“This introductory class is designed to allow students to engage in a critical dialogue with leaders drawn from the artistic, non-profit and commercial sectors of the new media field, and to learn the value of collaborative projects by undertaking group presentations in response to issues raised by the guest speakers. Interactive media projects and approaches to the design of new media applications are presented weekly; students are thus exposed to both commercial as well as mission-driven applications by the actual designers and creators of these innovative and experimental projects. By way of this process, all first year students, for the first and only time in their ITP experience, are together in one room at one time, and as a community, encounter, and respond to, the challenges posed by the invited guests. The course at once provides an overview of current developments in this emerging field, and asks students to consider many questions about the state of the art. For example, with the new technologies and applications making their way into almost every phase of the economy and rooting themselves in our day to day lives, what can we learn from both the failures and successes? What are the impacts on our society? What is ubiquitous computing, embedded computing, physical computing? How is cyberspace merging with physical space? WHY ARE WE HERE? -To see how the many things you might learn at ITP might be applied in the world (across many different fields), and to develop your own nuanced point of view on those applications -Think through the lens of designing engaging experiences -To build a shared language with your cohorts – about ITP, about your interests, about emerging technologies and ideas -To practice to collaboration in a way that emphasizes generosity, curiosity and communication -To practice a process of observation and articulation as a starting point for a design process. -To be inspired by different possible visions for your future. -To get a glimpse of the foundational character of the program: experimentation, play, thoughtfulness, emergence, interdisciplinarity, collaboration, criticality -To co-create a culture in which you have a sense of belonging / agency through your own ability to participate in its making WHAT HAPPENS IN CLASS? -Groups facilitate an experiences for the class, in response to the prior week’s guest -Small group discussions -Distribute invitations, made by you, to experiences in NYC -Hear from Guest Speaker -Short Q&A/ Final discussion with Guest”
With sales of more than 1.3 billion, the German recorded music market is the third largest in the world: it is larger than the UK music market and behind only the USA and Japan. Beyond just numbers, the Berlin music business is unique: it’s home to hundreds of powerful independent and D.I.Y. record labels; it’s historically been ground zero for innovative electronic and dance music; and it’s a burgeoning tech hub for innovative software/hardware companies like Native Instruments, Ableton and Soundcloud. In this colloquium series, students will meet and hear each week from key creative entrepreneurial figures and innovators in the German and European music business. This course has several purposes. First, students will consider how ongoing economic and technological changes might be impacting the worldwide music business, as speakers discuss controversial trends like the rise of cryptocurrency, block chain and cashless systems, customization technologies like 3D printing and developments in robotics, and radical, disruptive approaches to copyright. Second, students will develop a greater understanding of the chief similarities and differences between the traditional European and US music business operations, particularly with regard to label operations, publishing and copyright, touring and festivals, and nightlife promotion. Third, students will become more informed about the D.I.Y. music business in Berlin itself, as they hear from speakers about the promises and challenges one faces in launching innovative music start ups in Germany. And finally, students will get to meet and network with key movers and shakers in the Berlin scene, past and present. In anticipation for a guest class visit, students may be required to investigate websites, read biographical or contextual material, or attend events outside of class time. Students will be expected to ask informed questions of the guests and to develop responses throughout the course of the class. Students should leave the class with a greater understanding of how the European and German music businesses work and how they themselves might make a business or sales impact on a global scale.
An introductory course to probability and statistics. It affords the student some acquaintance with both probability and statistics in a single term. Topics in Probability include mathematical treatment of chance; combinatorics; binomial, Poisson, and Gaussian distributions; the Central Limit Theorem and the normal approximation. Topics in Statistics include sampling distributions of sample mean and sample variance; normal, t-, and Chi-square distributions; confidence intervals; testing of hypotheses; least squares regression model. Applications to scientific, industrial, and financial data are integrated into the course.NOTE: Not open to math majors or students who have taken or will take MA-UY 2054 or MA-UY 3014 or MA-UY 3514 or ECE-UY 2233. | Prerequisite: MA-UY 1124, MA-UY1424, or MA-UY 1132 or MATH-UH 1020 or MATH-UH 1021 or MATH-SHU 151
Data Science for Everyone is a foundational course that prepares students to participate in the data-driven world that we are all experiencing. It develops programming skills in Python so that students can write programs to summarize and compare real-world datasets. Building on these data analysis skills, students will learn how to draw conclusions and make predictions about the data. Students will also explore related ethical, legal, and privacy issues.
This course is a survey of the history of Palestine in the modern period, focusing on the conflict for control of this land from its origins in the late nineteenth century until the present. The purpose of this course is to examine the evolution of this ongoing struggle in its historical context and to try to understand why the various parties to this conflict have thought and acted as they did.
This course explores the origins of Islam and the development of its rituals and doctrines to the 21st century. It assumes no previous background in Islamic studies. Students will learn about topics such as the Koran and the Prophet, Islamic law, the encounter of East and West during the Crusades, and Islam in Britain. They will find out how Muslims in different regions have interpreted and lived their religion in past and present. Readings will include not only scholarly works but also material from primary sources, for example the Koran, biographies and chronicles. The course consists of a combination of lectures, seminar discussions, field trips and includes other media, such as film.
What happens when one major human civilization that originates from one end of the earth comes to meet with another that thrives on the other? Will they prove themselves capable of a fruitful engagement that leads to peace and friendship based on mutual respect and understanding rather than distrust or even mutual destruction? What is the role of language in this cross-cultural encounter? This course aims to explore one such encounter, a truly unusual case in terms of its scale and splendor, namely that between China and the West in the modern period broadly defined. Surely we will not ignore the problems–political, ideological, as well as technical–that arise in this interactive process, but our focus will be on the sunny side of that encounter, on the example of those who embrace and embody through their creative and intellectual work the ideal of a harmonious though culturally diverse world. Prerequisite: None Fulfillment: CORE HPC/IPC; GCS Chinese Media, Arts, and Literature.
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).
This course will focus on Eco-Materialism (circular design principles — reuse, recycle, renew & rethink) and emergent practices based on principles of Gaia theory, symbiosis, and other systems-centered theories in conjunction with some of the origins, influences, theories, processes, and manifestations of art installation. We will read, watch, and discuss perspectives on Eco-Materialism genres and installation art written/created by artists, curators, art historians, and critics and view work by eco artists and installation artists. Students will create their own installations and writing, experiment with diverse biomaterials, and learn and combine craftsmanship and digital techniques to explore and create their own materials. Do-It-Yourself activism and Critical-Making will enable students to participate in new modes of civic engagement. Moreover, the course will motivate them to remain independent from pre-determined structures, assuming active roles in the art making rather than passive consumers. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: IMA elective; IMB IMA/IMB elective, Visual Arts elective.
This course looks at the development of site-specific performance with a special emphasis on projects that engage with social issues and include activist agendas. “Site-specific” is a term frequently associated with the visual arts but since the Happenings of the ’60s and ’70s, a body of work termed “site-specific performance” has evolved as highly structured works of art that are designed around, for or because of place and associated communities. As site artists confront the matrix of social forces, changing political policies and overlapping communities that relate to a given site, their aesthetics, creative process and goals have shifted. How are they blurring the lines between art and activism, art and urban renewal, art and real life? This arts workshop will emphasize making site work by completing a progressive series of studies, using various artistic mediums. We will also be reading about and viewing site work by seminal artists in this field. This course is recommended to adventurous students with interests and some training in at least one of the following mediums: dance, theatre, spoken word poetry, media, photography and/or visual art. Readings include texts by Maaike Bleeker; Jan Cohen Cruz; Bertie Ferdman, among others.
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.
This course bridges scholarly and professional training by providing students with an intensive introduction to the world of contemporary literature: its writers, its communities, and its organizations and institutions. Built around the English Department’s Contemporary Literature Series (CLS), which brings noted authors who are on course syllabi that semester to the NYU campus, the focus of the CLS Lab varies each semester depending on the featured authors. Some of the topics to be explored include: literary publishing, forums for literary discussion and criticism, literary organizations and institutions, and the possibilities and challenges of writing scholarly literary criticism about contemporary literature. By the end of the CLS Lab, students will have a firm grasp of the contemporary literary landscape and they will be better prepared to translate their interests and skills as English majors into the intellectual and professional contexts of the literary world.
This course is designed to work in three ways. First, it is an opportunity to learn about London’s architecture and history by physically exploring the city’s historic and modern built environment. Second, this class is an introduction to sketching and keeping a travel notebook, a fulfilling skill that any liberal arts student should experience. Third, and perhaps most important, this course teaches students how to ‘read’ a building and a town or city. The ability to visually make sense of the built environment of this major capital should help in understanding the architecture of New York City and other towns and cities throughout the world. Our course is formed of a series of site visits through London’s extraordinary and diverse environment, considering significant architectural developments from many periods, while learning to record and describe what we see. We will study the architectural vocabulary of London and learn how to accurately and elegantly depict buildings and places in both word and image. Please note that it is very important that students attend the first class, which covers the introductory information, lecture and drawing session.
This course provides a practical introduction to urban agriculture. Students will learn horticultural skills while performing tasks at the NYU Urban Farm Lab. They will also learn about the biological processes that these tasks manage & how they fit together in a system. Through visits to other sites around the city, students will be exposed to a wide variety of strategies for practicing horticulture in the urban environment.
In this workshop, students will explore the possibilities of dancing across spatial categories, making dances in “real” and digital space. Taking our cues from contemporary experimental and primarily post-modern choreographers, we will examine how our arts practices and beliefs about bodies and space are linked to evolving ideas and cultural systems; we will ask questions that tug at the assumptions of what dance is, what bodies are, what space is, and how these elements are significant as components of choreography and of our dance experiences. We will make and watch dances ranging from low-tech works to high-tech experiments. In addition to making dances, we will read about contemporary dance, technology, and other practices and disciplines (e.g., architecture, philosophy, neuroscience), view performances of choreographers and visual artists, and meet with practitioners engaged in the questions and practices of our study. We will join with CultureHub, an organization housed at La MaMa E.T.C. (one of New York’s most noted experimental theaters) and working at the intersection of art, technology, and community. Readings might include work by Gaston Bachelard, Victoria Hunter, Matthew Frederick, Merce Cunningham, Steve Paxton, Andrew Gurian, Yi-Fu Tuan, and other artists and scholars. The course is open to all students: anyone interested in dance and/or technology is welcome. Note: all workshop members will be expected to participate as movers!
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.
The course covers marketing, advertising, and communications strategies in the new media landscape where traditional media (e.g., television, print) and the online social media (i.e., Web 2.0; e.g., online social networks, user-generated content, blogs, forums) co-exist. Students are expected to have knowledge about the fundamentals of traditional advertising methods and strategies. With this background knowledge, the primary focus of the course is on understanding social media, developing social media marketing strategies, and tracking their effectiveness. This course does not look at more tactical aspects of advertising/communications such as creative, message management, and publicity.
Today, the food industry is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for up to 30% of emissions. A poor diet is now the leading cause of mortality in the U.S. As part of these huge global problems, animal production is arguably the biggest culprit. In recognition of this, consumers are dramatically altering diet patterns, and food entrepreneurs are rushing to solve the problem with desirable solutions. Vegetarianism and veganism are exploding and new alternative meat and dairy offerings are being launched at a frenetic pace. This undergraduate course—the first of its kind—is designed to put the idea of teaching entrepreneurship to its ultimate test—with the objective of incubating a series of ventures through the course of the semester that have the potential to be viable businesses and reverse negative externalities that arise from animal production. The course will start by exploring the chemistry of protein, the nutritional role of protein, the history of animal production and its environmental consequences. It will then take students through a series of frameworks to identify and implement solutions using entrepreneurship as the vehicle. These frameworks will include: (1) design thinking to identify opportunities, (2) sector / industry analysis models to identify need-gaps and validate the opportunity, (3) design thinking to prototype solutions and (4) business modeling in order to commercialize solutions. At the beginning of the semester, “start-up” teams of five to six students each will be formed and tasked with building a “blue-print” for a startup in the sustainable protein sector.
THIS COURSE TAKES PLACE AT NYU-FLORENCE. Global Fashion Industry: Italy will provide students with a deep understanding of the contemporary fashion industry in Italy, as well as of Italy’s position in the global fashion arena. The course will drive students through the entire lifecycle of the fashion business, from forecasting trends to retailing, through design, sourcing, product development and production. Particular attention will be dedicated to different marketing aspects of the process, such as: identity building, brand positioning, merchandising, buying, costing, communication. All levels of retail, from luxury to mass market will be covered. The course will end with an analysis of the new challenges, such as sourcing globalization, emerging markets, sustainability and growing significance of technology. A strong effort will be put into organizing site visits to studios, showrooms and factories, as well as meeting with professional players. Each session will be structured to give students an overview of a particular stage of the Industry, through a mix of lectures from the course leader and visiting professionals, studio and showroom visits, walking tours, reading assignments and practical projects. Conducted in English.
This advanced course investigates emerging trends in machine learning and artificial intelligence for generating media content – images, video, and sound. The course explores the idea of how artists, designers, and creators can use machine learning in their own research, production, and development processes. Students will learn and understand machine-learning techniques and use them to generate creative media content. We will cover a range of different platforms and models and also experiment with implementing the content with platforms for interaction design, such as Unity. Prerequisite: INTM-SHU 120 Communications Lab OR INTM-SHU 205 What’s New Media OR INTM-SHU 124 Emerging Technologies & Computational Arts
This course focuses on designing, developing and delivering multimedia live performances via a virtual platform. The class will have an emphasis on experimenting with different possibilities of virtual performances, pushing the boundaries of the performative medium, and using emerging technologies to create experiences that allow for the unfolding of engaging narratives, and/or generate compelling visuals in real time. We will look at various examples of both online and offline performances, explore how we can apply the technologies we have learned to design performative systems, and discuss methods we can use to make our performances more engaging. Students will practice quickly coming up with ideas and performing in class. A few weeks into the course, students will propose final project ideas and then develop the performances in the following weeks with support from the instructor. The class will culminate in a virtual event featuring solo and/or group performances by the students.
Learn the history of some of the most widely known works of journalistic and documentary photography over the last seventy years through the lens of a globally preeminent photo collective, Magnum Agency. Photographers at this collective have created iconic documentary images and helped define the field of photojournalism as we know it today, setting an influential tone for style and content. Students will examine this in a variety of topics, including the documentation of war, social justice concerns, women’s issues, and sex work. Along the way, students study the business model of this agency to grasp how its differences, from other photographic enterprises, influence the work produced. We use this agency as a lens through which to address a recent history of photography, the trajectory of visual journalism, and the place of advocacy in documentary photography. We also ask critical questions of this visual documentation, assessing power imbalances, ethical complications, and more. Our studies take us through time and around the world via the medium of photography. Specific photographers we may explore include: Robert Capa, Susan Meiselas, Jonas Bendiksen, Nanna Heitmann, Bieke Depoorter, and Eli Reed. Readings include theory, journalistic accounts, history, and other critical literature. Naturally, we spend a lot of time looking at photos, and may have the opportunity to meet some of these photographers. Students visit NYC galleries, write academic papers, and produce a photo project.
This course deals with the history of the art and science of cinematography. A working Director of Photography will relate a perspective that is unique and factual to a theoretical discussion, which is traditionally academic. Cinematography has a strong tradition of adapting its tools to enhance the storytelling experience. 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).
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.
This course examines contemporary media in (primarily Arab parts of) the Middle East and media about the Middle East, and Islam within the U.S. it analyzes the role played by these media in representing and reproducing the perceived rift between Islam and the West. Readings and media examples focus on the politics of culture, religion, modernity, and national identity as they shape and intersect with contemporary geopolitical events, cultural formations, and media globalization.
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 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.
Both dancing and everyday movement offer continual opportunities for embodied experience. Those who regularly dance or engage in movement practices such as yoga, jogging, cycling, and walking typically develop an appetite, even a need, for moving and the breadth of experience it brings. Whether you already feel this appetite or want to explore embodied experience for the first time, this Arts Workshop offers the opportunity for deep investigation of movement, focusing on active and contemplative exploration of bodies in space and time. We will be guided by several research strands linked to the existence and power of embodiment, noting experimental choreographer Susan Rethorst’s term, “the body’s mind”: ways of knowing (individually, culturally) through our bodies. Through many movement options, including dancing and somatic practices, walking and other everyday actions, and personal/cultural/political movement histories, we will encounter or create relationships between what we do and who we are. In the studio and elsewhere, we will consider how our lives as movers, and our sense of ourselves as embodied, bring us into contact with others—walkers, dancers, friends and family—and with our spaces, places, and sociocultural worlds. In this course (open to anyone with/without previous training), our research-in-action will be supported by interdisciplinary scholarship engaged with dance, embodiment, space, everyday culture, phenomenology, environmental studies, and life writing. Readings may include works by Thomas DeFrantz, Anna Halprin, Victoria Hunter, Einav Katan, Marcel Mauss, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Andrea Olsen, Steve Paxton, Georges Perec, Yvonne Rainer, Susan Rethorst, Kathleen Stewart, and Yi-Fu Tuan.
The foundations of Max, a powerful visual programming language for music and multimedia, will be covered in this course. We will examine how computers can be utilized to create situations for music creation, performance, and collaborative improvisation as well as applied to building interactive, generative music. In addition to learning Max’s fundamental building blocks, we will also use fundamental music theory as a tool to better understand music making. We will create programs that examine rhythm, melodies, chords, scales, and recognize other qualities of music like timbre, texture, and dynamics while taking into consideration the principles of harmony, melody, and rhythm defined in basic music theory. The final will require you to develop a collaborative piece of interactive computer music, a collaborative performance environment, or another final project that has been discussed and agreed upon together. This class does not require any prerequisite programming skills or prior music theory knowledge.
Advanced work in studio repair and maintenance focusing on digital equipment. Students will develop practical skills tracing schematics, using test equipment, and replacing components as required daily in the studio environment.
“What capabilities does computational media have for depicting and conveying the experience of our minds? In this course we will start out using 3D graphics to depict the conventional physical reality that appears before us. Then we will turn inward to reflect the multidimensional reality of our minds, using artificial neural networks. Finally we return to embodied interfaces connected with cloud networking and databases to share with other people. The class will operate at a conceptual level, inviting students’ empirical psychological and philosophical investigations of the nature of their experience and how to convey it with art and story. It will ask students to look critically at existing computational media’s tendencies to bore, divide or inflame its users. But this is also very much a coding class where students will prototype their own ideas for new media first with 3D graphics using the threejs library, and then with machine learning models like Stable Diffusion using Huggingface APIs or Colab notebooks and finally with networking and databases using Firebase or P5 Live Media. Students can substitute other coding tools but game engines will not work for this class. The coding is in javascript, with a possible touch of python, and is a natural sequel to Introduction to Computational Media.” Prerequisite: ICM / ICM: Media (ITPG-GT 2233 / ITPG-GT 2048)
“As game and interaction designers we create systems and choices that can either prey upon our psychological foibles or help us avoid decision pitfalls. It is our responsibility to understand how we decide, to consider the ethics of the systems we create and to practice designing systems in a purposeful manner. Game Design & The Psychology of Choice will provide interaction and game designers with an understanding of the factors that influence behavior and decision-making by looking at the intertwining of cognitive psychology and economics through the development of behavioral economics. These disciplines study behavior on the individual and group level, often revealing some of the why behind the rules of thumb and folk wisdom that game designers come to intuitively. But understanding the why—why we fall into decision traps; why certain tradeoffs tax our brain more than others; why we are overconfident about our abilities; why certain decisions make us uncomfortable—allows us to more purposefully apply our design craft, both in and out of games. Finally, as a class, we will take what we learn about how we think and create series of game experiences based around key cognitive science concepts. Assignments may include: •Mod a cognitive science experiment into a game or experience •Analyze and present a game through the lens of cognitive science and behavioral economics •Create game or experience based around a particular insight from cognitive science or behavioral economics”
“How can motion capture (MoCap) be used to archive, preserve, and share intangible heritage forms, such as performing arts, rituals, and other social practices and traditions? This course approaches motion capture through the lens of ethnography — drawing on techniques of observation, participation, and qualitative design research. This class will offer an overview of different motion capture technologies, such as 2D-3D pose estimation and depth mapping, with a practical focus on learning the OptiTrack system at ITP. We will start by covering the basics of OptiTrack and build up to other workflows and techniques used across animation, game design, and virtual production (e.g. OptiTrack to Unreal Engine or Unity).” Prerequisite: CL: Hypercinema (ITPG-GT 2004)
“What is the medium of memory? In this 14-week studio class, we will dig into this question through creative storytelling. Starting from a lens-based practice, this class will introduce traditional and bleeding-edge documentary methods to inform our own varied approaches to activating archival material. Through weekly “readings” (articles, podcasts, films), written reflections, and creative assignments, we’ll explore: • how technology has impacted our relationship to memory; • how visual interventions can can surface alternative narratives; • how to make under- and unrecorded histories visible, and call into question the power dynamics embedded in “official” records; and • how we might recast objects and sites of memory-keeping, like heirlooms, journals, and memorials, as a mode of engaged preservation. Mid-way through the course, students will identify either personal or collective histories to open up to their own individual creative reexamination, memorialization, or transformation––each producing a final project with the technology and approaches of their choosing that serves to answer the question we started with––what is the medium of memory?”
This course provides space and guidance for students to work on self-driven, individual and group projects in art and media. Course content consists of texts, site visits, presentations, workshops, and critiques built around each student’s individual practice. Faculty and guest critics will hold regular studio visits, to help guide students through their process. Students’ material and technical investigations and theoretical inquiries will be addressed in group workshops and demonstrations. This course will culminate in a public presentation of students’ work.
Explores the implications and meaning of having a disability in global contexts by introducing students to experts’ voices, especially disabled activists, as they seek to advance disability justice and inclusion and demand systemic change in spheres of influence including education, politics, healthcare, the arts, culture, social welfare, and everyday life. Examines how public (government) and private (outside of the government) policies and practices in these sectors affect the inclusion of persons with disabilities. Students explore and identify how international trends in disability and inclusion, local cultural beliefs, and biases influence inclusion.
Contests between stalwart custodians of “tradition” and rebels searching for new, untested modes of expression pervade Western music history. This course surveys some of the most contentious debates on music’s past, present, and future waged between music theorists, critics, artists, and audiences, spanning the last five hundred years. Our focus is on the seemingly inevitable tension between what music is, what it should be, and what it can be. Starting with the Greek philosophers of antiquity, we explore debates on the music of Claudio Monteverdi, Ludwig van Beethoven, Richard Wagner, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Carmen Miranda, John Cage, Bob Dylan, and The Slits. We also examine the backlash against and subsequent defense of styles like jazz, rock and roll, punk rock, rap, and 2000s pop. Our goal is to better understand how culture is “made” precisely during these moments of charged debate, where a particular music”s perceived merits or transgressions serve as the pretext for larger often controversial ideological issues. Art in this sense–and music in particular–becomes a platform by which to observe how competing aesthetic value systems reveal deep social and cultural rifts. Each unit within this course has two parts. First, we scrutinize and discuss primary sources related to the debate: letters, scores, newspaper and magazine articles, journal entries, singles, albums, and films. Secondly, we read and discuss secondary sources by scholars, critics, and investigative journalists for context, using this new information as a way to think critically about the primary sources and our own aesthetic judgments. What we will see is that debating music in terms of what’s “good” and “bad,” classical and avant-garde, edifying and dangerous, traditional and innovative, is, in the Western world, a long-standing tradition in its own right.
This is a critical studies course exploring the aesthetics and psycho-acoustics of sound: how sound works in art and life; how it affects emotions and stimulates the imagination; and how it is used in film, radio, television and other creative or artistic contexts, particularly its application as a key element in storytelling. This course examines the meaning and character of the soundscape (the acoustic environment) and the ways it has technically and aesthetically evolved throughout film history from the Kinetophone to the iPhone. The course includes reading in the theory of sound, and listening to examples of sound work by composers and sound designers. In previous semesters we have looked at the soundtrack in such films as: Playtime; Apocalypse Now, The Conversation, Aliens, The Evil Dead II, Saving Private Ryan, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Class meetings will be devoted to: 1) lecture and discussion based on assigned readings and listening and viewing assignments; and 2) screening of selected audio and video works. Students are graded on class participation, journals, a paper, and exams. This course allocates as History & Criticism for Film & TV majors.
This is a critical analysis of the Black image in cinema through film screenings, discussions, and selected readings. Film is an art form whose influence dictates how we see others and ourselves. It shapes our worldview and, yet, it is one of the youngest and most misunderstood art forms. On the surface, film viewing might seem like a passive form of learning, but effective films engage us on emotional, intellectual, spiritual, cultural, and political levels. Film is one of the most powerful mediums ever invented and since it’s invention, the Black image and experience has been distorted, demonized, romanticized, erased, appropriated as well as exalted and reified. So, it is our duty and responsibility to know its history, understand its present effects, so we can dictate its future and participate in how the Black image evolves and is treated over time. This course will survey and critically explore an historical range of the Black image on screen and Black films in relation to inspiration, narrative, a scene, set, and site of production. Screening will include a sampling of important Black independently made, and/or Black cast and narrative feature films. We will discuss and analyze specific technical elements (direction, editing, framing and composition, mise-en-scene, music, etc.) that reinforce and demonstrate these larger themes. Accordingly, our discussions and readings will cover the full range of current issues and debates in Black cinema studies, from independence vs. mainstream filmmaking; gender and sexuality; class and color caste; the ghettoization and upwardly mobile integration of urban zones; cooptation and the rise of the bourgeois story as genre, and so on.
This course surveys narrative forms and representative works from literature that employ them, contributing to a familiarity with the literary tradition inherited by film, television, and radio. It examines the various strategies of narrative structure and its principal components (e.g., plot, theme, character, imagery, symbolism, point of view) with an attempt to connect these with contemporary forms of media expression. The course includes extensive readings, which are examined in discussions, and selected from English, American, and world literature. This course may be allocated to either History & Criticism or Gen Ed Humanities for Film & TV majors.
It would be a misnomer to assume that technology is something we “use.” Rather, the human appears as embedded in a matrix of the socio-techno-material. In this sense, there is something quite non-technical about technology which has an intrinsically social nature and can take the form of bodily and socializing techniques, the canalization of creative powers, becomings of all sorts, and of course the mechanical and material manipulation of ourselves and our life-worlds. We must thus speak of a biological and technical habitus of dependency and over-coming, one constituted by everything from creating art, to language, to ideological persuasion, to human enhancement and post-humanism, and various forms of convergence. What is the relationship between these various techniques and technologies and their respective effects (ethical, cultural, aesthetic) on the category of the human? Social transformation and technology cannot be theorized in isolation. The technological, mediological, and digital have to be unearthed as constitutive of our shared “material culture” and milieu. Within such a milieu, which is both internal and external to actors and agents implicated within it, the “essence” of the human is not only potentially redefined, but indeed dissolved. In such a potential redefinition and dissolution, one finds a radically new ethical and political threshold that has yet to be adequately theorized. This course attempts to reveal this threshold through developing a critical heuristic which maps the topoi of the socio-eco-techno system. Drawing on mediology, ethics, and the French school of the anthropology of techniques, we explore such topoi in terms as both “deep” historical sediment and also futurology with a view to illuminating how our values are negotiated and transformed in our rapport with the technological.
Islam is the second most important religion in France (after Roman Catholicism) and France has the highest Muslim population in Europe. Complex events from the mid-20th century forward have led to continuous heated debate and controversy about the place of Muslim citizens within the secular Republic. France’s interwoven history with Islam dates back, however, to the first Umayyad conquests of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century and then to the period of the Crusades. Through the use of primary sources, literary and filmic texts, and critical readings (notably in history, sociology and cultural studies), this course traces the complexity and heterogeneity of French perceptions of Islam within a broad historical perspective beginning with these early encounters and continuing up to the present day.
This seminar examines the causes and consequences of poverty and rising inequality around the globe. Students will study the ways in which poverty and inequality are shaped by multifaceted contexts; understand the theories underlying strategies and programs which address key poverty and inequality issues faced by many developed, developing and least developed countries; and learn about different countries’ experiences addressing their own poverty and inequality issues. We consider philosophies of global justice and the ethics of global citizenship, and students are expected to critically reflect upon their own engagements with poverty relief activities and aspirations for social changes. Students should be prepared to tackle advanced social science readings, analysis, and writing. Open to seniors, and to other students with instructor’s permission. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or above. Fulfillment: Social Science Focus Political Economy/Sociology 300 level.
This course aims to train students to think philosophically about our rapidly changing—and ever more intimate—relationship with machines. We focus in particular on the following subjects: artificial intelligence, robots, cyborgs, automation and science fiction speculation. Prerequisite: Global Perspectives on Society (GPS) Fulfillment: CORE STS; Humanities Interdisciplinary or Advanced course; IMA/IMB elective.
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.
Where does healing reside in media-making? How do we approach creating artistic processes and tools that move towards minimizing harm, supporting collective care, and understanding what healing means for ourselves and with one another? This course examines socially-engaged artistic processes and frameworks that reconstruct, reclaim, and decolonize ‘healing.’ Together, we will gather embodied data from our bodyminds, build language through readings, and map out artists in the field exploring disability, racial trauma, queerness, and diaspora within media and performing arts. Subsequently, we will develop our own processes as our final project: weaving together storytelling, embodied strategies, tool-making, performances, and/ or space-making.
This course introduces the principles and practices of management. Management is viewed as a system of tasks and activities, including environmental scanning, planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Within each major task, is a series of processes, which show how to do what has to be done. Management is a science and an art; both aspects of management are covered in this course. Areas covered are management history, philosophy and the theory and practice of management planning, decision making, organizing, motivating and leading. Special emphasis is on providing the technical and managerial challenges presented by emerging and transformative technologies. Particular consideration is given to the managerial options available to both legacy and entrepreneurial organizations.
The course approaches video games through the lens of political economy. This means examining games foremost as commodities, transactional goods through which various modes of economic life occur. This course is designed to introduce students to the structure and economics of the game industry since its emergence in the 1970s, particularly across the United States, China, and Japan. Special attention is brought to the dramatic industry changes catalyzed by digital distribution, mobile gaming, live streaming, and other contemporary developments.
This is an introductory course to the fundamentals of 3D computer animation. Through in-depth discussions and hands-on assignments, students will gain a thorough beginner’s understanding of the 3D production process. Using industry-leading Autodesk Maya running on high-end Mac Pro workstations, students will learn the basics of modeling and proceed through UV layout, texturing, rigging, animation, lighting and final render. At the end of the class students will have completed a series of exercises that will culminate in a final scene that showcases all they learned.This course allocates as a Craft for Film & TV majors. COURSE SUBJECT TO DEPARTMENTAL FEES.
Machine learning is an exciting and fast-moving field of computer science with many recent consumer applications (e.g., Microsoft Kinect, Google Translate, Iphone’s Siri, digital camera face detection, Netflix recommendations, Google news) and applications within the sciences and medicine (e.g., predicting protein-protein interactions, species modeling, detecting tumors, personalized medicine). This course introduces undergraduate computer science students to the field of machine learning. Students learn about the theoretical foundations of machine learning and how to apply machine learning to solve new problems. Assuming no prior knowledge in machine learning, the course focuses on two major paradigms in machine learning which are supervised and unsupervised learning. In supervised learning, we learn various methods for classification and regression. Dimensionality reduction and clustering are discussed in the case of unsupervised learning
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.
Offered Fall Only. Required of all freshmen majors and highly recommended for incoming transfers. Students are required to register for the lecture and the recitation sections. No prerequisites for this course. The course will consist of a series of weekly lectures, discussions, readings and field trips to museums and galleries in the city. Lectures will present historic and contemporary art and photography and it’s ideation as a basis for understanding the work the students are viewing on their weekly field trips. Students will visit selected exhibitions chosen for their quality and relevance and arranged by geographic area of the city (One week the Whitney, the next Chelsea, etc). Students will be required to monitor the daily press and periodicals for reviews of work they’ve seen and to highlight exhibitions the class should see. Additional readings of historic material will be assigned and short papers will be required.
This course is a unique collaboration between the Collaborative Arts and IMA Tisch departments, and CultureHub at La Mama. During the pandemic many performing artists moved their work online, leading to an increasing acceptance of experimental practices that their predecessors developed in on-line work for the past 30 years. In Experiments in Hybrid (IRL/URL) Performance, students will have the opportunity to design, prototype, and present collaborative projects that build on this tradition, blending both physical and virtual elements. Over the course of the semester, students will have the opportunity to study at the CultureHub studio where they will be introduced to video, lighting, sound, and cueing systems. In addition, students will learn creative coding fundamentals allowing them to network multiple softwares and devices generating real-time feedback systems. The class will culminate with a final showing that will be presented online and broadcast from the CultureHub studio.
This course will focus on the history of the culturally rich region of “Mitteleuropa” through analysis of the parallel evolution of Germany and the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. Mitteleuropa as a region produced such important figures as Franz Kafka, Gustav Mahler, Sigmund Freud, Theodor Herzl and Milan Kundera; historical personalities whose influence internationally is indisputable. We’ll delve into the history of the region and on the central role played by German politics and culture from the end of the 19th century, through the turbulent 20th century to the present day. Emphasis will be on the evolution of the concept of nationalism as well as on Germany’s foreign policy in the “concert of nations”, especially towards its Eastern neighbors. The aim is to achieve an understanding of the complex evolution of national entities and their interaction between the birth of the modern German state and the integration of the Visegrád countries in NATO and the European Union.
The history of Germany in the twentieth century offers rich material to explore various approaches to organizing modern society. Beginning with Imperial Germany in 1900 and moving forward to today’s reunited Germany, we will look at different ways in which the relationship between the state and the individual, and relationship between politics, economy, and society developed over five different political systems. We will interrogate how these institutional arrangements were envisioned and structured and how they were experienced in everyday negotiations. In this course, principle narratives and events will be situated in a European and global context, allowing us to place the concept of German modernity in a comparative framework. Lectures will provide an overview of Germany in the twentieth century; readings and in-class discussions will explore different approaches to analyzing German history and society. During museum visits and walking tours, we will analyze contestations over the various attempts to integrate – both in concerted efforts to memorialize as well as to forget and erase – Germany’s oft-problematic pasts within the narrative of Germany’s present.
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.).
This course provides an introduction to the making of modern Spain through the study of key cultural practices in literature, visual art, film, and performance from the 19th century to the present. The course is organized around key concepts, which may vary by semester and by instructor.
The course will begin with an examination of the background to and condition of Europe in 1945. The outbreak of the Cold War and the division of Europe will be discussed as will the promotion of European unity, the establishment of NATO and the emergence of COMECON and the Warsaw Pact. The pressures leading to the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC) will be considered together with the firm establishment of the democratic principle in Western Europe. The Suez Crisis and Decolonisation in Britain and France will be explored together with the corollary, the first application by Britain for membership of the EEC. The effect of President de Gaulle’s presidency on France, NATO and the EEC will be considered. The end of Stalinism in the USSR will be examined as will the first cracks in the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe in Hungary and Poland. This will be followed by a discussion of the merits and demerits of Khrushchev’s period in power, the U2 crisis and the construction of the Berlin Wall. The Prague Spring off 1968 will be discussed. The continued integration of Europe will be analyzed together with the impact of Ostpolitik in Germany. Brezhnev’s domination of the USSR and Détente in the 1970s will be examined. Following this, the forces that led to the triumph of Neo-Liberalism in Britain will be considered, as will the return of conservatism in Germany and the cohabitation of Mitterrand’s France. The re-launch of the European Community in the 1980s will be analysed. In Eastern Europe the Gorbachev era and the rise of Solidarność will be explored and the course will conclude with an examination of the disintegration of the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe, the reunification of Germany, the collapse of the Soviet state and the conclusion of the Maastricht Treaty.
A course that tracks the filmmaking process from its inception, at the idea phase and follows the creative process through development, pre-production, principal photography and post-production. The class will focus on the business and legal issues that arise during every phase of filmmaking. Key topics covered will include: copyright law; option agreements for underlying rights such as books, plays, magazine and newspaper articles; sources of financing; distribution agreements; licensing of music; agreements for actors, directors, producers and writers. This course allocates as a Craft for Film & TV majors. Students must have Junior or Senior standing. COURSE SUBJECT TO DEPARTMENTAL FEES.
The course covers sketching, drawing and computer-aided drafting. Topics: Projection theory—multiview, axonometric, oblique. Auxiliaries, sections, isometrics, dimensions, fasteners, detail and assembly drawings. Introduction to blueprint reading. Overview of CIM and CAD integration with other CIM concepts. A design project incorporates developed skills in visualization, drawing techniques, standards and CAD.
Music is universal to all human cultures. This course will explore fundamental concepts of the psychological, emotional, and cognitive effects of music and what factors in the human body and brain are involved in producing them, with particular emphasis on cross-cultural study. Students will learn beginning methods of computational feature extraction and machine learning to explore simple artificial intelligence models that build on and articulate the conceptual frameworks of music and cognition introduced in the initial phase of the class.
A specialized EMT course within the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurial Studies designed to provide students with a framework for understanding the dynamics of producing (as a business profession) a finished creative product in the entertainment and media industries, developing a business model, and generating an income stream to repay and provide investors with a profit. Educates the student in the process of feature film and long-form television production from the initial concept of the story, through script development, to completion of the project. Covers the most important steps in the production of an independent film, a studio project, a network TV or cable show, a radio program, a Broadway production, and an advertising television commercial. Explores all the elements a producer must know, understand, and eventually become skilled with through mastery of development, including script selection, finance, budgeting, timetable development, team building, talent selection, sales, contract and union negotiation, regulations, technology, and other relevant core competencies.
Provides a framework for understanding the global expansion of media and entertainment companies. Examines the impact that the significant export growth of American leisure products and services has on the U.S economy. Analyzes the strategies of several leading entertainment and media multinational companies and the development of their entertainment businesses within the major world economic zones. International speakers, cases and readings are used in this course.
This course gives students a basic understanding of key business issues relating to producing, distributing, marketing, and exploiting feature films. The course examines key aspects of the movie business, including managing a creative enterprise, deal making, acquiring rights, building a library, branding, and all aspects of effective marketing. The concepts developed in the course are applied in a group project presentation.
The financial services industry is being transformed by regulation, competition, consolidation, technology and globalization. These forces will be explored, focusing on how technology is both a driver of change as well as the vehicle for their implementation. The course focuses on payment products and financial markets, their key systems, how they evolved and where might they be going, algorithmic trading, market structure dark, liquidity and electronic markets. Straight through processing, risk management and industry consolidation and convergence will be viewed in light of current events. The course objective is to bring both the business practitioner and technologist closer together. Topics will be covered through a combination of lectures, readings, news, case studies and projects.
Students work directly with internationally recognized figures in photography. Topics for workshops range from the techniques of established photographers to discussions of issues in photographic theory, history, & criticism.
An introduction to MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) with an emphasis on sequencing, production and arranging techniques. Open to students without previous experience in music technology.
A general introduction to the fundamental concepts of music technology, including: MIDI and sequencing, the basics of digital audio, sound recording, mixing and sound synthesis,. The course will also briefly overview advanced topics and applications in the field.
A critical listening study of acoustic music recordings that develops the student’s ability to define and evaluate aesthetic elements of recorded music. Students explore recorded music attributes including dynamic range, stereo imaging, perceived room acoustics, the use of reverb and equalization, naturalness, and the listening perspectives.
Programming for MIDI, C, and other appropriate techniques. Design and implementation of software sequencers, interface drivers, and hardware applications will be the focus.
An introduction to maintenance and troubleshooting concepts used in the recording studio. Procedures discussed are those necessary in utilizing sophisticated audio equipment and understanding essential aspects of studio design.
The physical aspects of sound, analog recording technology & studio production techniques are explained & demonstrated. Lecture topics include microphones, stereo recording, analog consoles, multi-track tape recording, equalization, compression, reverberation & mixing. Studio lab assignments are performed outside of class reinforcing weekly lecture topics
In recent years, video games have exploded as both a cultural force and a pioneering creative medium. Many critics and creative professionals believe that gaming offers both its practitioners and its audience the next evolution in storytelling. But how–and why–did digital games evolve from mechanic-focused experiences such as Pong and Tetris into more narrative-rich undertakings along the lines of Mass Effect, The Witcher, and The Last of Us? In this course, we will explore the vibrant and complex intersection between narrative expression and interactivity, examining the myriad ways dramatic storytelling techniques can be applied to a series of design mechanics to bring context to the player’s action, and, inversely, the ways that mechanics and design can be employed to express a theme or to convey a story. The course is intended to appeal to all gaming backgrounds–neophytes with a casual interest in games, enthusiasts who’ve spent many years passionately gaming and discussing games, and everyone in between. The first half of the course will establish a creative grammar and a base of common reference points from which students will develop their creative projects. The second half of the course will focus on the creative project. Students will be challenged to “gamify” a popular work of media (of their choosing with professor approval) into an interactive project–video game, interactive fiction, board game, interactive theatre, or any combination thereof. Incorporating the fundamentals established in the first half of the course, students will develop this game concept through multiple rounds of iteration and feedback, eventually breaking down the mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics of the proposed project via a highly detailed game concept document—the blueprint of an interactive experience. In the end, students should come away with a command of basic game vernacular, inspired to view Game Theory and Design as expressive narrative tools available to them in their own creative toolbox, regardless of discipline or medium.
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.
Introduces theories, methods, and political trajectories central to the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis (SCA). SCA 101 addresses how individuals and populations structure their worlds and navigate the resulting social, cultural, and political terrain. It privileges scholarly work with an intersectional approach, drawing on theoretical insights from such fields as social geography, feminism and queer studies, ethnic studies, urban and metropolitan studies, critical race theory, labor studies, and cultural studies.
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.
Curtis, Davachi. Offered every semester. 4 points. Provides students with a broad understanding of the foundations of cognitive neuroscience, including dominant theories of the neural underpinnings of a variety of cognitive processes and the research that has led to those theories. In doing so, students also learn about the goals of cognitive neuroscience research and the methods that are being employed to reach these goals.
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.
Political economy is a field of inquiry that has made great strides in recent years in explaining political and economic behavior by characterizing the incentives of actors and the context in which these actors make decisions and influence outcomes. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to these theoretical approaches and show how they can be used to address contemporary policy questions.
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.
Offered every semester. 4 points. Introduces students to some outstanding theories of politics. The theories treated offer alternative conceptions of political life, and they are examined from both theoretical and historical perspectives. Among the theorists included are Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, Mill, and Marx.
Introduction to Maxwell’s equations with applications to physical problems. Topics include electrostatics, magnetostatics, the solution of the Laplace and Poisson equations, dielectrics and magnetic materials, electromagnetic waves and radiation, Fresnel equations, transmission lines, wave guides, and special relativity.
Continuation of PHYS-UA 91. Topics include electrostatics; dielectrics; currents and circuits; the magnetic field and magnetic materials; induction; AC circuits; Maxwell’s equations.
Topics include conservation laws, central force motion, Lagrange’s and Hamilton’s equations, non-inertial frames, inertia tensor, rigid body dynamics, coupled oscillators and particles, eigenvalues, eigenvectors and normal modes.
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.
This course aims to accomplish two things. The first is to introduce three broad traditions of normative thinking about social issues from around the globe: a Confucian tradition, one based in Islamic legal traditions, and one derived from European liberalism. The second is to address three current areas of normative debate: about global economic inequality, about gender justice and human rights. We shall explore these first-order questions against the background of the three broad traditions. Our aim will be to understand some of differences of approach that shape the global conversation about these issues that concern people around the world.
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 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.
Music Major Distribution Requirement. Chromatic harmony as developed and practiced by composers of the 19th century and beyond. Introduction to score reading and principles of musical analysis applied to larger musical structures. Continuation of species counterpoint and an introduction to invertible counterpoint and fugue.
Explores the underlying principles and inner workings of the tonal system, a system that has guided all of Western music from the years 1600 to 1900. It includes a discussion of historical background and evolution. Focuses on concepts and notation of key, scale, tonality, and rhythm. Related skills in sight-singing, dictation, and keyboard harmony are stressed in the recitation sections.
Students study principles of tonal music composition including 18th and 19th century harmonic, formal, and contrapuntal practices. Exercises in four-part voice-leading and species counterpoint are supplemented by analyses of music from around the world and from a variety of genres, including concert and popular music. Weekly lab sections are devoted to skills in musicianship and are required throughout the sequence.
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.
Introduces the field of cognitive science through an examination of language behavior. Begins with interactive discussions of how best to characterize and study the mind. These principles are then illustrated through an examination of research and theories related to language representation and use. Draws from research in both formal linguistics and psycholinguistics.
Language is a social phenomenon, but languages share elaborate and specific structural properties. Speech communities exist, exhibit variation, and change within the strict confines of universal grammar, part of our biological endowment. Universal grammar is discovered through the careful study of the structures of individual languages, by cross-linguistic investigations, and the investigation of the brain. Introduces fundamental properties of the sound system and of the structure and interpretation of words and sentences against this larger context.
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.
Offered every semester. 4 points. Survey of the field of sociology: its basic concepts, theories, and research orientation. Threshold course that provides the student with insights into the social factors in human life. Topics include social interaction, socialization, culture, social structure, stratification, political power, deviance, social institutions, and social change.
Focus is on advanced composition and oral practices, with the aim of refining an understanding and general facility with written and spoken Greek. Course work is designed to help students develop a comprehensive vocabulary, improve pronunciation, and increase their effectiveness, accuracy, and fluency in writing and speaking the language. Enhances and perfects reading, speaking, conversational, and writing skills through the close study of selected modern Greek literary texts, current newspaper articles and essays, films, advertisements, and comprehensive discussions of contemporary Greek society. Explores major facets and phenomena of Greek culture: current social and political issues, events, and controversies in Greece; Greece’s position “in the margins of Europe” and at the crossroads of East and West; gender politics; the educational system; the political landscape; discourses on the question of Greek identity; and topics in popular culture. Through individual projects, oral reports, class presentation, and written assignments, students are expected to pursue an in-depth “reading” of present-day Greece.
The nineteenth century was the great age of the English novel. This course charts the evolution of the form during this period, exploring texts by major authors including Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, George Eliot and Thomas Hardy. Close attention to narrative, questions of mimesis and publishing practices will combine with the exploration of a range of significant contemporary discourses relating to shifting conceptions of gender, sexuality, religion, science, class, and race. These varied contexts will help us to consider formal, stylistic and thematic continuities as well as discontinuities and innovations. Taking advantage of our local surroundings, we will also explore changing representations of London and trace the enduring legacy of this period in the twenty-first-century city.
Money supply; banking as an industry; banks as suppliers of money; the Federal Reserve System and monetary control; monetary theory; and contemporary monetary policy issues.
This course focuses on structure and theory in organic chemistry with a particular emphasis on the application of stereoelectronic and conformational effects on reaction mechanisms, catalysis and molecular recognition.
Introduction to molecular analysis of biomolecules. Selected experiments and instruction in analytical techniques used in biochemical research, including chromatography, spectrophotometry, and electrophoresis; isolation and characterization of selected biomolecules; kinetic analysis of enzymatic activity; analysis of protein-protein and protein-DNA interactions that direct basic biochemical pathways.
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 constitutes an introduction to the 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 basic techniques of the organic chemistry laboratory, including crystallization, distillation, extraction, and other separation techniques, such as column chromatography. Experiments involving the synthesis of organic compounds are introduced, as well as qualitative organic analysis.
This course constitutes an introduction to inorganic and physical chemistry for science majors, engineers, and the prehealth professions. Emphasizes the fundamental principles and theories of chemistry. Topics include the theories of atomic structure; stoichiometry; properties of gases, liquids, solids, and solutions; periodicity of the properties of elements; chemical bonding; equilibrium; kinetics, thermodynamics; acid-base reactions; electrochemistry, coordination chemistry, and nuclear chemistry. The underlying unity of chemistry is a basic theme. Laboratories provide an introduction to basic techniques used in experimental chemistry. Many experiments use a computer interface to provide experience in modern methods of data collection and to allow thorough analysis of experimental results. Proper laboratory procedures, chemical safety rules, and environmentally sound methods of chemical disposal and waste minimization are important components of the course. Experiments are selected to provide illustration and reinforcement of course topics, including manual and automated titrations, basic chromatography, stoichiometry, thermodynamics, and colorimetry.
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.
This class is an introduction to the craft of directing. We will take a step-by-step look at the director’s process and responsibilities in this most collaborative of arts. Our focus will include script, character and scene analysis; performance, casting and rehearsal; design and visual style; assembling the final form. We’ll talk about what an actor wants from a director, how to talk to the cinematographer and production/costume designers and why we look at editing as the final rewrite. Through lectures, screenings, assignments and discussions with working professionals, the class will offer a comprehensive foundation for the director on which to build a rich creative experience at Tisch and a long and satisfying professional career thereafter.
Animals are one of life’s most successful lineages, occupying nearly every environment. This course provides an introduction to the diversity of animal form and function in the context of phylogeny and evolution, with a focus on the invertebrates, the majority of animals. Lectures will be devoted alternately to individual branches of the tree of animals and to common themes in the ways animals have evolved to fit and shape their environments. We will discuss morphology, physiology, reproduction, development, and ecology. We will discuss the unique genomic and molecular characteristics of each branch of animal life, with attention to the ways that nonmodel organisms can provide insights into core cellular and molecular processes, including cell-cell communication and biomineralization. We will also discuss the intersection of these animals with human interests, including economic zoology, ecosystem services, and medicine. In laboratory and field exercises, students will learn to collect and identify invertebrate animals and to form and test hypotheses about their attributes.
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.
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.
This course is conceived as a focused study of the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael Sanzio and Michelangelo Buonarroti, the men whose careers largely defined the concept of Western artistic genius. Particular consideration will also be given to their Italian and European contemporaries and followers in order to take advantage of the opportunity to the study these original works on site. High Renaissance art cannot be divorced from its times; thus, much attention will be given to contemporary history, especially Florentine politics and politics in Papal Rome. Special attention will also be given to the evolution of drawing practice in sixteenth-century Italy, an essential development for the changes that took place in the conception of works of art over the course of the century. Themes such as patronage, humanism, interpretations of antiquity, and Italian civic ideals will form a framework for understanding the works of art beyond style, iconography, technique and preservation. As the high 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.
Explores how identity is a process of “becoming” rather than a mode of “being” by examining how speakers enact their gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, and socioeconomic class through everyday conversations, narratives, performances, literacy activities, and public debates. Also explores the moral and political consequences of people’s identification strategies by examining how their beliefs about language reinforce or contest normative power structures. Readings on the relationship between bilingual education and accent discrimination, multilingualism and youth counterculture, migration and code-switching, media and religious publics, linguistic nationalism and xenophobia, and literacy and neo/liberalism in different areas of the world.
This course examines the philosophy of cognitive ethology and comparative psychology. We begin by discussing the nature of animal minds. Are animals conscious? Do they experience pain? Do they have beliefs? Do they use language? Are they self-conscious? How can we know? This involves applying concepts from metaphysics and epistemology to research in cognitive ethology and comparative psychology. We then discuss more general questions like: Are animals agents? Do they have free will? Do they live meaningful lives? Do they have moral rights? This involves applying concepts from ethics, existentialism, and other areas of philosophy to our conclusions about animal minds. Finally, we also ask, along the way, how research on animal minds can affect our philosophical theories. For example, should we revise our theories of consciousness, language, agency, morality, and so on if they seem to have implausible implications about animals?
What can novels based on historic events tell us? What sorts of insights can they provide that journalism and works of pure history cannot? How much imaginative leeway should the author of a historic novel be allowed – and how closely should she stick to “true” events? In this course we’ll read a wide range of novels-looking at them both as literature and as keys to history-on topics that include slavery in the U.S., post-apartheid South Africa, McCarthyism, the 9/11 terror attacks, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Data Physicalization is an emerging research area. It explores new techniques to design and encode data into physical artifacts through geometry or material properties. Recent advances in Computational Design and Fabrication offer novel opportunities to complement traditional screen-based visualizations enhancing people’s ability to discover, understand, and communicate data. This course uses a data visualization approach to define new methods of computational design and digital fabrication. Students will create unique, data-driven, everyday objects and sculpt meaning into them. Through the use of platforms such as Rhinoceros: a 3D modeling software, and Grasshopper: a visual programming language, students will be introduced to fundamental computational methods for designing and fabricating, as well as the understanding of digital fabrication strategies for parametrically generated design. Prerequisite: Interaction Lab or Creative Coding Lab. Fulfillment: IMA/IMB Elective.
In response to the popular conception of the “immaterial” Internet, and “datafication” of all aspects of life, how might we rethink the materiality and environmentality of media in our research? This upper-level seminar will introduce students to various theoretical frameworks in media studies including new materialism, media archaeology, studies of media infrastructures and ecologies, cultural geographies, and elemental media. Students are expected to critically assess the (geo)politics of material/environmental media and to adopt a mix of these frameworks to develop a research project and essay. Prerequisite: Junior standing OR What is New Media. Fulfillment: IMA/B Elective, Advanced IMA Elective.
The aim of this course is to explore the relationship between the virtual self and environment and to assess both as a space for learning and collaboration using virtual reality. This course takes place entirely in virtual, immersive environments. Students will be provided Oculus Quest 2 virtual reality headsets and specialized software. See the principles above for further details. Prerequisite: IMA Major with junior or senior standing. Fulfillment: IMA/IMB Elective.
Tzvetan Todorov defines the fantastic as a “subgenre of literary works characterized by the ambiguous presentation of supernatural forces.” Donald Antrim, on the other hand, regards the fantastic not as a genre, but as a condition shared between author and reader: “a potential state” in which “everything is vivid, yet nothing is clearly defined,” where “the fantastical and the real are equally questionable, equally challenged by one another.” Frankenstein’s monster comes to life. Alice goes down the rabbit hole. How can [an] author make these events seem not only uncannily plausible, but even expectable—the sudden eruption of some carefully encrypted logic operating beneath our conscious awareness? How do we ground the fantastic in enough realism to sustain the reader’s suspension of disbelief? This class will explore the fantastic as the strangest and most explicit demonstration of what literary technique can achieve in any genre. We will focus on various kinds of world-making, from magical realms to dystopias to refracted versions of “realism.” Special attention will be devoted to how writers use altered states of consciousness like trauma, intoxication, and psychosis to create a hallucinatory space between the supernatural and the deeply improbable. Readings will also span a wide spectrum of cultures and historical periods, from canonical works like Frankenstein to Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities to contemporary novels like Ben Okri’s The Famished Road, Joy Williams’ The Changeling, and Donald Antrim’s The Hundred Brothers. Assignments will include several creative writing prompts and longer pieces of original fiction for workshop.
Major periods, developments, and interpretative issues in Russian politics, history, and society, from the 1917 revolution to the present. The emphasis is on the Soviet experience, though the Tsarist past and post-Soviet developments are also considered. Special attention is given to the role of historical traditions, leadership, ideology, ramifying events, and socioeconomic factors.
If “the past is never dead,” as Faulkner wrote, how does it continue to live on? How do its ghosts continue to haunt the political present? Can these ghosts be exorcised or does one have to learn to live with them? These questions become especially urgent and consequential in the aftermath of war and catastrophe, as writers and artists confront the legacy of violence and try to memorialize annihilated bodies and spaces. The aesthetic modes they choose to address both the dead and the living and the ways in which they narrate the past have political consequences for the future. We will explore and try to answer these questions by reading a selection of texts (fiction, poetry, film, and visual art) as sites and acts of mourning. We will read and view works from and about Armenia, South Africa, Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, and the US. Readings will include Benjamin, Boulus, Butler, Darwish, Derrida, Freud, Khoury, Morrison, and Youssef.
In the twenty-first century, the Internet arguably makes secrecy impossible, but the exposure of secrets is already an important theme in many 19th-century British novels. In part, this reflects a society in which identity seems increasingly malleable through greater social class mobility, the questioning of traditional gender roles, and imperialist opportunities. In these novels, fake identities conceal a murderer and a madwoman, among others. And the societal constraints inspiring the fictional secrets also led the authors to keep secrets of their own. Beloved author Charles Dickens, the father of 10, had a 13-year love affair with a woman who was 18 when they met. But does the novel genre, particularly the “realist” Victorian novel, with its emphasis on an omniscient narrator and intersecting plots, have a special relationship to secrets? We attempt to uncover the answer by studying Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Bronte (1847), Great Expectations (1861), by Charles Dickens, George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1871-2), and Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet (1887). Theory and criticism include selections from Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality, Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s The Madwoman in the Attic, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s “Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism
Located at the intersection of songwriting, storytelling, creativity, and commerce, the Broadway musical is one of New York City’s most significant and singular cultural artifacts. While this art form has a long and storied history, it continues to evolve dramatically in terms of aesthetics, audiences, content, and economics. In this arts workshop (open to artists, producers, and fans), we will take a look at some of the most influential shows to play the Great White Way over the last twenty-five years, with a focus on both how they are constructed and how they have impacted the field (and society). How does a musical get made? How do librettists, composers, and lyricists synthetize their visions to speak with one creative voice? How does a show like Hamilton become a worldwide phenomenon, and what keeps a hot property like Spider-Man from reaching its potential? Shows examined will include: Rent and The Lion King (shows that serve as the unofficial gateway to this new generation); Passing Strange and In the Heights (and the ground-breaking 2008 season); The Book of Mormon (and its film precursor South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut); Spider-Man; Fun Home; and yes, Hamilton. Weekly responses will include original scenes (or songs), casting breakdowns, design proposals, and other creative output, as well as some traditional essays.
In name alone, Led Zeppelin carries mountains of meaning: the most successful and arguably the most influential rock band of all time. The creators of a mythic, mystical, guitar-based style that gave birth to the sounds and iconography of heavy metal. Song-crafters whose studio mastery, utilizing recording technology of the day, generated some of the most enduring rock recordings of their era, establishing standards that still define a stylistic and emotional extreme of popular music. The four British musicians who came out of the electric blues scene of the late ‘60s, recording and touring as a unit for a mere twelve years, together achieved a legendary stature that requires much study to fully appreciate more than thirty years after their demise. This course will consider the history of Led Zeppelin from a variety of perspectives: social and stylistic context; the nuts and bolts of their music—live and in the studio; the hows and whys of the band as a business. Using books, articles, videos, and a generous sampling of music, the course will follow their arrival in the final, psychedelic heyday of swingin’ London of the ‘60s; through their roots in folk and acoustic blues and later experimentations with Indian and North African music, and their rise in an era that was hungry for a heavier, more bombastic sound. The course will include special focus on the group’s technical leader and visionary, guitarist Jimmy Page, who came with prior credits as a sessionman and guitarist in the blues-rock band the Yardbirds, as well as other major players in the Zeppelin story—engineer Glyn Johns, manager Pater Grant—who helped build the sonic and popular juggernaut that the band became. In-class guest speakers will be featured, many who participated or witnessed the Led Zeppelin phenomenon, as well as a screening of the group’s concert film The Song Remains The Same.
This course examines the political movement of queer and transgender artists and programmers who are creating games and computational media. Throughout the semester, we read work by queer, trans, and feminist scholars and designers and play the games they created in order to situate today’s queer and trans games movement within the histories, contributions, and politics of queer and trans people and people of color. How might we re-imagine the radical potentiality of video games and software by centering game studies on queer and trans life, history, and politics?
Designing a successful interactive experience or software system takes more than technical savvy and vision–it also requires a deep understanding of how to serve people’s needs and desires through the experience of the system, and knowledge about how to weave this understanding into the development process. This course introduces key topics and methods for creating and evaluating human-computer interfaces/digital user experiences. Students apply these practices to a system of their choosing (I encourage application to prototype systems that students are currently working on in other contexts, at any stage of development). The course builds toward a final write-up and presentation in which students detail how they tackled HCI/user experience design and evaluation of their system, and results from their investigations. Some experience creating/participating in the production of interactive experiences/software is recommended.
This course will introduce students to technologies for speech synthesis and speech recognition from the point of view of performance art. Through weekly assignments and in class lectures, we will explore voice interfaces and their role in technology, design, art, and culture. We will begin with understanding human speech, and then delve into computer speech. We will learn how to program existing technologies such as p5.js to create our own talking machines. The class will research the current limitations and biases of these technologies and models, and respond by leveraging these constraints as ground for performative expression. Students will be required to develop a performative piece as their final project, this could be a live performance, an interactive installation piece, or a performative object or tool. Students are encouraged to bring their interests into the classroom and apply the course into their practice. Prior knowledge of computer programming will be helpful, however, it is not required. NYU is a global community. You are welcome to bring your own language, your accent, and your spoken identity into the class.
This course will be an introduction to studio art for students, to traverse both cultural and temporal barriers of visual arts. Students will examine the content of artwork, and build various skills to translate ideas into reality. Class time will be devoted to individual projects and critiques, lectures, and group discussions. This course is open to all students with or without an art background. Note that attendance in the first class meeting is mandatory, otherwise you will be dropped from the course. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: general elective
This course attempts to track the American entertainment industry from its plebian origins through its rise to becoming the predominant mass entertainment culture in the world. Students discover the origins of the production practices that are employed in the entertainment industry today by following the legendary characters, movie moguls, and media titans of the early 20th century and the companies they built. The emphasis is on the way the visionaries of the time impacted seemingly risk-averse systems to invigorate and sometimes completely revolutionize them. These innovative men and women include, but are not limited, to Louis B. Mayer, George Lucas, Maya Deren, Shirley Clark, Nam Jun Paik, Lucille Ball, Russell Simmons, Clive Davis, Julie Taymor, and Steve Jobs.
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.
This course explores Greek, Christian and Jewish responses to the problem: How does one create a good society? Central questions to be explored include: What is the best form of government? What economic system is ideal? Should the government actively promote a vision of the good life or leave it to individual to decide the good for themselves? Should the government prioritize the freedom, equality, or happiness of its inhabitants? What role should religion and nationhood play in society? What models of education should the government promote? How does gender inform these considerations? The course will focus on careful analysis of primary texts. Thinkers to be studied include: Plato, Maimonides, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, Mendelssohn, Marx, Hess. Having first taken the course: Living a Good Life: Greek and Jewish Perspectives is highly desirable.
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.
Do you want to MAKE THINGS with your computer? Are you an artist, engineer, designer, sculptor or architect? Are you a few of those things? How are 3D scanning and 3D modeling different? What materials should I be using? Should I be 3D printing or CNC-ing this CAD file? What is a Boolean operation and why is it my new best friend? This class will answer all of your questions. Don’t know what any of these things are? This class will answer those questions also. By the end of this course, you will be familiar with all that digital fabrication has to offer. We will cover everything from laser to 3D to CNC. You will learn how to identify which digital fabrication technique works best for your projects. But more than that, you will learn what kinds of questions you should be asking in order to complete a project from start to finish. As technology advances at rapid speeds, digital making machines and software are changing just as fast. So instead of just being taught about the machines of today, you will also be given the tools to teach yourself the machines of tomorrow. Emphasis will be put on learning how to ask the right kind of questions to successfully finish a project. What do you want to make? Let’s make it.
This course is designed to provide hands-on experience with creative coding, physical computing, and machine learning to design alternative forms of taking, making, processing, and interacting with images for visual communication and creative expression. The forms and applications of emerging computational tools are explored weekly in technical tutorials and active workshops. These are informed by seminar discussions of readings on critical debates in photography, the history of its tools and uses, and the works of historical and contemporary photographers and artists using photography and new media. Prerequisites: IMA’s foundation course, Creative Computing, or similar coursework with coding and microcontrollers.
Technology is allowing us to see our clothing as an extension of our body. An extension acting as a system that reacts, collects information, and augments our modes of interactions with spaces and people. Historically, what we wear has been used to express our identity as well as complex issues related to class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. Leila Brillson states: “”What you wear is a part of your identity, and identity is, well, pretty darn political””. Interested in fashion as a form of expression, artists, designers, and architects are now crossing disciplines to explore the realm of fashion. Utilizing computation design, digital fabrication, and electronics they are proposing new wearables to speculate on the future of human existence by exploring the limits of the body. In this course, students will research and work with soft electronics and robotics integrated into textiles to make it possible to add controlled behavior and interactivity with their immediate environment. They will study nature and design wearables, understanding them like a second skin, as well as a soft interface able to gather information and transform itself. Students will also explore the complex geometries and designs allowed by digital design and manufacturing. Furthermore, this course will engage with both theory and practice, and introduce students to a specific design sensibility and methodology in order to design wearables reflecting on religious, social, and political issues. Prerequisite: INTM-SHU 101 Interaction Lab or INTM-SHU 103 Creative Coding Lab. Fulfillment: IMA/IMB Elective
This course surveys the implications of globalization for the production, circulation, and consumption of media. In this course, we will look across both analog and digital media (radio, TV, film, video, pop music, podcast, etc) in relation to a series of questions: How do media (and media industry) represents localities for a global audience? How can media practices create a feeling of belonging to the world/community? How may global media tell us about different material infrastructure, social imagination, and political desires? Students will explore media phenomena and critically examine media texts often beyond North American experiences. By the end of the class, students will be able to articulate how media connects to global flow of finance, cultural product, labor, and social aspirations.
After its reunification, Berlin gained a well-deserved reputation as an ‘anything-goes’ cultural playground. But just as radical cultural experimentation was leading to the city’s techno Renaissance, the same urban frontier was quietly transforming into a hotbed for new business ideas around tech. Companies like Ableton, Native Instruments, and SoundCloud started in the city and grew from headquarters there into leaders in the field of music technology. They join other world leaders in music tech around Europe, like Spotify, Deezer, Mixcloud, Focusrite/Novation, and Propellerhead. Berlin is quickly becoming known as a world-class hub for innovative tech start-ups and progressive developments in emergent media. This class, open to all students, shines a light on key Berlin-based entrepreneurial figures and innovators in music technology, with a focus on those successful individuals who have launched recognized or profitable music-focused startups. The idea is for students, many of whom are aspiring entrepreneurs, to hear directly from, and ask questions directly to, established Berlin based tech entrepreneurs, in moderated conversation. In anticipation for a guest class visit, students may be required to investigate websites, read biographical or contextual material, or attend events outside of class time. Students will be expected to ask informed questions of the guests and to develop responses throughout the course of the class. All events and speakers are subject to change.
Introduction to Visual Effects for Animated and Live Action Films provides an in-depth overview of VFX production from the director-producer perspective. This course will offer a basic understanding of how VFX are utilized and will prepare students for the visual effects industry, and its constantly evolving digital and in-camera solutions. It will also provide an historical overview of the evolution of VFX. Students will also learn how powerful visual effects have been, and will continue to be, in helping to tell stories, especially projects with limited budgets. They will gain a detailed understanding of the type of camera coverage necessary on-set to facilitate the VFX process and what communications, with their primary crew, are necessary during early stages of preproduction to optimize footage for VFX. Areas of study include rig removal, green/blue screen compositing, motion capture, shooting backdrops, matte paintings, background plates, miniatures – models – forced perspectives, match lighting, sky replacement, crowd replication, integration of 2D and 3D CGI elements, motion control and practical effects shot in-camera.
Weed. Pot. Bud. Grass. Ganja. Reefer. Mary Jane. Skunk. Herb. Cannabis. It’s all marijuana – the most commonly used, in most states still illicit, drug in the United States. Calming for some, anxiety provoking for others, perhaps medicinal, always controversial, marijuana causes wonder and confusion among physicians, parents, teachers, adolescents, and lawmakers. After 50 years of debate, marijuana remains one of our most visible modern-day conundrums – is it “okay?” Is marijuana safe and therapeutic, or is it dangerous and a gateway to more harmful drugs? Through lecture, discussion, and a thorough analysis of the current research literature in neuroscience and human development, we will seek to answer these questions and identify marijuana’s role in psychology, medicine, culture, and government policy.
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.
Taking off from the practices of medium-based art categories, this course is structured across key topics in contemporary art – “art of today, produced by artists who are living in the twenty-first century”. During the semester, via the framework of readings, projects and assignments, we will consider the importance of the visual arts in the larger context of society. Each week we will look at a different topic, which will be organized around key concepts, artists and artwork examples. The main goal is to allow us to contemplate the process of interaction between visual art, history, cultural, socio-economical, and technological forces. The stress of our gatherings will be on the artist as a thinker and a maker.
Examines the state of college-student mental health and wellness on a personal and systems level. As undergraduate university students approach the end of adolescence, they often reevaluate the beliefs, values, and assumptions with which they left home. Young adulthood is a time of great promise, but the transition from child to adult is never easy. We look at how individuals can create positive change by reinterpreting their goals and identifying steps toward a successful college experience. Key findings from the fields of neuroscience and positive psychology are referenced to inform our study of the biopsychosocial underpinnings of success and happiness. Through lectures and discussions, students learn about a variety of wellness topics that include mindfulness, relationships, and self-esteem. The final project requires students to promote an area of mental wellness on campus.
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)
Visualization and visual analytics systems help people explore and explain data by allowing the creation of both static and interactive visual representations. A basic premise of visualization is that visual information can be processed at a much higher rate than raw numbers and text. Well-designed visualizations substitute perception for cognition, freeing up limited cognitive/memory resources for higher-level problems. This course aims to provide a broad understanding of the principals and designs behind data visualization. General topics include state-of-the-art techniques in both information visualization and scientific visualization, and the design of interactive/web-based visualization systems. Hands on experience will be provided through popular frameworks such as matplotlib, VTK and D3.js.
Majors Only:This course will introduce incoming Master’s students to some of the concepts, terms, and theoretical genealogies that they can expect to encounter in Performance Studies. What makes performance studies performance studies, and why do it? In considering this question we will consider the specificity of performance as an object of study, a mode of inquiry, a practice of self-hood and sociality, and as an aesthetic practice; we will also focus on the specific challenges and potentialities in writing about/as performance.
Hollywood in your palm. That is what this combination of lectures, screenings, demonstrations and practical production workshop will offer to the students in this course. There will be several professional guests making presentations and Q&A sessions from the mobile phone filmmaking industry. In addition to the historical and critical overview of the emergence and exponential growth of global cell phone cinema, students will shoot all footage on cell phones and download them for computerized editing. The final project will be under three minute shorts. Projects will include all genres of film and television: news, mini-documentaries, animation, music videos and narrative shorts. Completed student projects will be suitable to be posted on the Internet and entered into domestic and international mobile phone film festivals. For example, two minute long improvisations of Bollywood Style Music Videos shot on Cell Phones by the students have been projected at the Tribeca Cinemas as part of the New York Indian Film Festival. It is suggested but not compulsory that students bring to the class a cell phone capable of recording video.
With recent advances in hardware and software, millions of us now carry unprecedented spatial computing and world sensing technologies in our pockets. With these technologies in hand, how do we design AR experiences that are contextual at the core – that are sensitive to the spaces we inhabit and the behaviors of people in those spaces? How do we augment this better understanding of reality? This course will be a hands-on workshop where we create spatially aware, contextually driven AR applications unique to particular situations. We will examine the opportunities and challenges when designing for site-specific experiences – museums, live events, retail, medical settings, industrial environments, schools, and others. Topics will include image and object recognition, world mapping, people tracking, location anchors, the ARKit “depth api” (LiDAR enabled features), spatial audio, scene understanding and semantics, and more. For design and development, we’ll primarily use Apple technologies – ARKit, RealityKit and RealityComposer. We’ll also tap a variety of cloud services to store, move, process, and bring intelligence to the data generated and consumed in our experiences. 3D modeling skills are helpful but not required. While we’ll cover the basics, students should expect to spend additional time outside of class learning Swift and other related programming concepts. Full-time access to an iOS device (LiDAR-enabled is ideal but not required) and a Mac laptop running the latest operating systems are required. As part of the design process, we’ll host workshops and guest critiques with designers from top studios around New York City as well as directly interfacing with various teams at Apple.
A new world is emerging at the intersections of machine learning and physical computation that will offer wide-scale access to bringing intelligence to everyday devices and spaces at extremely low costs. In this course, students are offered the opportunity to become pioneers in a new field of hardware machine learning as they are introduced to the most used machine learning platform in the world (TensorFlow) that has been embedded into an incredibly small microcontroller, called TinyML. Students will learn about building with machine learning, the ethics and societal impacts of ML, and how to start realizing creative computation through ML-based physical computing.
This practical, hands-on course will explore questions such as: How can we design engaging, creative learning experiences that are relevant to the cultural goals and needs of today’s youth in China, while laying the foundation for creative learning for the workforce of tomorrow? What are engaging, effective creative learning resources, and how are they best implemented in Chinese learning settings? How can we take advantage of young people’s near ubiquitous love of the arts to facilitate creative learning?’ In this course, students will work in teams to design digital learning resources and experience designs at the intersection of music, coding, arts, and technology. The course will begin with an introduction to emerging trends in learner engagement and design-based research, especially related to web- and mobile-based musical experiences and principles of making music with new media. Innovations in and applications of musical interaction, interactive technologies, user-centered design & engagement, scaffolded learning, creative learning, pedagogies of play and making, and educational entrepreneurship will also be explored. Students will work together in teams and paired with a partner audience of learners and teachers in Shanghai drawn from local and regional international schools, ed-tech startups, and cultural partners. Together they will assess the needs and opportunities of partner students and teachers, and engage in a two-stage iterative, reflective co-design process prototyping custom learning resources and experience designs with their partner end users. At the end of the course, students will present and demo their learning resources as part of a public showcase to an external audience of partners, educators, technologists, musicians, entrepreneurs, and experience designers in Shanghai. Prerequisites: None. Fulfillment: IMA Major Electives; IMB Major Business Elective/Interactive Media Elective; Business and Finance Major Non-Finance Electives; Business and Marketing Major Non-Marketing Electives.
This course explores New York City as a cultural and economic hub for media and the arts, arguably the cultural capital of the world. Classroom work is supplemented by site visits, guest lectures, and field research to explore the ways that media and the arts have shaped work and leisure in NYC life in the past century. Topics include: Time Square and live spectacle, the Broadway theatre, Madison Ave and modern advertising, the museum of New York, galleries, artists, and the art market, the Harlem Renaissance, alternative media and Bohemian arts.
This course will focus on the prototyping of wearable electronics projects for a single user: you. In this class we will wear what we make, following an iterative cycle of research-design-make-wear. Lectures, readings, and discussions will serve to provide historical and contemporary framing for our work. Wearable technology prototyping strategies and techniques will be shared and tested. Special focus will be placed on circuit building and fabrication approaches that are compatible with a home studio environment. Previous experience with electronics or physical computing is strongly encouraged. Students will emerge from the course with a deeper knowledge of what it takes to develop and refine a robust, bespoke wearable electronics project.
This course examines both the practices and the products of adapting narratives from one medium to another. Through case studies of specific adaptations, we will address some of the major formal, industrial, and interpretative questions that transmedia adaptation raises, as creators change characters, stories, settings, and narrative tropes to fit into new stories various, often multiple media: comics, radio, novels, movies, television, games (tabletop and electronic), and more. Theoretical readings will give students concepts and a vocabulary to discuss ways that narrative adaptations use and re-purpose their “source” texts. Students will write prompted response papers, an analytical essay, and an annotated bibliography; in collaboration with classmates, student teams will first propose and then develop transmedia narratives of their own. Prerequisite: Writing as Inquiry Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
Through weekly performing, readings and discussions, students study the conceptualization and production of live electronics ensemble performance. Students create new works, improvisations, and rehearse compositions from a growing repertoire of electronic ensemble compositions, to be performed at a semester’s end public concert.
A deep sense of a descending dystopian future has become more pronounced with the global pandemic, economic shutdowns, and the rise of extremism and authoritarianism. Scholars, novelists, journalists, filmmakers, and activists around the world have been writing and speaking about political systems and leadership classes incapable of addressing such issues for decades. Students explore dystopia through literature, film, and scholarly works, and examine strategies for resisting dystopia. Students participate in a social action project and create video projects.
This course focuses on technological developments and cultural contexts relevant to understanding the development of digital computing technology. The course familiarizes students with the social forces and technocultural innovations that shaped the personal computing industry, and uses primary documents, academic history and critical theory to contextualize and problematize popular frameworks of technological progress and challenge narratives of computing’s inevitability.
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.
Big Data requires the storage, organization, and processing of data at a scale and efficiency that go well beyond the capabilities of conventional information technologies. In this course, we will study the state of art in big data management: we will learn about algorithms, techniques and tools needed to support big data processing. In addition, we will examine real applications that require massive data analysis and how they can be implemented on Big Data platforms. The course will consist of lectures based both on textbook material and scientific papers. It will include programming assignments that will provide students with hands-on experience on building data-intensive applications using existing Big Data platforms, including Amazon AWS. Besides lectures given by the instructor, we will also have guest lectures by experts in some of the topics we will cover. Students should have experience in programming: Java, C, C , Python, or similar languages, equivalent to two introductory courses in programming, such as “Introduction to Programming” and “Data Structures and Algorithms. | Knowledge of Python. Prerequisite: Graduate Standing.
This course is an introduction to the field of machine learning, covering fundamental techniques for classification, regression, dimensionality reduction, clustering, and model selection. A broad range of algorithms will be covered, such as linear and logistic regression, neural networks, deep learning, support vector machines, tree-based methods, expectation maximization, and principal components analysis. The course will include hands-on exercises with real data from different application areas (e.g. text, audio, images). Students will learn to train and validate machine learning models and analyze their performance. | Knowledge of undergraduate level probability and statistics, linear algebra, and multi-variable calculus. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.
This course is about experimental game design. Design in this context pertains to every aspect of the game, and these can be broadly characterized as the game system, control, visuals, audio, and resulting theme. We will explore these aspects through the creation of a few very focused game prototypes using a variety of contemporary game engines and frameworks, high-level programming languages, and physical materials. This will allow us to obtain a better understanding of what makes games appealing, and how game mechanics, systems, and a variety of player experiences can be designed and iteratively improved by means of rapid prototyping and play-testing. The course combines the technology, design, and philosophy in support of game creation, as well as the real-world implementation and design challenges faced by practicing game designers. Students will learn design guidelines and principles by which games can be conceived, prototyped, and fully developed within a one-semester course, and will create a game from start to finish. The course is a lot of (team)work, but it’s also a lot of fun. Programming skills are helpful, but not a hard requirement. Artistic skills, or a willingness to learn them are a plus. | Prerequisite: (Graduate Standing AND CS-GY 6533) for SoE students OR (OART-UT 1600 and OART-UT 1605) for Game Center MFA students OR instructor permission.
This course takes a top-down approach to computer networking. After an overview of computer networks and the Internet, the course covers the application layer, transport layer, network layer and link layers. Topics at the application layer include client-server architectures, P2P architectures, DNS and HTTP and Web applications. Topics at the transport layer include multiplexing, connectionless transport and UDP, principles or reliable data transfer, connection-oriented transport and TCP and TCP congestion control. Topics at the network layer include forwarding, router architecture, the IP protocol and routing protocols including OSPF and BGP. Topics at the link layer include multiple-access protocols, ALOHA, CSMA/CD, Ethernet, CSMA/CA, wireless 802.11 networks and linklayer switches. The course includes simple quantitative delay and throughput modeling, socket programming and network application development and Ethereal labs. | Knowledge of Python and/or C. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.
This is a standard digital photography course designed for those with little or no experience in photography. This course will emphasize personal expression through the application of technique to the presentation of subject matter. Open Arts will have enough Sony A7r cameras for students to share. If students plan to borrow the DSLR cameras, they are first required to purchase College Student Insurance, (CSI). While it is not required that you own your own digital camera to enroll in this course, it is recommended that you borrow or acquire your own camera for the duration of this course, or if you would like to avoid having to share one of the department’s cameras with another student. If you would like to purchase your own camera, a digital single lens reflex (SLR) or mirrorless digital camera is highly recommended for this course. The camera needs to have manual aperture and shutter speed controls. The purpose of this course is to develop an understanding of the technical and aesthetic aspects of making photographic images. We will apply fundamental photographic techniques such as composition, framing, lighting and manual camera controls to the images we create. We will discuss the way we see, compared to how cameras and lenses see, evaluate the similarities and differences and how that impacts the creation of images and how we analyze them. Students will make photographs that are effective as individual images and photographs that work together in a series. Students will learn how to create a narrative with a series of photographs and express a feeling or mood with a series of photographs. Class discussions will introduce students to a variety of concepts related to visual literacy. Students will also be introduced to the work of historically significant photographers from a broad range of backgrounds. Students will learn how to use Adobe Creative Cloud software to adjust images for print and digital publishing. By the end of the course, students will understand how to use a digital SLR or mirrorless camera to create compelling photographs using manual controls, process their images using Adobe Creative Cloud software and best practices for publishing their images digitally as well as best practices for printing their images. Finally, students will enhance their critical thinking skills while developing a deeper understanding of visual/photographic language. Students are expected to shoot a minimum of 108 exposures (photographs) each week.
This is a standard digital photography course designed for those with little or no experience in photography. This course will emphasize personal expression through the application of technique to the presentation of subject matter. Open Arts will have enough Sony A7r cameras for students to share. If students plan to borrow the DSLR cameras, they are first required to purchase College Student Insurance, (CSI). While it is not required that you own your own digital camera to enroll in this course, it is recommended that you borrow or acquire your own camera for the duration of this course, or if you would like to avoid having to share one of the department’s cameras with another student. If you would like to purchase your own camera, a digital single lens reflex (SLR) or mirrorless digital camera is highly recommended for this course. The camera needs to have manual aperture and shutter speed controls. The purpose of this course is to develop an understanding of the technical and aesthetic aspects of making photographic images. We will apply fundamental photographic techniques such as composition, framing, lighting and manual camera controls to the images we create. We will discuss the way we see, compared to how cameras and lenses see, evaluate the similarities and differences and how that impacts the creation of images and how we analyze them. Students will make photographs that are effective as individual images and photographs that work together in a series. Students will learn how to create a narrative with a series of photographs and express a feeling or mood with a series of photographs. Class discussions will introduce students to a variety of concepts related to visual literacy. Students will also be introduced to the work of historically significant photographers from a broad range of backgrounds. Students will learn how to use Adobe Creative Cloud software to adjust images for print and digital publishing. By the end of the course, students will understand how to use a digital SLR or mirrorless camera to create compelling photographs using manual controls, process their images using Adobe Creative Cloud software and best practices for publishing their images digitally as well as best practices for printing their images. Finally, students will enhance their critical thinking skills while developing a deeper understanding of visual/photographic language. Students are expected to shoot a minimum of 108 exposures (photographs) each week.
This course will combine a history of video art and experimental film with practical training in the use of live video performance art technology. Students will explore new ways to create and edit films and videos using VJ software, projections, and multi-channel video surfaces. Workshops will demonstrate concepts and software that can be integrated into the creative process of video performance art and video art installations. COURSE OBJECTIVES At the completion of this course, the student will be able to: Draw inspiration from the recent history of incredible video and multi-media artists. Develop an understanding of audio and visual hardware used by VJ’s. Use live VJ software to manipulate digital media in real time to create Video Performance Art. Use Projection Mapping techniques to project video art onto 3D surfaces. Create original video performance art, video installations, and other performance pieces. Utilize skills to make video art in the professional market.
With the rise of mobile computing platforms such as smart phones and tablets, location has suddenly become a key element in the production and consumption of media. In this online course, designed for NYU Shanghai Interactive Media Arts majors studying abroad, students will be encouraged to simultaneously explore their unique study away site, as well as to consume, research, critique, and create location-based media for mobile devices. Students will be introduced to GPS (Global Positioning System) technologies through activities such as geocaching and GPS drawing. We will next investigate geocoding, geotagging, and geofencing through the application of JavaScript mapping platforms CartoDB and Google Maps. Students will then explore an emerging technology known as Bluetooth Beacons, which can be used to create custom positioning systems and to facilitate location awareness in mobile devices. Students will be asked to then produce, as a final project, a game that engages participants in a location or locations, as well as in locative media in any number of forms. Note: This is an online course featuring both synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities. Registration is limited to IMA Majors studying at NYU’s global sites other than New York or Abu Dhabi.
Course description (optional): We are currently living in a society that operates under the principle that one body equals one agent, one vantage point, one identity. But emerging technologies may create a future in which the notion of a single personal identity becomes outdated. That future includes: machine learning techniques that make emulating the style and behavior of other people fast and easy; widely available AR/VR headsets that get people to identify with however many faces and bodies they choose, instead of just those they were born with; cryptocurrencies enabling the use of pseudonymous economic identities to transact across the planet in a permissionless manner. This is a course where we will get to explore and anticipate the utopian and dystopian aspects of this weird future of identity.
“Digital tools of all kinds are deeply embedded in how our society operates. Innovations in basic communication, data processing, image manipulation, and even financial systems have transformed our social worlds and our artistic practice. This became even clearer and more present during the global pandemic, where, during times of social isolation, digital and networked tools almost fully replaced in-person social life. This course will examine the ethical and esthetic implications of a digital and networked world through the lens of socially engaged art and explore how digital tools are and can be used in socially engaged art practice, where art and creative work intersect directly with people and civic life. This includes discussion of how digital and networked tools both increase and complicate physical, economic, and cultural accessibility, and the ethical and social implications of the newest technologies, including AI, Web3, and quantum computing. We will work on how digital tools have been used in socially engaged art and how they could be used further, guided by the understanding that working digitally with socially engaged concepts means both using digital tools within projects AND interrogating the inner workings of how digital practices operate socially and culturally. We will also have some meetings and activities in public spaces, field trips to organizations such as Eyebeam and Genspace, and guest lecturers. Please feel free to reach out to me directly if you have questions about taking the course, or the course content.”
The ability to digitally fabricate parts and whole pieces directly from our computers or design files used to be an exotic and expensive option not really suitable for student or designer projects, but changes in this field in the past 5 years have brought these capabilities much closer to our means, especially as ITP students. ITP and NYU now offer us access to laser cutting, CNC routing, and 3D stereolithography. In this class we will learn how to design for and operate these machines. Emphasis will be put on designing functional parts that can fit into a larger project or support other components as well as being successful on a conceptual and aesthetic level. In this class we will discover methods to design projects on CAD applications for total control of the result, and we will develop algorithmic ways to create designs from software (Processing) to take advantage of the ability to make parts and projects that are unique, customizable, dependent on external data or random. The class will include 3 assignments to create projects using the three machines (laser, router, 3D) and the opportunity to work on a final project.
Making words and images public used to be difficult, complex, and expensive. Now it’s not. That change, simple but fundamental, is transforming the media landscape. A publisher used to be required if you wanted to put material out into the public sphere; now anyone with a keyboard or a camera can circulate their material globally. This change in the economics of communication has opened the floodgates to a massive increase in the number and variety of participants creating and circulating media. This change, enormous and permanent, is driving several profound effects in the media landscape today. This course covers the transition from a world populated by professional media makers and a silent public to one where anyone who has a phone or a computer can be both producer and consumer. This change, brought about by the technological and economic characteristics of digital data and networks, is upending old industries — newspapers, music publishing, moviemaking — faster than new systems can be put in place. The result is chaos and experimentation as new ways of participating in the previously sparse media landscape are appearing everywhere. This course covers the history and economics of the previous media landscape, the design of digital networks that upend those historical systems, and new modes of participation from weblogs and wikis and Twitter to fan fiction and lolcats. The course centers on readings and field observation, with three papers due during the course of the term.
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.
The history and culture of the ancient Israelite societies of biblical times and the Greco-Roman period seen from the perspective of the process of urbanization and the role of cities in the development of classical Judaism, covering the period from c. 1250 b.c.e. through the third century c.e. Surveys the history and achievements of these cities and their contribution to the development of law and social organization, prophetic movements, history of Israelite religion and early Judaism, and the background of Christianity. The Bible and ancient Jewish texts preserve much evidence for the history of ancient Israel; and archaeological excavations, as well as the discovery of ancient writings in Hebrew and related languages, have added to our knowledge. In addition, new discoveries in the Dead Sea Scrolls contribute greatly to our understanding of the history of Judaism and the emergence of Christianity. Throughout, we remain focused on the growth of cities and their role in the creation and development of ancient Israel’s culture and literature.
Games 101 is the foundational course for the NYU Game Center. The focus of Games 101 is game literacy – a shared understanding of games as complex cultural and aesthetic objects. The class will incorporate lectures, discussion, readings, and writing assignments, but the primary activity of the class is critical play – playing games in order to better understand and appreciate them. The class will cover games on and off the computer, including classic and contemporary board and card games, sports, and games on the PC, internet, and consoles.
The main aim of this course is to probe into the core rationale behind entrepreneurship: taking initiatives to make changes. Lecturing only accounts for less than one-third of the course, and students are expected to exhibit a high level of self-motivation to critically examine established and emerging ideas that have been shaping and transforming the concept and practices of entrepreneurship, as exemplified in specific cases and current practices. Students will thus be prompted to think critically and creatively about how to respond to the complexities of changes. The course lays emphasis on creativity, ethics, and future-oriented vision. Prerequisite: None
This course looks at how people interact with their environments: how settings affect behavior; how people change environments to fit their needs; and how people can become an active part of the environmental-design process. The course discusses how people use space and the way environmental design meets (or fails to meet) human needs. These concerns are valid for very-small-scale design problems (as in human-factors engineering); mid-size spaces (architecture and interior design); large-scale spaces (communities, urban areas). | Prerequisites: Completion of first year writing requirements . Co-requisites: None. Notes: Satisfies a HuSS elective.
The required design project consists of two three-credit courses. The first course, EE DP1, is one of a number of specialty lab/project courses offered by the department in various subdisciplines such as electronics, machinery, robotics, imaging, communications, etc. (EE-UY 4113-4183, below). DP1 provides significant background laboratory experience in the student’s area of concentration. Students begin independent projects by finding an adviser and initiating the project work, and exercising oral presentation and written communication skills. | Prerequisite: ECE-UY 3054 and Senior Level
This course introduces numerous subject areas in Electrical and Computer Engineering (power systems, electronics, computer networking, microprocessors, digital logic, embedded systems, communications, feedback control, and signal processing). Through a series of case studies and examples, the course demonstrates how each subject area applies to practical, real-world systems and devices and discusses how the areas interact with each other to implement a complete functioning system or device. Students make presentations in teams on case studies based on articles from the IEEE Spectrum Magazine and other sources. The IEEE Code of Ethics and ethics-related issues are discussed. | ABET criteria: i, h. | Prerequisites: First-year standing
This laboratory accompanies the lecture course BMS-UY 1003 Introduction to Cell and Molecular Biology. This laboratory course is required for BMS and CBE majors taking BMS-UY 1003, but is optional for other majors. | Co-requisite: BMS-UY 1003
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 offers students an opportunity to increase their technical proficiency and, more importantly, develop stylistic and creative channels for dealing with common drawing problems. In animation, drawing is not simply seeing. It is thinking and, when successful, doing so on a deep level. The class includes one, two and three point perspective, figure drawing, character rotations, drawing exercises related to fine artists (Picasso, Matisse, Giacometti, etc.), use of tones, continuity sketches, layouts, animatics.
This course introduces students to the central themes, issues, & controversies in American education. What is the purpose of “school”? How did schools begin, in the United States, & how have they evolved across time? How do children learn? How are they different from each other, & why & when should that matter? How should we teach them? & how should we structure schools & classrooms to promote learning? Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent – satisfies the requirement for Society & Social Sciences for Steinhardt students.
This advanced experiential production course will introduce students to the latest techniques for stereoscopic 360 video, manual 360 video stitching and depth map creation, camera-paired Depthkit volumetric video, and mixed-format photogrammetry. Techniques introduced in the class will presume some working knowledge of more basic forms of these capture methods as well as how to integrate them into Unity. Alongside an intense technical focus, the course will also deconstruct recent groundbreaking experiential works that utilize similar experimental production designs. The format of each class will combine lectures and workshops with the ultimate goal of introducing students to the expectations demanded by professional productions. All of the techniques introduced are being employed by top experiential creators and creative studios. The course will try to show viable paths for students to engage with immersive media pipelines, at an expert level, with an expanded sense of possibility and inspiration. Topics heavily examined throughout the course include: surveillance, race, socioeconomics, carceral capitalism and technoscience, algorithmic bias and oppression, and post-work societal structures.
Tangible interfaces are interfaces that you touch. You control them with your hands, feet, and other body parts. Their shape, feel, and arrangement provide feedback. This is where interaction design meets industrial design. In this class, you’ll design, program, and build devices with tangible controls in order to better understand how humans understand and control technical systems through our sense of touch. We’ll discuss physical interaction concepts such as expressive interfaces and utilitarian ones, real-time control vs. delayed control, and implicit vs. explicit interactions. You’ll learn programming and electronic techniques to sense state change, thresholds, peaks, and other signs of user action. You’ll also learn how to design, shop for, and construct housings for the devices you build. On the electronics side, the primary tools will be the microcontroller and common tangible controls: pushbuttons, switches, rotary encoders, rotary and slide potentiometers, force sensors and touch sensors. The class will also cover on-device feedback through LEDs, speakers, and force-feedback actuators. On the fabrication side, you’ll work with the tools of the shop and XXX CAD program. You’ll design and build four projects in the course of the semester. Projects will be designed (and parts specified). Projects will build on the skills learned in Intro to Physical Computing and Intro to Fabrication. Prerequisites: Intro to Physical Computing and Intro to Computational Media, or a working knowledge of microcontroller programming in Arduino; Intro to Fabrication or basic knowledge of laser cutter.
Language is more than just words and meanings: it’s paper and ink, pixels and screens, fingertips on keyboards, voices speaking out loud. Language is, in a word, material. In this course, students will gain an understanding of how the material of language is represented digitally, and learn computational techniques for manipulating this material in order to create speculative technologies that challenge conventional reading and writing practices. Topics include asemic writing, concrete poetry, markup languages, keyboard layouts, interactive and generative typography, printing technologies and bots (alongside other forms of radical publishing). Students will complete a series of weekly readings and production-oriented assignments leading up to a final project. In addition to critique, sessions will feature lectures, class discussions and technical tutorials. Prerequisites: Introduction to Computational Media or equivalent programming experience.
This class will apply a product and service design lens to the rapidly evolving role of technology in politics, government services, and human rights, with a dual focus on the use of technology to advance the public good, and the threats that technology can pose to various aspects of civil society. On the one hand, there has been an explosion of technology tools that aim to promote healthy and peaceful democracies, provide more efficient government services, and promote human rights. This course will survey those efforts and the product design methodologies that guide them. On the other hand, 2018 has been a reckoning year for technology all over the world. The post-mortem of the 2016 US Presidential election shined a light on technology’s role in a promulgating a deeply polarized electorate, enabling election-meddling from foreign actors, and profiligating fake news, while also raising deep concerns about data privacy and security for everyday citizens. Meanwhile, new technologies like AI and Blockchain are poised to have deeply transformative effects on multiple aspects of society – from policing to education to financial services. This course will also explore the risks various technologies can pose to privacy, safety, liberty, and well-being. The course will feature guest speakers from leading practitioners in the space. Potentially including the ACLU, Higher Ground Labs, Elucd (YC17), NYU Better Policing Initiative, Microsoft, and more.
he course title, “Veillance” is a reference to the root of “surveillance” and “sousveillance”, watching from above and watching from below respectively. As digital media becomes a greater part of our everyday lives, it is important to understand the new forms of surveillance that it enables as well as to harness these capabilities and perhaps to create systems of sousveillance. Through the course, we’ll critically examine technologies that have become integral part of our lives; the technologies that drive the internet, the capabilities of web browsers, mobile phones, and the emerging class of networked devices such as IP cameras and Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home. Through the course of this examination, we’ll look at how this technology works, the policies that govern their use, what their benefits are, and finally look at what we are giving up by embracing them. This will be a hands-on endeavor; we’ll develop software to illustrate their use and misuse as well as looking for ways that we can harness their “veillance” capabilities for creative, educational, and possibly subversive purposes. Of course, in this process, we’ll pay particular attention to ethical and moral concerns. The course will have weekly reading and technical assignments, encompasses group work, and will culminate final projects.
For better or worse humanity is heading down the virtual rabbit hole. We’re trading an increasingly hostile natural environment for a socially networked and commercially driven artificial one. Whether it’s the bedrooms of YouTube streaming stars, the augmented Pokestops of Pokemon Go, the breakout rooms of a Zoom meeting, or even the “airspace” of Airbnb; we are witnessing a dramatic transformation of what occupying space means. The socially distanced measures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic have only accelerated this societal embrace of the virtual. So where are these dramatic spatial paradigm shifts occurring? Who owns and occupies these spaces? Who are the architects and what historical and ethical foundations are they working from? What world do they want to build for humanity and where does the creative individual fit into it? Will it be a walled garden, a role-playing adventure or a tool for creating more worlds? The course will ask students to embrace the role of virtual architect, not in the traditional brick-and-mortar sense of constructing shelter, but in terms of the engagement with the raw concept of space. However this virtual space must be considered and evaluated as a “site,” that is activated and occupied by real people and all the limitations of physical space that they bring with them from the real world. This is the foundation of synthetic architecture; simulated space met with biological perception. This conceptual architecture is free from the confines of physics but host to a whole new set of questions: How do we embrace the human factors of a dimensionless environment? How do we make or encourage meaningful interactions within the limits of current technology? New models of interaction must inform and shape the architecture of virtual space – what does that look like? How can architecture and aesthetics inform the creation of virtual environments and immersive narratives? How do we acutely consider the psychological and social impacts of the worlds we design and what is the metaphorical ground plane to make sense of this virtual world, unbound by physics? About Jonathan Turner: http://www.jonathanwilliamturner.com/about/
Rules of play shape competitive games from checkers to football. But how do rules of interaction shape everyday life? And what happens when there are no established conventions and the rules are being made up as we go along as they have been for the past 6 months of living almost exclusively online? In this course, we will explore, code and test design strategies for playful, serious and bizarre group interactions while at the same time interrogating both what it means to play and how individual identities and group behaviors emerge. (The interactions we create in this class will be designed specifically for synchronous, in-person, embodied experiences.) 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? And most importantly, what happens when there are no rules? Interaction inputs we will play with will include: mouse, keyboard, mobile device sensors, and microphone. Outputs can include visuals, text and sound. We will use p5, websockets and node.js for real-time interaction. Class time will be split between group improvisation exercises, playing with and critiquing examples and translating design strategies into code and logic.
The medium of motion pictures will be will be transformed by virtual reality technologies. But the emerging hybrid form will likely have less to do with the iconic VR headset and immersion, than in the newly possible flow of expression in the other direction, out of the participant. This class looks at the true potential of virtual reality as its mutability, to put ordinary users in the role of director of visual media as they already are in their dreams and fantasies. Democratizing media by breaking it down into discrete more easily remixable parts has historically, from DNA to alphabets to movable type led to an explosion of expression and knowledge creation. Motion pictures, perhaps our most convincing medium, is now undergoing such a transformation thanks to virtual reality technologies. Specifically, we will look at how tools like depth cameras, motion capture, and machine learning can treat a scene as a collection of elements instead of a collection of pixels. We will work with the real-time 3D rendering capabilities available, even in your phone, for the instant contrivance of visual reality using compositing, the transformation of images and models as well as virtual camera moves. The class will also consider how the more conceptual dissection of film by cinema scholars and psychologist into things like plots and character types might be templated into reusable formulas for non-experts to create an emotionally satisfying dramatic arcs.
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 and physical computing. There are required weekly meetings to share project development and obtain 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.
Can we capture the unpredictable evolutionