpture and installation art in various forms from creative and historical perspectives. Students will learn to regard sound and performance as part of a sculptural form and learn to work with space. Students will gain woodworking and digital fabrication skills to expand on their physical computing skills to create moving sculpture and installation. The course consists of lectures, readings, and hands-on studio work.
This course offers students the opportunity to develop a self-initiated project with close mentorship from a faculty member. Projects undertaken can span the areas of conceptual research, business development, creative practice, and media production. The course includes structured weekly workshop and critique times with peers and special guests. It is expected that students will embrace open-source and open-content ideals in their work, be invested in the work of their peers by providing feedback, and consider the feedback they receive during critique. In addition to weekly meeting times, students are expected to also participate in regular one-on-one meetings with faculty, peers, and guests. A formal project proposal, weekly assessments and documentation, a final project presentation, and participation in the IMA End of Semester show are all required. Although students are encouraged to continue work they may have initiated in a prior class, they may not combine or in any way double count work from this class in another class taken in the same semester. Group work is allowed assuming all group members are enrolled in this class. Students may take INTM-SHU 140T-A in the first 7 weeks for 2 credits or take this course in the second 7 week or take both of them across 14 weeks for 4 credits. It is open to anyone in any major assuming they have satisfied the prerequisites. Prerequisites: None Fulfillment: IMA /IMB elective.
This course offers students the opportunity to develop a self-initiated project with close mentorship from a faculty member. Projects undertaken can span the areas of conceptual research, business development, creative practice, and media production. The course includes structured weekly workshop and critique times with peers and special guests. It is expected that students will embrace open-source and open-content ideals in their work, be invested in the work of their peers by providing feedback, and consider the feedback they receive during critique. In addition to weekly meeting times, students are expected to also participate in regular one-on-one meetings with faculty, peers, and guests. A formal project proposal, weekly assessments and documentation, a final project presentation, and participation in the IMA End of Semester show are all required. Although students are encouraged to continue work they may have initiated in a prior class, they may not combine or in any way double count work from this class in another class taken in the same semester. Group work is allowed assuming all group members are enrolled in this class. Students may take this course in the first 7 weeks for 2 credits or take INTM-SHU 140T-B in the second 7 week or take both of them across 14 weeks for 4 credits. It is open to anyone in any major assuming they have satisfied the prerequisites. Prerequisites: None Fulfillment: IMA /IMB elective.
With the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of social movements like Black Lives Matter and #metoo, the field of social good advertising has rapidly expanded as brands seek social relevance, governments and nonprofits look to inform, and activists try to persuade. In this course, students will learn to plan and execute powerful social advertising campaigns, while thinking critically about the blurred lines between advertising and information, and branding and politics, in what Sarah Banet-Weiser calls “Shopping for Change.
A comprehensive survey of critical issues in environmental systems science, focusing on: human population; the global chemical cycles; ecosystems and biodiversity; endangered species and wildlife; nature preserves; energy flows in nature; agriculture and the environment; energy systems from fossil fuels to renewable forms; Earth?s waters; Earth?s atmosphere; carbon dioxide and global warming; urban environments; wastes; and paths to a sustainable future.
In this course, the theoretical bases and applications, of haptics technologies with a particular focus on medical applications (specifically surgical, and neurorehabilitative) are taught. Basic technological aspects, such as instrumentation, actuation, control and mechanisms, are introduced. Also, some theoretical aspects related to telerobotic systems are discussed. Students are expected to have basic knowledge of programming. As part of this course, students will participate in experimental and simulation labs to acquire hands-on expertise in haptics implementation and programming. | Prerequisite: CS-UY 1114 and MA-UY 2034 and PH-UY 1013 or equivalents (see Minor in Robotics)
A continuing exploration of graphic design to help students refine their skills & develop more personally expressive ways to solving problems through visual communication. Assignments, readings, & research projects will allow students to consider the complex nature of graphic design. Both traditional & digital approaches to typography & layout will be incorporated with a wide range of assignment. A priority is placed on the use of concepts to dictate design techniques & on the pursuit of a genuinely creative vision.
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.
This class builds upon the techniques of the recording studio and the techniques of producing recorded music begun in Engineering the Record I, IIand Producing the Record Side A and B and will explore advanced techniques used in surround and immersive sound recording and mixing. Today, surround and immersive audio can be found in all areas of popular entertainment: music, film, television, streaming, games, etc. By using the multichannel studio facilities of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, students will further learn to record and mix in surround and immersive audio formats. Assigned work will take place in Studio 1 and Studio 4.
Introduction to Game Engines is a course intended for students who already have an understanding of programming fundamentals that introduces concepts, problems, and methods of developing games and interactive media using popular game engines. Game engines are no longer just used for the development of games, they have increasing gained popularity as tools for developing animations, interactives, VR experience, and new media art. Throughout the semester, students will have weekly programming assignments, using a popular game engine. There will be a final game assignment, as well as weekly quizzes and a final exam. The course assumes prior programming knowledge, if students do not have the appropriate prerequisites a placement exam may be taken. There will be an emphasis on using code in a game engine environment as a means of creative expression.
In this course, we will explore how to create narratives that leverage our lesser used senses like touch, taste and smell as well as lesser-known ones like space, time, balance and scale. We will dig into the history of experiential storytelling, starting from immersive theater and Smell-O-vision to cutting-edge haptics and mind-bending illusions of proprioception. To help center this back in practical applications, we will also explore how this evolving art is commonly used in exhibition design, experiential marketing and brick and mortar retail. The class will be a healthy mixture of game theory as well as experienced based learning (meaning there will be a couple field trips and multisensory VR projects to explore). A basic knowledge of game engines is ideal but not mandatory because we will be using predesigned templates in Unreal engine to be experienced and manipulated in real-time through virtual reality hardware.
This course will serve as an incubator to imagine a speculative product advertisement in the year 2030. In films like Blade Runner, or Her adverts fill the world and become an important aspect of exposition for the film. And in the real world, works such as Alisha Wormlsey, Alexandra Bell, and Hank Willis Thomas begin to re-imagine advertisements as an art practice in society today. Our work will begin to speculate on near-future objects in which topics such as communication, energy storage, transportation can begin to be re-imagined in the next industrial revolution. Using 3D tools, students will gain experience in speculative design thinking, industrial design modeling, product lighting, and custom post-production methods. The final project will be a product advert that will be designed to promote a speculative design entirely made from 100% Biodegradable plastics. The course will look at the ready-made objects all around us as a launching pad. We will be starting with modeling an object in detail. Using Moi 3D, Maya, Render Engine TBD, After Effects, and premiere over the course of the semester. I will go through some of the latest tools within the VFX industry and support this course with a series of artists who have re-imaged the role of cultural production. The final will be an advertisement poster and animation.
Is it a plaything? Sculpture? Nostalgia? A Product? Art toys exist at the center of a unique Venn diagram. Each student in this class will develop an original limited edition art toy. We will cover toy fabrication, character design, material selection, packaging design, and art toy culture. The class will be fabrication heavy, there will be weekly assignments, and a final project.
This course explores the disruptions and creative possibilities that realtime emerging media provides through the lens of learning how to design, create, produce and perform in realtime. Students will be learning how to design and produce for realtime interactive audiences, understand the modern streaming media pipeline, the fundamentals of virtual production, digital content creation and the basics of game engines and other software – all in the service of delivering a more engaging and intimate connection between audience and performer. Students will design and perform 2 distinct realtime performances as well as work together with peers to conceptualize, design and produce a short realtime ‘pilot’ using the tools and techniques you’ve learned in the first two projects. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Interactive Media Business Elective ; Interactive Media Arts Elective
Physical Computing is an approach to computer-human interaction design that starts by considering how humans express themselves physically and how computers can sense that expression. This course is designed to provide students with hands-on experience in researching, designing, and building physical interfaces for computers and other digital devices. Physical computing takes a hands-on approach. Students will learn to understand electronic sensors, connect them to computers, write programs, and build enclosures to hold sensors and controls. They will also learn to integrate all of these skills in the design of devices which respond to human physical expression.
This course expands the students’ palette for physical interaction design with computational media. We look away from the limitations of the mouse, keyboard and monitor interface of today’s computers, and start instead with the expressive capabilities of the human body. We consider uses of the computer for more than just information retrieval and processing, and at locations other than the home or the office. The platform for the class is a microcontroller, a single-chip computer that can fit in your hand. The core technical concepts include digital, analog and serial input and output. Core interaction design concepts include user observation, affordances, and converting physical action into digital information. Students have weekly lab exercises to build skills with the microcontroller and related tools, and longer assignments in which they apply the principles from weekly labs in creative applications. Both individual work and group work is required.
This course investigates digital art and new media from creative, theoretical, and historical perspectives. We will examine the paradigm shift resulting from the rise of digital art and its expansion as well as explore current ideas, creative strategies, and issues surrounding digital media. The topics of study will include digital image, digital sound, net art, systems, robotics, telematics, data art, and virtual/augmented reality. The course aims to provide students with the means to understand what digital media is, and establish their own vision of what it can become, from both a practical and a theoretical perspective. The course will consist of lectures, field trips, and small studio-based practices. Prereq: None Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
La Belle Époque, that period in the life of France’s pre-World War I Third Republic (1871-1914) associated with extraordinary artistic achievement, saw Paris emerge as the undisputed Western capital of painting and sculpture; it also was the most important production site for new works of musical theatre and, arguably, literature. It was during these decades that Impressionism launched its assault on the academic establishment, only itself to be superseded by an ever-changing avant-garde associated first with the nabis, then with fauvism and cubism; that the operas of Bizet, Saint-Saëns, and Massenet and the plays of Sardou and Rostand filled the world’s theatres; and that the novels of Zola and stories of Maupassant were translated into dozens of languages. Finally, this was the society that gave birth to one of the greatest literary works of all time, Marcel Proust’s Remembrances of Things Past, the first volume of which appeared just as the First World War was about to bring the Belle Époque to a violent end. Sources include reproductions of paintings, recordings of chamber music, opera and mélodies, and several of the most significant novels of the period.
Hands-on lab accompanying Digital Electronics. Lab sessions will contain hands-on experience with logic circuits & microcontrollers. The course culminates with a student developed final project.
An introduction to Analog Electronic theory including solid-state devices. Ohm’s Law & related measurement techniques will be explored. Students must enroll in a Lab section to apply hands-on experience in basic circuit design & measurement.
An introduction to Digital Electronics, including binary systems & logic. Students must enroll in a Lab section to apply hands-on experience in simple computer programming techniques, digital processing applied to music with specific relevance to computer music synthesis & MIDI.
Hands-on lab accompanying Analog Electronics. Lab sessions will contain hands-on experience with analog audio circuitry. The course culminates with a student developed final project.
Analytical and theoretical concepts required grasping the aesthetic development of electronic and computer music compositions. The course emphasizes analysis and historical understanding of techniques of production and compositional ideas.
Digital recording technology & production techniques are explained & demonstrated. Lecture topics engage analog to digital conversion, digital to analog conversion, digital signal theory & filter design, digital audio effects & mixing. Studio lab assignments are performed outside of class reinforcing weekly lecture topics.
This course examines Modern Cryptography from a both theoretical and applied perspective, with emphasis on “provable security” and “application case studies”. The course looks particularly at cryptographic primitives that are building blocks of various cryptographic applications. The course studies notions of security for a given cryptographic primitive, its various constructions and respective security analysis based on the security notion. The cryptographic primitives covered include pseudorandom functions, symmetric encryption (block ciphers), hash functions and random oracles, message authentication codes, asymmetric encryption, digital signatures and authenticated key exchange. The course covers how to build provably secure cryptographic protocols (e.g., secure message transmission, identification schemes, secure function evaluation, etc.), and various number-theoretic assumptions upon which cryptography is based. Also covered: implementation issues (e.g., key lengths, key management, standards, etc.) and, as application case studies, a number of real-life scenarios currently using solutions from modern cryptography. | Prerequisite: Graduate standing.
This course addresses the design and implementation of secure applications. Concentration is on writing software programs that make it difficult for intruders to exploit security holes. The course emphasizes writing secure distributed programs in Java. The security ramifications of class, field and method visibility are emphasized. | Knowledge of Information, Security and Privacy equivalent to CS-GY 6813. Prerequisite: Graduate standing
This course provides a high-level overview of the key ideas and technologies that lead to revolutionary changes in Artificial Intelligence and to the explosive growth in practical applications of AI. Taught by a team of NYU’s top experts in artificial intelligence lead by the Turing award winner Yann LeCun, the course will introduce students to a range of topics in fundamentals of AI and its key sub-areas including machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision as well as its applications in different domains.
Technology is a weasel. Squeezing its way into art, culture and the everyday. It infiltrates our psyche, inspiring playful interactions, fantastical ideas, vengeance and drama. It brings us together while tearing us apart. In this project-based studio, we will focus on a collective approach to creating art, tools, performances, and experiences. Outer Space in the context of this course will be used as a metaphor for the future, the unknown, and the seemingly impossible. We will investigate disparate cultural moments and unravel narratives that are both historical and technological. Technology will serve as a structure with open-ended assignments in music, video, sculpture, electronics, kineticism, surveillance, interactive graphics, and performance. Combined collaborative exercises and individual projects will augment classroom discussions and inform the art that we make. A willingness to use your imagination and personal experience to derail preconceived notions of linear timelines will serve you well in this hands-on multidisciplinary course.
The purpose of this course is to enable the student to gain a heightened awareness, appreciation, and knowledge of dance through movement and performance. We focus on the foundations of dance such as control, aesthetics, alignment, development of strength and flexibility, dynamics, athleticism, musicality, use of space, development of learning strategies within a group context, and personal, artistic expression. The student’s mastery of their body, expression with their body and creativity through their body is the center of the work. Through individual and collective kinesthetic participation in unfamiliar patterns, related, but not limited to China, West Africa, United States, and Japan, the student is physically and conceptually challenged and informed. Using these learned dances as inspiration, students go on to re interpret, improvise and choreograph their own variations on dance forms in their class assignments. Dance experience is not necessary.
Making Webisodes is an intensive production workshop in which students create unique and compelling content for the web. Students will explore the basics of online video production, working with – concept creation – writing – directing – acting – production design – camerawork – sound – editing – online distribution – social media – web monetization – and advertising. Web series are an exploding new art form. Embedded ads, 5 second hooks, instagram stories, tik-tok, and viral videos all present a variety of new media approaches within the entertainment industry, business, lifestyle, and politics. Webisodes are short visual presentations that either entertain us, directly sell us product, indirectly sell us product, share a powerful message, investigate social issues, expose problems, celebrate joy, engage our perspective, shock us, or challenge us. Students will work with Sony FS5 cameras, microphones, and LED lights and they will also be trained to use their own dslrs and cellphones, in order to practice creating a wide variety of webisodes. Workshop assignments employ practical exercises to help the students conceive and create their own unique webisode, which can be fiction or non-fiction, experimental or satire, personal or political. Combining the powerful tools of traditional filmmaking with innovative new digital media tools, this class guides students to create dynamic web based projects. As the students produce their digital media, they learn by doing and they gain practical knowledge of the art, craft, and commerce of webisodes.
This course will explore the basic tools of digital imaging. We will cover the three main Adobe products for creative imaging – Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. Through a series of short assignments we will look at various graphic design and layout ideas using Illustrator and InDesign and will touch on the wealth of image enhancement techniques afforded by Photoshop. The short assignments introduce the basics of design, typography and compositing images. Students have the opportunity to complete a small project of their own for the end of the term. Class time will be divided between lectures, critiques, and work in class sessions. This course is not intended to completely cover the software listed, but will give students a fundamental understanding of the possibilities of digital imaging. While the majority of the class focuses on print media (images, books and magazines), we discuss the growing importance of screen output. We do not have time to cover specific web or media projects, but will address transferable skills and understanding. We will incorporate some Adobe apps to augment the desktop applications. Additional reading materials will be distributed during the semester. Students should have access to the Adobe Creative Suite through the NYU license.
Introduction to Virtual Production is a class composed of lectures, discussions, screenings, exercises, group critiques and presentations. The course is designed to expose students to the fundamental principles of storytelling through Virtual Production including writing, directing, cinematography, performance, editing, art direction, and technical direction. The course will explore emerging techniques utilizing software and technology. How do you tell a story in this new form of collaboration? How can students apply what is learned to their own creative work? History and theory of Virtual Production will be studied and used to inspire personal and creative work in order to better understand how story through Virtual Production can successfully be expressed and most effectively reach its audience.
The class will teach how to architect and lead a virtual production by creating a dialogue between the Producer, Director, and Cinematographer in filmmaking with the Technical Producer and Director in creative technology. The class will cover an overview of all of the technical skills required to produce a remote virtual production through the lens of a project manager making administrative and creative decisions. This class will culminate in a real-time 3D project exploring motion capture and virtual production that will adapt a pre-existing cinematic work with the class themes in mind.
“The smartphone is not only the primary site for digital communication and consumption, it also hosts emerging forms of media production. Let’s investigate the potential of the mobile touchscreen as a creative instrument! This is a project based course, and we will explore by creating and testing a series of functioning web-based toys – including drawing apps, character creators, and writing tools. You can expect to sharpen your skills in javascript and design. “
Today’s internet, made up of mostly text documents and two-dimensional images and videos, is the result of historical limitations in bandwidth, graphics processing and input devices. These limitations have made the internet a place where the mind goes, but the body cannot follow. Recent advances in motion capture devices, graphics processing, machine learning, bandwidth and browsers, however, are paving the way for the body to find its place online. This course will explore embodied interactions in the browser and across networks. Specifically, we’ll explore TensorFlow.js models like PoseNet and BodyPix, and Microsoft Kinect in p5.js and Three.js. Assignments will consider designing engaging embodied experiences for individual and social interactions online. Experience with Node, HTML and JavaScript is helpful but not required. ICM level programming experience is required. The course will have weekly assignments that explore embodied interaction online. Assignments will begin with exploring single points of interaction (i.e. one mouse or one joint), and progress to considering full bodies and multiple bodies in one browser. Students will have a 2-3-week final project with which they will delve more deeply into the subject matter in one piece of work. Students will have readings/watchings focused on embodied and networked user experience. Some influential works that will likely be assigned/discussed are Laurie Anderson’s “Habeas Corpus,” Todd Rose’s “The End of Average,” and Myron Krueger’s “Artificial Reality.” The course examples will be taught in Javascript using web technologies/frameworks. However, students are welcome to work in their preferred medium.
Today we no longer solely connect to the digital world through computers. The result of this push to connect the digital and the analog world is the increase necessity for low cost, low power, and self-contained electronics. This course is an applications-driven intro to electronics for inventors. Through a hands-on approach students will learn basic concepts about analog circuits, boolean logic, digital devices interfaces, and low-cost code-free electronics. Topics will include basic principles of electricity, as well as understanding of electronics components such as resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors, audio amplifiers, and timers.
he virtual expansion of screens began during the 1960’s with the exploration of head-mounted displays. Since the 60’s, virtual reality has been explored in a multi-disciplinary context including philosophy, design, arts, behavioral therapy. Baudrillard, with his publication of Simulacra and Simulation (1981), declared that human experience is being replaced by a simulation of reality (HyperReality). His theories brought the dystopian narrative of the virtual to mainstream pop-culture, as seen in films such as The Lawnmower Man and The Matrix . Contrary to Baudrillard, Canadian VR Pioneer Char Davies brings a more positive perspective to Virtual Reality, “facilitating a temporary release from our haitial perceptions and culturally biased assumptions about being in the world, to enable us, however momentarily, to perceive ourselves and the world us freshly.” Throughout the class, the friction between Baudrillard and Davies will create the foundation of our exploration of Virtual Reality, where we will use room scale headsets and game engines to create meaningful “temporal experiences” exploring themes from behavioral sciences to narrative storytelling. We will be exploring ● existing VR projects, popular culture references and theory. ● concepts such as sense of embodiment (SoE), social VR design, and interactive storytelling techniques. ● methods for designing, modeling and rigging avatars for VR. ● live and pre-recorded animation. ● spatial audio techniques such as ambisonic sounds engines. ● packaging and distributing applications for social VR. This is a production class, along with a theoretical foundation, in which we will prototype projects with networking, inverse kinematics, raycasting and face tracking technologies to explore questions such as “how does the viewer become part of the experience?” and “how does the real space relate to the virtual worlds we design?” In the second half of the class, students will work in groups to build a final social VR project based on their exploration of the above framework.
Beginning with the release of Crowther and Woods’ “Colossal Cave Adventure” in 1977, the potential and unique affordances of computation as a means of storytelling have become more and more apparent. Combining approaches from literary theory, anthropology, computational creativity and game design, this class considers how narrative structure can be represented as data and enacted through computation, and invites students to implement practical prototypes of their own interactive and procedurally-generated narratives using a variety of technologies. Topics include (but are not limited to) hypertext fiction, “choose your own adventure”-style branching narratives, text adventures, visual novels, story generation from grammars and agent-based simulations. Students will complete a series of bite-size weekly assignments to present for in-class critique. Each session will also feature lectures, class discussion, and technical tutorials.
This course explores how sound, code, and interaction can merge to create musical experiences that invite listeners to shape the music, not just hear it. Students create a series of browser-based musical systems that respond to users, incorporate randomness, and draw patterns from existing music. We begin by creating a series of audio-visual interfaces—an instrument, a score/mixer, and a loop-based piece—that invite deeper listening through play. Incorporating elements of sound and music production, these projects turn tools normally hidden in the studio into interactive spaces where listeners, performers, and audiences can engage with music in new ways. From there, we dive into the inner workings of music, examining how sound organizes into rhythm, melody, timbre, and harmony, and how these patterns can be expressed in code. Students design interactive studies on each musical element, reimagining tools like drum machines, sequencers, and synthesizers into experimental, playful, or educational systems that incorporate creative coding, machine listening, and machine learning techniques. Classes combine lectures, coding tutorials, listening sessions, design exercises, and discussions of existing interfaces. Throughout, students bring their own musical sensibilities into the work while developing their creative coding skills using p5.js and Tone.js. Students regularly share work and receive feedback, using input from the class to develop and iterate on their ideas. The semester culminates in an interactive or generative piece that builds on the semester’s studies, documented through sketches, demos, and code. Prerequisites: Introduction to Computational Media (ICM) or equivalent programming experience is required. About Luisa Hors: https://www.luisapereira.net/
“Interactive technologies seldom stand alone. They exist in networks, and they facilitate networked connections between people. Designing technologies for communications requires an understanding of networks. This course is a foundation in how networks work. Through weekly readings and class discussions and a series of short hands-on projects, students gain an understanding of network topologies, how the elements of a network are connected and addressed, what protocols hold them together, and what dynamics arise in networked environments. This class is intended to supplement the many network-centric classes at ITP. It is broad survey, both of contemporary thinking about networks, and of current technologies and methods used in creating them. Prerequisites: Students should have an understanding of basic programming. This class can be taken at the same time as, or after, Intro to Computational Media or an equivalent intro to programming. Some, though not all, production work in the class requires basic programming. There is a significant reading component to this class as well. Learning Objectives In this class, you will learn about how communications networks are structured, and you will learn how to examine those structures using software tools. By the end of this class, you should have a working knowledge of the following concepts: * The basics of network theory, some history of the internet and the organizations and stakeholders involved in its creation and maintenance * The Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) model and standard internet protocols such as Internet Protocol (IP), Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) , Universal Datagram Protocol (UDP), and Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP). * Network addressing, private and public IP addresses * What hosts, servers, and clients are and a few ways in which they communicate * What a command line interface (CLI) is and how to use the tools available in one * The basics of internet security * How telecommunications networks are similar to other infrastructural networks, like power and transportation, and how they are different.”
This is an environment for students to work on their existing project ideas that may fall outside the topic areas of existing classes. It is basically like an independent study with more structure and the opportunity for peer learning. This particular studio is appropriate for projects in the area of interactive art, programing, physical computing and digital fabrication. There are required weekly meetings to share project development and exchange critique. Students must devise and then complete their own weekly assignments updating the class wiki regularly. They also must present to the class every few weeks. When topics of general interest emerge, a member of the class or the instructor takes class time to cover them in depth. The rest of the meeting time is spent in breakout sessions with students working individually or in groups of students working on related projects.
Assistive or Adaptive Technology commonly refers to “products, devices or equipment, whether acquired commercially, modified or customized, that are used to maintain, increase or improve the functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities.” This multi-disciplinary course allows students from a variety of backgrounds to work together to develop assistive technology. Partnering with outside organizations students work in teams to identify a clinical need relevant to a certain clinical site or client population, and learn the process of developing an idea and following that through to the development of a prototype product. Teams are comprised of ITP students as well as graduate rehabilitation, physical and occupational therapy students. Prerequisites (for ITP students): H79.2233 Introduction to Computational Media and H79.2301 Introduction to Physical Computing. This course has a lab fee of $201.
The location of Israel at the geographic junction between the West and the East, between the Arab world and the Western world, against the background of the long historical complexity of this piece of land provides a panoramic view of Israeli culture and art by examining thematic crossroads and ideas, via problems and social conflicts which lie at the heart of those art works and are reflected by them. Themes include: religion and secularism, universalism/globalism versus localism, Jews and Arabs, Ashkenazic and Sephardic cultures, multiculturalism in Israel, Zionism and Post-Zionism, right and left political world views, questions of gender, historical perspectives on war and peace and the Holocaust. Students explore the way different forms of art—visual, literary, and performance—reflect and shape the understanding of the “Israeli mosaic” while learning about the way the artists and writers internalize, consciously and unconsciously the complex Israeli reality.
This course allows students to harness the power of visual language in order to convey messages and meaning. The elements of visual foundation that will be covered include components (color, texture, image and typography), composition, and concept. Although the class takes place in the Game Design department, we will be less concerned with visuals as they are applied to games and instead will look at visual communication across a wide range of disciplines, from visual art to graphic design to web and interface design. Although non-digital mediums will be addressed, the understanding and use of industry-standard software is also a primary goal. The class is about the importance of visual design, how it shapes our culture. The students will learn about and discuss widely-practiced methods of visual communication, and then find their own voice through developing their own works, driven by a clearer understanding of their own tastes and interested fields.
Design Thinking is a theoretical, methodological and practical framework that has the potential of bringing about socially responsible innovation. This course will introduce the core concepts and toolkits of design thinking as the foundation of innovative thinking and practices. It requires you to step out of your comfort zone and to examine and challenge your own assumptions. Critical thinking, teamwork, and empathy are the three pillars of this course. Prerequisite: None
A hands-on introduction to the technical & creative uses of digital photography. The class will explore the use of digital technologies to compose, shoot, scan, alter, & print images, as well as considering the ways in which photographic meaning has been changed by the use of the computer. Student provides their own camera & paper.
Systems of linear equations, Gaussian elimination, matrices, determinants, Cramer’s rule. Vectors, vector spaces, basis and dimension, linear transformations. Eigenvalues, eigenvectors, and quadratic forms. Restricted to Tandon math and CS majors and students with a permission code from the math department. Fulfills linear algebra requirement for the BS Math and BS CS degrees. Note: Not open to students who have already taken MA-UY 1533, MA-UY 2034, MA-UY 3113 or MA-UY 3054. | Prerequisite: A grade of C or better in MA-UY 1022 or MA-UY 1024 or MA-UY 1324 or MATH-UH 1012Q or MATH-UH 1013Q or MATH-SHU 121 or MATH-SHU 201
Electromagnetic wave propagation in free space and in dielectrics, starting from a consideration of distributed inductance and capacitance on transmission lines. Electromagnetic plane waves are obtained as a special case. Reflection and transmission at discontinuities are discussed for pulsed sources, while impedance transformation and matching are presented for harmonic time dependence. Snell’s law and the reflection and transmission coefficients at dielectric interfaces are derived for obliquely propagation plane waves. Guiding of waves by dielectrics and by metal waveguides is demonstrated. Alternate-week laboratory. Objectives: Establish foundations of electromagnetic wave theory applicable to antennas, transmissions lines and materials; increase appreciation for properties of materials through physical experiments. | Prerequisites for Brooklyn Engineering Students: EE-UY 2024 or EE-UY 2004 (C- or better). | Prerequisites for Abu Dhabi Students: ENGR-AD 214. | Prerequisites for Shanghai Students: EENG-SHU 251 (C- or better). ABET competencies: a, b, c, e, k.
This course examines Modern Cryptography from a both theoretical and applied perspective, with emphasis on “provable security” and “application case studies”. The course looks particularly at cryptographic primitives that are building blocks of various cryptographic applications. The course studies notions of security for a given cryptographic primitive, its various constructions and respective security analysis based on the security notion. The cryptographic primitives covered include pseudorandom functions, symmetric encryption (block ciphers), hash functions and random oracles, message authentication codes, asymmetric encryption, digital signatures and authenticated key exchange. The course covers how to build provably secure cryptographic protocols (e.g., secure message transmission, identification schemes, secure function evaluation, etc.), and various number-theoretic assumptions upon which cryptography is based. Also covered: implementation issues (e.g., key lengths, key management, standards, etc.) and, as application case studies, a number of real-life scenarios currently using solutions from modern cryptography. | Prerequisite: (CS-UY 2134 or CS-UY 1134) and (CS-UY 2124 or CS-UY 1124) (C- or better) and MA-UY 2314.
This course addresses the design and implementation of secure applications. Concentration is on writing software programs that make it difficult for intruders to exploit security holes. The course emphasizes writing secure distributed programs in Java. The security ramifications of class, field and method visibility are emphasized. | Prerequisite: CS-UY 3923
This course covers cryptographic systems. Topics: Capability and access control mechanisms, authentication models, protection models. Database and operating system security issues, mobile code, security kernels. Malicious code, Trojan horses and computer viruses. Security policy formation and enforcement enforcement, legal aspects and ethical aspects. | Prerequisite for Brooklyn Students: CS-UY 2214 | Prerequisite for CAS Students: CSCI-UA 201 | Prerequisite for Abu Dhabi Students: CS-UH 2010 or ENGR-AD 3511 | Prerequisite for Shanghai Students: CENG-SHU 202 | Co-requisite for ALL Students: CS-UY 3224
The course covers the genetics of bacteria, viruses and high organisms. Emphasis is on both the genetic and biochemical analyses of gene replication, heredity, mutation, recombination and gene expression. Included are comparisons of prokaryotic and eukaryotic genetics and regulation. Laboratory techniques are used to study genetic phenomena in prokaryotes, eukaryotes and viruses. The course emphasizes modern approaches to genetic research. A lab fee is required. | Prerequisite: BMS-UY 1004. Co-requisite: CM-UY 2213 or CM-UY 2214.
Geographic Information Systems are computer systems for the storage, retrieval, analysis, and display of geographic data, that is data about features and phenomena on the surface of the earth. This course will introduce the students to GIS through hands-on computer exercises, as well as readings and lectures about cartography, tools, data, and the social impacts of GIS. GIS projects start with data and move through analysis to cartographic display. Pedagogically, we will be starting at the end moving backward to data and analysis. | Note: This course cannot be used to satisfy Humanities/Social Science requirements for majors outside of the TCS department. | Prerequisite: EXPOS-UA 1 or EXPOS-UA 4
This is a one-semester introductory course in general chemistry. It covers chemical equations, stoichiometry, thermodynamics, gases, atomic and molecular structure, periodic table, chemical bonding, states of matter, chemical equilibrium, organic, inorganic and polymeric materials and electrochemistry. | Corequisite: EX-UY 1
This course covers states of matter, chemical thermodynamics and equilibria, kinetics, acid-base chemistry, electrochemistry, introduction to organic chemistry, natural and synthetic polymers. The course is required for students in the Biomolecular Science Program. | Prerequisite: CM-UY 1004 or CM-UY 1014. Corequisite: EX-UY 1.
Atari. Computer Generated Imagery. YouTube. What is new media and will it change the world? In this course we will explore diverse examples of ?old? and ?new? media including interactive web work, gaming, installations, and movies. We will use blogs, online forums, and YouTube to discuss new media?s roots in older popular media including film and literature. We will question how new media have impacted traditional narrative forms and the structure of the film industry, as well as the broader contexts of new media in a changing world culture. This course allocates as History & Criticism for Film & TV majors. COURSE SUBJECT TO DEPARTMENTAL FEES. Non-majors must process a “Permission Notice for Non-Majors” form to register for the course (subject to availability).
Intro to Visual Communication builds a foundation for visual literacy and visual design thinking. The class focuses on the fundamentals of visual communication – line, color, composition, typography – as well as their application in a variety of contexts. You may or may not end up being a visual designer or artist, but all kinds of game design and development involves visual thinking. The philosophy of the class is learning by doing. Each week, in class and out of class, you will be creating visual projects on and off the computer. Sometimes you will be drawing in a sketchbook or making paper collages. Other times you will be using visual design software, such as Illustrator and Photoshop. The goal of the course is to connect the visual exercises to skills and issues related to directly to games. Sometimes we will be working on fundamental skills. Other times, we will be applying those skills to game-related problems.
This class is an overview of the field of games that approaches them from several theoretical and critical perspectives. No special theoretical background or prior training is needed to take the course, but to have had a broad practical experience with and basic knowledge of games is a distinct advantage. Also, an interest in theoretical and analytical issues will help. You are expected to actively participate in the lectures, which are dialogic in form, with ample room for discussion. The course will prepare the student to: Understand and discuss games from a theoretical perspective, as well as the components of a game; Apply new theories and evaluate them critically; Assess and discuss game concepts and the use of games in various contexts; Analyze games, and understand and apply a range of analytical methods.
This course will focus on researching, designing, and defining Intangible Interactions together, and unveiling artistic potential in it. Intangible interactions are those that we engage in without involving direct physical contact. Some examples would be automatic toilets, shopping carts that stop rolling outside the shop, contactless thermometers, gesture-based interactions, theremin, artwork activated by your presence, and mid-air haptic experiences. Intangible interfaces don’t have a tangible form that explicitly instructs us how to interact with them, and these interactions utilize other forms of feedback than those we feel through touch. Hence, Intangible Interactions tend to be more nuanced rather than direct, and the system is intricately designed to read your intentions using sensors. While technologies used for intangible interaction–such as computer vision and sensors are now more available and accessible, knowledge around the design and implementation of effective intangible interactions is a much less explored subject. We will explore practical, artistic, and whimsical applications of intangible interaction and look at the ways it can enhance human-computer interactions in our everyday lives. For example, it can allow new ways to interact with educational exhibits, artifacts, and artworks. We will explore intangibility as a poetic medium that can open up possibilities for creating work that challenges human senses and perception. We will discuss what are cultural and social implications that we need to consider in designing intangible interactions—what does it mean for an interaction to be “intuitive” and what are some of the assumptions that are embedded into designs that we need to challenge? You will also be introduced to working with sound frequencies that are outside the hearable spectrum to create mid-air haptic feedback. Technical topics that will be discussed in the class include: non touch-based sensors including optical sensors; proximity sensing; presence detection; optimizing sensor readings on Arduino; extending capability of sensors with light pipes and lenses; body tracking with cameras; signals outside visible spectrums; environmental sensing; mid-air haptic. Assignments will include relatively small-scale production assignments, labs, thinking, ideating, and reading. For the final project, you will be prompted to conceptualize a project that is larger than a classroom scope. You will respond to a call-for-projects with a proposal along with a solid prototype for the project so you have fully fleshed materials to apply to resources such as grants and other opportunities in the near future. I want you to think big and equip yourself with practical and essential skills to build a sustainable art or design practice! A proposal writing workshop and structured peer reviews will be provided to support this process. Tags: intangible, interaction, artistic, poetic, physical, sensors, physicalcomputing, haptic, hci, research, art, design, environment, playful, fun, proposalwriting
With Machine Learning models are getting smaller, and microcontrollers are getting more computing power, Machine Learning is moving towards edge devices. This class explores the idea of how machine learning algorithms can be used on microcontrollers along with sensor data to build Physical Computing projects. In this class, we will learn about TensorFlow Lite, a library that allows you to run machine learning algorithms on microcontrollers. We will talk about common machine learning algorithms and techniques and apply them to build hands-on interactive projects that enrich our daily lives. Students will learn to use pre-trained models, and re-train the models with sensor data. We are going to talk about Image Classification, Transfer Learning, Gesture and Speech Detection. For each topic, we will first discuss its history, theory, datasets, and applications, and then build simple experiments based on the topic. Prospective students are expected to have taken Introduction to Physical Computing and Introduction to Computational Media course, or have equivalent programming experience with Arduino and JavaScript.
This class is a project development studio for interactive music projects —that is, pieces of music that are not linear, but rather offer multiple dimensions for listeners to explore (on their phones in a crowded subway, at an abandoned factory in Palermo, back on their couches after a long day, at a classical concert hall). Students will take a project from concept to execution over several iterations, applying Interaction Design principles and techniques. During the first half of the semester, they will gather aural and visual references, compose graphic notations, and create interactive studies to explore specific elements of their composition. This work will lead to the implementation of the midterm project: a functional, high-fidelity prototype. For their final projects, students will evaluate their midterm pieces from the perspectives of music, visual design and interaction design, and refine them to produce an expressive piece of interactive music. ICM or equivalent experience is required. Some experience in making or producing music will be useful, but is not required.
Over 7 weeks students in this course will explore different game mechanics, puzzle mechanics, group dynamics, and narrative structures and work in groups to design and build a room sized escape game. We will explore how to design immersive and participatory experiences through play and problem solving. Students will construct weekly puzzles and narratives and in the final week build and operate an “escape room” experience. Prerequisites: Physical Computing and ICM. Comfort with fabrication strongly encouraged.
With emerging research and development with soft circuit technologies and its integration into textile and clothing design, the garment as a reactive interface opens up new possibilities in engendering self-expressions, sensory experiences and more. This 14-week class is to introduce students to this realm by creating connections between hardware engineering and textile crafting. The class is for students with basic physical computing knowledge to explore the possibility of wearables, and arouse discussion about the potential in re-imagining our relationship with personal devices, textiles and garment design as an interactive media.
We’ve been tinkering with the living systems that generate our foodstuffs for millennia. But climate change is radically and rapidly shifting these food landscapes, and the impacts include the extinction of many of the foods we love: chocolate, wine, beer, coffee and more importantly starvation for those in the world who are already food insecure. In this class, we’ll explore biotechnologies and bioengineering along with microbes and mushrooms to design and create pathways for the restoration of some of the damage we’ve wrought on our food system. We’ll also use art and design and systems thinking to build speculative and actionable projects that will focus not just on the future of food but the future of our planet and all of its inhabitants. This class is part of the Biodesign Challenge.
We use light in all aspects of our lives, yet we seldom notice it. Most of the time, that’s no accident. Lighting in everyday life, well-designed, doesn’t call attention to itself. Instead it draws focus to the subjects and activities which it supports. In this class, you’ll learn how lighting is used for utilitarian, expressive, and informational purposes. We’ll consider the intersection of lighting design and interaction design, paying attention to how people interact with light. We’ll practice both analyzing lighting and describing its effects, in order to use it more effectively. On the technical side, you’ll learn the basics of the physics of light, its transmission and perception. We’ll talk about sources of light, both current and historical. We’ll work with computerized control systems for lighting and modern light sources, and we’ll create a number of lighting designs for different purposes. You’ll get practice building AC and DC electronic circuits, programming microcontrollers for physical interaction, and learning digital communications protocols such as DMX512 and HTTP and REST. Projects in this class will range from indicator lighting on devices to task and wayfinding lighting in everyday environments to stage and environmental lighting. We won’t spend time on projection or light used for purely expressive purposes, but will look at how to put light to work instead. We’ll focus our attention on lighting the subject at hand, whether that subject is a person, a living environment, or a workspace. This class will be production-intensive throughout the course of the spring semester. Second-year students will not be able to combine the assignments in this class with their thesis projects, though some of the skills may be complementary.
Web browsers were originally used only for displaying simple HTML pages, but over the years they have become supercharged all-powerful web execution machines. In this class we’ll explore experimental new features and HTML5 APIs that allow browsers to communicate with the OS and their environment. APIs that will be covered may include: Battery Status, Geolocation, notifications, accelerometer usage, video access, speech recognition, and text-to-speech. We’ll cover the mechanics of bookmarklets and Chrome extensions, with a sustained multi-week focus on building extensions and exploring Chrome’s extensions APIs. Class workshops will include projects such as building an ad blocker, programmatically replacing text and images on a website, and making sites that respond to external events. Students will give weekly in-class presentations on web capabilities, complete small weekly assignments, and present a final project. This class leans heavily on web technologies, and experience with HTML, CSS and modern JavaScript (ICM with p5.js or Commlab Web/Networked Media) is required.
According to anthropologists Filip de Boeck and René Devisch, divination “constitutes a space in which cognitive structures are transformed and new relations are generated in and between the human body, the social body and the cosmos.” In this class, students will learn the history of divination, engage in the practice of divination, and speculate on what forms divination might take in a world where the human body, the social body, and even the cosmos(!) are digitally mediated. Starting with an understanding of ritual and folk culture, we will track the history of fortune-telling from the casting of lots to computer-generated randomness to the contemporary revival of Tarot; from reading entrails to astrology to data science; from glossolalia to surrealist writing practices to the “ghost in the machine” of artificial intelligence. Weekly readings and assignments culminate in a final project.
Iteration and its impact on your creative process is the theme of this class. The format of the course turns its head on the traditional class structure and instead of focusing on syllabus that builds to a final project, the course is focused on a daily, iterative practice. Students will identify a theme, idea or topic they would like to explore over the course of 100 days and must commit to making or producing a variation on that idea and posting social evidence of their work every day for 100 days. Projects can focus on building, writing, drawing, programming, photographing, designing, composing or any creative expression. In parallel to the making, in-class lectures will examine the work of artists whose work has been defined by iteration and discuss the role of discipline and routine in the creative process.
The World Wide Web no longer stops at the edge of your screen. When it comes to products, if it powers up, it talks to another device. This class provides an overview of methods for connecting the physical world to web-based applications. We’ll consider what the emerging interaction patterns are, if any, and we’ll develop some of our own as needed. This class can be seen as a narrower and more interaction design-based complement to Understanding Networks. The latter class provides a broader overview of the dynamics of communications networks, while this class focuses specifically on the challenges of connecting embedded devices to web-based services. Neither class is a prerequisite for the other, however. This class will introduce network connection techniques for devices using microcontrollers like the Nano 33 IoT and MKR series or ESP8266 and processors running an embedded operating system like the Raspberry Pi. Prerequisites: Intro to Physical Computing and Intro to Computational Media, or equivalent experience with the topics covered in those classes. Learning Objectives: Students will gain an understanding of the basics of network programming for devices with limited computing power. They will learn about current protocols for communication between devices and networked servers, and about the rudiments of security for that communication. Reading: There will be an article or two to read each week, to foster discussion about the design of connected things. Assignments: There will be several one-week software and hardware assignments to get familiar with different technologies and communications protocols, and one hardware and software final application project.
Code without content gets boring fast. This seven week course will show you how to create stories around which you can weave the technology learned in other classes. When content comes first, interesting problems arise to solve. Participants will get solid grounding in how to tell a visual story using words and images in a traditional format, so then they can take that format and reimagine it in entirely new and unique ways. The first few classes are devoted to getting basic comic skills. The remaining classes will hone and expand these abilities while posing the question: what can be done differently, and how can technology add to what we have created? At the end of the semester you will have a something that sets you apart; – original content AND technological know how. Students will combine words and images, look at each other’s work, look at examples of published works. Reimagine how these stories can be told in new and unique ways. This a demanding course. There is a lot of work involved, they will end up with a lot of original content. During the first half we look at and make traditional comics. Second half we experiment with comic format WHILE honing storytelling skills. Relevant speakers will come in to discuss what they do and how they work etc.
Assignments, critiques, & demonstrations expand skills & knowledge in the use of the video camera as an art medium. This class stresses technical & conceptual skills & the exploration of the experimental possibilities of the medium.
This course is designed to provide students with hands-on experience working with computational media (programming, creative coding, etc.) and data. The forms and uses of computational media and its application are explored in a laboratory context of experimentation and discussion.
This course will provide a foundation for understanding modern web development with a focus on front end technologies and accessing public data. The forms and uses of these technologies are explored in a laboratory context of experimentation and discussion.
Students will create two well-designed single-page web applications, including one that leverages public APIs and digital services from a wide range of existing web products. The goal of the course is for students to learn how to think holistically about an application, both by designing a clear user experience and understanding the algorithmic steps required to build it.
We live in a world where we have more data, computational power, and access to digital connectivity than ever before. But how do we make sense of the promise inherent in this reality while holding space for the challenges that it presents for different groups and communities? How do we situate the technologies that we have come to take for granted? And more importantly, how do we leverage an artist’s perspective to creating active responses that interrogate and hint at the potential for different futures? This course examines emergent technological fields, spanning topics like data collection/representation, digital archives, artificial intelligence, social algorithms, and automation and asks how the technologies inherent to each can be leveraged for artistic response, creation, and critique. While this course is primarily conceptual and art theory-based, the content covered will be technical in nature and students will be tasked with making three creative responses to the content in the tradition of the new media, digital, and conceptual art worlds.
An introductory course designed to familiarize students with all the IMA prototyping shop has to offer. We will cover everything from basic hand tools to the beginnings of digital fabrication. You will learn to use the right tool for the job. There will be weekly assignments, created to develop your fabrication techniques. There will be in class lectures, demos, and building assignments. Emphasis will be put on good design practices, material choice, and craftsmanship.
This course covers widely-used machine learning methods for language understanding—with a special focus on machine learning methods based on artificial neural networks—and culminates in a substantial final project in which students write an original research paper in AI or computational linguistics. If you take this class, you’ll be exposed only to a fraction of the many approaches that researchers have used to teach language to computers. However, you’ll get training and practice with all the research skills that you’ll need to explore the field further on your own. This includes not only the skills to design and build computational models, but also to design experiments to test those models, to write and present your results, and to read and evaluate results from the scientific literature.
This course will introduce students to the design and development of Virtual Reality experiences. We will examine these increasingly popular means of delivering content and social interactions and identify their unique affordances over existing platforms. Students will be challenged to harness the specific advantages of VR from conception through functional prototype. The class will also cover case studies of effective use of VR in information delivery, as well as social and artistic experiences.
In this course students will learn the fundamentals of computation, software design, and web technologies, through a series of creative projects. The course is intended to equip students with the skills to develop artistic and business projects that include a significant computational component. Topics such as variables, functions, components, and functional and reactive programming will be brought together to create interactive applications, generative art, data visualization, and other domains. Within the framework of these creative projects students will develop a greater understanding of how computer programs operate, be exposed to various concepts used to create experiences and interactions, and become more familiar with some of the technologies that constitute the internet. This course is intended for students with no prior programming background. Prerequisites: None
User experience design (UXD, UED, or XD) is the process of enhancing user satisfaction with a product by improving its usability, accessibility, and desirability provided throughout the user’s interaction with a product. The class is designed for those who are passionate about creating user-centered experiences with interactive media. Students are encouraged to empathize with users, engaging them to make informed design choices from prototype right through to project completion. Prerequisites: None Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
Modern Tabletop Games are undergoing a renaissance, with designers building upon each other’s innovations at a bewildering rate. The cornucopia of concepts in modern boardgaming can be daunting to a newcomer, yet any digital game designer is well advised to familiarize themselves with this parallel world, both to expand their “bag of tricks” and their notion of what a game can be. This class aims to familiarize students with a wide variety of “gateway games”: relatively straightforward exemplars that will give the student a solid foothold when further exploring their respective genre in our extensive library of boardgames. While doing so, we will be discussing related short readings in Characteristics of Games, in order to give the design strategies being engaged a broader context.
This course introduces students to critical video—the use of documentary, ethnographic, and research-based video to investigate and critique contemporary culture. Students gain a theoretical overview of documentary video, a set of conceptual tools to analyze video, and an introduction to the practice of video production for small and mobile screens. Students apply texts on video’s history, culture, and distribution, as well as the ethical challenges of video production, to their own, research-based video project. No prior experience required.
Examines the basic tenets and operative principles of the global copyright system. Considers the ways in which media industries, artists, and consumers interact with the copyright system and assesses how well it serves its stated purposes: to encourage art and creativity. Special emphasis on the social, cultural, legal, and political issues that have arisen in recent years as a reult of new communicative technologies.
An overview of the development of visual storytelling throughout history. From the first creation of early hand drawn cave paintings to modern film production, all the essential elements of visual representation, visual imagery, visual grammar, and visual storytelling are explored. Lectures introduce and explain a variety of methods used to capture a visual image and how visual imagery, both with and without words, is used to convey meaning. Assignments are given for students to create their own visual imagery using these several different artistic formats. In class discussions then analyze the audience reception of the student’s work. The essential nature of visual storytelling is examined by analyzing how images collide to create new meaning, how a multiplicity of visual images are organized into a grammatical system, and how this system is managed in order to tell a visual story. The course examines how the basic tools of traditional narrative storytelling are also used in purely visual storytelling – to create a secondary world and to maintain a suspension of disbelief in order to inform, entertain, and affect the audience.
This course challenges us to foster a tactile understanding of the relationship between art and social change. How do artists address social issues? Can art transform lives? How can art serve as a force for encouraging ethical dialogue and action within the public sphere? How do we make our ideas and revelations actually matter within our collective place and space? To better facilitate our understanding of this relationship, and in an effort to get inside these key questions and others, this course will unfold in two parts. Part I (Conversations on Art and Social Change) will be run as an interactive seminar in which we will explore how the desire to change the world has led some artists to align themselves with wider social movements. Through lectures, discussions and presentations, we will set about to engage ourselves with the work of contemporary artists who have addressed issues related to the environment, racial and cultural identity, human rights, healthcare, and social justice. We will assume that understanding the work of others is necessary if we are to appreciate the potentiality of our own impact on the world. Part II of this course (A Collective Gesture Toward) will entail challenging ourselves to participate more fully in our immediate surroundings vis-à-vis the development and implementation of a work (or works) of art.
The role of the creative producer in the entertainment industry is integral to bringing a project to fruition. This introductory course covers both the creative and physical production time-line and provides students with an understanding of the producer’s role through a semester-long team-based pitch project, which culminates in written and verbal pitch presentations. Students are encouraged to work on a project that best suits their area of interest: feature film, episodic/streaming, theatre, performance, podcasts, VR/AR or individualized multi-media. The course focuses on the dynamics of producing, including producer skill sets, tasks and responsibilities necessary to effectively and efficiently develop a project.
This course introduces students to the fundamental skills and professional practices vital to pursuing a career within a range of creative fields and industries. Students will explore strategies for effective documentation and presentation of their creative work, the art of self-promotion and exhibiting work publicly in various forms and environments, as well as networking and career preparation. | Prerequisite: Junior or Senior Standing
This course explores the scientific foundations of current environmental issues and their implications for public policy. The syllabus is divided into sections that each examines a current environmental theme in depth. The first sections investigate the composition of the atmosphere and the chemical processes that cause air pollution, ozone depletion, and global warming. Moving to the study of water, the course explores the properties of this unique solvent and the effect of various aqueous pollutants. The course also includes an investigation of energy from chemical reactions, our continuing reliance on fossil fuels, and the potential of alternative energy sources. The laboratory experiments are closely integrated with the lecture topics and provide hands-on explorations of central course themes. Throughout the course we also will examine how scientific studies of the environment are intimately connected with political, economic and policy concerns.
This course is an introduction to the field of performance studies. In this course, performance will be broadly construed to include aesthetic performance (performance art, theater, music, dance, and visual culture) and everyday presentations of self. We will study the history of the field and its relation to other fields (anthropology, theatre studies, philosophy, dance studies, feminism, political science, critical race theory, legal studies, etc.) and ask questions of how the study of performance can help us to understand contemporary questions of aesthetics, politics, and social culture. We will study the theory and history of the field as grounded in documented performances in addition to attending live performances in New York City. This course will place particular emphasis on political performance (in the US and abroad), queer, and minority performance.
Consumerism—the linking of happiness, freedom, and economic prosperity with the purchase and consumption of goods—has long been taken for granted as constitutive of the “good life” in Western societies. Increasingly, global economic shifts have made it possible for some developing countries to engage in patterns of consumption similar to those in the West, such that one quarter of humanity now belongs to the “global consumer class.” At the same time, however, nearly three billion people struggle to survive on less than $2 a day. This course takes an international and interdisciplinary approach to examine consumption in different societies, and we do so by asking several central questions: What are the key determinants of patterns of consumption, and how are they changed or reshaped over time? In turn, how do patterns of consumption shape class formation, racial inequality, identity, aesthetic sensibility, and international boundaries? How do practices of consumption inform the ways in which people understand their values and individuality, imagine success and failure, or conceive happiness? By reading widely in sociology, anthropology, and history we will develop a framework for analyzing the ethical, environmental and social justice implications of consumerism. Readings include case studies from the US, China, India, Europe and Africa Some likely authors include: Keynes, Marx, Marcuse, Benjamin, Mary Douglas, Bill McKibben; Arlie Hochschild, Lizabeth Cohen.
Survey a broad spectrum of visual art resources through guided lecture-tour visits to current exhibitions at leading museums, galleries and alternative art spaces located throughout New York City. Onsite meetings with art administrators affiliated with various organizations shed light on a wide range of career and management issues pertaining to the field and add to an understanding of the development and continued growth of New York’s exciting art world.
Amodio, Coons, Marcus, Phelps. Offered every semester. 4 points. Fundamental principles of psychology, with emphasis on basic research and applications in psychology’s major theoretical areas of study: thought, memory, learning, perception, personality, social processes, development, and the physiological bases of psychology. Included in the class is direct observation of methods of investigation through laboratory demonstrations and by student participation in current research projects.
This course is a technical but elementary introduction to the modern understanding of cosmology, intended for non-science students. Proficiency with algebra is required. We will cover advances in cosmology over the last 100 years, with special emphasis on more recent developments in the field. We will cover topics ranging from the early universe to galaxy formation in the present day universe, through the lens of the theory of relativity and the expanding universe. We will cover the Big Bang, the Cosmic Microwave Background, dark matter, dark energy and the associated evidence for these phenomena. This class is mathematically-based; most topics will be explored both qualitatively and quantitatively. Homework and exams will require calculations.
Rules of play shape competitive games from checkers to football. But how do the rules of interaction shape non-competitive play? In this course, we will explore, code and test design strategies for playful group interactions while at the same time interrogating both what it means to play and how individual identities and group behaviors. Some of the questions we will ask and attempt to answer: What motivates participation? What hinders it? When does participation become oppressive? What’s the difference between self-consciousness and self-awareness? Who has power? Who doesn’t? Are leaders necessary? What’s the difference between taking turns and engaging in conversation? What happens when the slowest person sets the pace? Interaction inputs we will play with will include: mouse, keyboard, mobile device sensors, and microphone. Outputs will include, visuals, text and sound. We will use p5, websockets and node.js for real-time interaction. Class time will be split between playing with and critiquing examples and translating design strategies into code and logic.
This class aims to provide students with the critical thinking and practical skills to explore and communicate ideas visually. This foundational course is a combination of lecture and studio format that will introduce the fundamental principles of design including typography, color, composition, branding and product design, and offer hands-on application of those principles through both in-class exercises and weekly assignments. The course will serve as a solid foundation of skills relevant to pursuing a degree in Interactive Media Arts and expose students to the myriad of opportunities a grounding in design principles opens up for them.
Artificial Intelligence Arts is an intermediate class that broadly explores issues in the applications of AI to arts and creativity. This class looks at generative Machine Learning algorithms for creation of new media, arts and design. In addition to covering the technical advances, the class also addresses the ethical concerns ranging from the use of data set, the necessarily of AI generative capacity to our proper attitudes towards AI aesthetics and creativity. Students will apply a practical and conceptual understanding of AI both as technology and artistic medium to their creative practices.
Machine Learning for New Interfaces is an introductory course with the goal of teaching machine learning concepts in an approachable way to students with no prior knowledge. We will explore diverse and experimental methods in Machine Learning such as classification, recognition, movement prediction and image style translation. By the end of the course, students will be able to create their own interfaces or applications for the web. They will be able to apply fundamental concepts of Machine Learning, recognize Machine Learning models in the world and make Machine Learning projects applicable to everyday life. Prerequisite: Creative Coding Lab or equivalent programming experience Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
From the history of visual music and abstract film to the contemporary notion of live cinema, this course will be an exploration of the synesthetic relationship between sound and visuals in a realtime performance setting. Dating back as far as the 18th century, systems have been invented to produce images alongside music linking the two through formalized arrangements. Current media technologies make developing such systems both more approachable and more expansive in their scope. Through readings, viewings, and case studies students will gain an understanding of the history and theory of live audiovisuals. During the course students will team up to develop and master a realtime audiovisual system of their own invention. The class will culminate in a show in which they will present their work through a live performance. Prerequisite: None.
IMA students are welcome to fill out the non-major course request form if they are interested in taking this course (this is the workflow we use for all interested non-photo majors).
This course systematically examines downtown New York City neighborhoods, businesses, institutions and communities. Using new media technology, such as 360 degree photography and video, augmented reality, and spatial sound, students will document histories that have unfolded around New York University’s Greenwich Village campus: the evolution of Bowery, changing Chinatown, the diminishing family-owned businesses; disappearing sub cultures of the East and West Village; Italian, Jewish, Dominican and Puerto Rican enclaves in the Lower East Side. The students learn how to work together in teams and with families and institutions, and how to gain access to other cultures, using new media.
Prerequisite: Photography & Imaging II, or permission of the department. This course considers the creative possibilities of a variety of documentary strategies. The editing of images, their structuring into an essay form, the interpretation of their various meanings, and the impact of the documentary essay on the world are all discussed. Students are assigned a range of problems that explore visual description and interpretation ranging from the photojournalistic to the autobiographical. In addition each student devotes a significant amount of time to producing a single-subject documentary project. Classes are lecture-demonstration with critiques of student work and regular presentations of documentary photographs made throughout history, in different cultures and for different reasons, including the personal and the societal. Each student must have a still camera or a video camera. This course requires a nonrefundable lab fee.
Focuses on the economy as a whole (the ?macroeconomy?). Begins with the meaning and measurement of important macroeconomic data (on unemployment, inflation, and production), then turns to the behavior of the overall economy. Topics include long-run economic growth and the standard of living; the causes and consequences of economic booms and recessions; the banking system and the Federal Reserve; the stock and bond markets; and the role of government policy.
The relationship of the brain to behavior, beginning with the basic elements that make up the nervous system and how electrical and chemical signals in the brain work to effect behavior. Using this foundation, we examine how the brain learns and how it creates new behaviors, together with the brain mechanisms that are involved in sensory experience, movement, hunger and thirst, sexual behaviors, the experience of emotions, perception and cognition, memory and the brain’s plasticity. Other key topics include whether certain behavioral disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder can be accounted for by changes in the function of the brain, and how drugs can alter behavior and brain function.
The course description for this Topics in CORE course varies depending on where the course is taught. Please view the course descriptions in the course notes section below.
The use and design of data structures, which organize information in computer memory. Stacks, queues, linked lists, binary trees: how to implement them in a high level language, how to analyze their effect on algorithm efficiency, and how to modify them. Programming assignments.
Prerequisites: Data Structures (CSCI-UA 102); Discrete Mathematics (MATH-UA 120); and either Calculus I (MATH-UA 121) OR Math for Economics I (MATH-UA 211). An introduction to the study of algorithms. Two main themes are presented: designing appropriate data structures, and analyzing the efficiency of the algorithms which use them. Algorithms for basic problems are studied. These include sorting, searching, graph algorithms and maintaining dynamic data structures. Homework assignments, not necessarily involving programming.
The use and design of data structures, which organize information in computer memory. Stacks, queues, linked lists, binary trees: how to implement them in a high level language, how to analyze their effect on algorithm efficiency, and how to modify them. Programming assignments.
This course covers the internal structure of computers, machine (assembly) language programming, and the use of pointers in high-level languages. Topics include the logical design of computers, computer architecture, the internal representation of data, instruction sets, and addressing logic, as well as pointers, structures, and other features of high-level languages that relate to assembly language. Programming assignments will be both in assembly language and other languages.
This course serves to familiarize the student with the fundamentals of typography. Typography forms the basis of our contemporary communication. Students will gain design abilities based on analogue techniques as well as digital software. The class explores letterform design & moves subsequently to typesetting exercises performed using the letterpress printer & computer. Compositions exploring typography as color, form, & image will be examined for visual impact as well as meaning. The history of typography is incorporated beginning with Guttenberg in the 1400’s through the classic designers of the 17th & 18th centuries, type-design through Russian Constructivism, the Bauhaus, & Modernism to contemporary digital type design.
Collaborative Arts Lab engages students across disciplines and schools in a layered process of inquiry, dialogue, and creative research in response to different issues of urgency in our community. Each semester, a theme is chosen for the course which serves as both the introduction to the frame for research and the introduction to the class group. This semester, the course will be rooted in performance as a frame to examine what culture is built around the body as subject and explore perceptions of art based on the body and different physicalities. You will work individually and in groups in movement-based exercises, as well as in other artistic mediums, to explore social, historical, and cultural contexts, analyze existing research, develop questions for creative inquiry, and experiment with new ways of thinking about the body as subject and as inspiration for the creative process. This course has no prerequisites and welcomes students from all schools and from all/any creative backgrounds – writers, dancers, actors, musicians, visual artists, filmmakers, designers, photographers, etc. Students will be expected to create works together, and each student will have the opportunity to integrate different creative forms into their class projects.
This class is an overview of the field of video games that approaches them from several theoretical and critical perspectives. No special theoretical background or prior training is needed to take the course, but to have had a broad practical experience with and basic knowledge of games is a distinct advantage. Also, an interest in theoretical and analytical issues will help. You are expected to actively participate in the lectures, which are dialogic in form, with ample room for discussion. The course will prepare the student to: – Understand and discuss games from a theoretical perspective – what are the components of a game? – Apply new theories and evaluate them critically. – Assess and discuss game concepts and the use of games in various contexts. – Analyze games, and understand and apply a range of analytical methods.
This course will explore the basic tools of digital imaging. We will cover the three main Adobe products for creative imaging – Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. Through a series of short assignments we will look at various graphic design and layout ideas using Illustrator and InDesign and will touch on the wealth of image enhancement techniques afforded by Photoshop. The short assignments introduce the basics of design, typography and compositing images. Students have the opportunity to complete a small project of their own for the end of the term. Class time will be divided between lectures, critiques, and work in class sessions. This course is not intended to completely cover the software listed, but will give students a fundamental understanding of the possibilities of digital imaging. While the majority of the class focuses on print media (images, books and magazines), we discuss the growing importance of screen output. We do not have time to cover specific web or media projects, but will address transferable skills and understanding. We will incorporate some Adobe apps to augment the desktop applications. Additional reading materials will be distributed during the semester. Students should have access to the Adobe Creative Suite through the NYU license.
This course will investigate the dominant critical perspectives that have contributed to the development of Environmental Communication as a field of study. This course explores the premise that the way we communicate powerfully impacts our perceptions of the “natural” world, and that these perceptions shape the way we define our relationships to and within nature. The goal of this course is to access various conceptual frameworks for addressing questions about the relationship between the environment, culture and communication. Students will explore topics such as nature/ wildlife tourism, consumerism, representations of the environment in popular culture and environmental activism.
This course will examine “social media” from a cultural perspective, with a focus on how media technologies figure in practices of everyday life & in the construction of social relationships & identities. We will work from an expansive definition of what constitutes “social media,” considering social network sites, smartphone apps, & online games, among other technologies. The course itself will involve communication in social media channels in addition to the traditional seminar format, thus we will be actively participating in the phenomena under study as we go.
The course on “Media, Activism & Democracy” aims at, first, introducing students to the complex and fascinating topic of civil society activism; second, at illustrating them the linkages between activism and media; third, at showing them the impact of civil society’s advocacy on contemporary political systems. In a nutshell, the course aims at providing students with a closer understanding of the civil society activism-media-politics conundrums at the national and global levels.
The course will include an introduction of the influential sociological theory of consumerism by Zygmunt Bauman. Other theories (see the syllabus bellow) will be presented as well. After the presentation of the mentioned theories, we will concentrate on their application to the Central European environment, which will be discussed in the context of globalization. The main aim is to show the relationship between the advertisement and the society in the current phase of society’s development, which can be characterized as a mutual discussion, but a discussion of unequal partners. In this context we will discuss the impact of current mechanisms of consumer society, which through the advertisement influences issues like i.e.: gender, politics, art, national identity, ethnic relations and democracy. We will also discuss chosen types of advertisement messages, how they influence the viewer and which ethical problems arise from such an influence.
Analysis of the problems of speaking to groups and practice in preparing and presenting speeches for various purposes and occasions. Hours are arranged for student evaluation and practice.
This course focuses on the principles and practices of successful interviewing techniques. Students are provided with background on the structure of an interview and learn how to analyze success and/or potential problems. Review of case studies and practice in holding interviews enables students to gain experience and to improve their own abilities.
This course is an analysis of changing trends in marketing ranging from corporate social responsibility to guerrilla and viral marketing. Discussion of theoretical concepts are applied through fieldwork and project-based learning. Guest lectures on emerging topics are featured.
This course examines theories, technologies, and practices of listening in the modern world. How has our experience of sound changed as we move from the piano to the personal computer, from the phonoautograph to the mp3? How have political, commercial, and cultural forces shaped what we are able to listen to, and how we listen to it? Finally, how have performers, physiologists, and philosophers worked to understand this radical transformation of the senses?
An introduction to the theoretical approaches & methods used to analyze the content, structure, & contexts of media in society. Students will develop a familiarity with concepts, themes, & approaches in media criticism, & they will develop an ability to adopt, adapt, & employ a variety of methodologies for the analysis of mediated communication.
A site to help IMA NY students find equivalent courses
For students joining IMA in Fall 2022 and beyond, our new program structure affects the categorization of courses on this site.
Classes listed in the “IMA Major Electives” categories refer to the old IMA program structure. If you’re under the new IMA program structure, these courses count as general IMA Electives for you. Your program structure is noted on your academic advising spreadsheet.
Students on the new program structure can search the Interchange for courses. If you’re looking for “IMA Major Distribution” courses, you'll find them listed here: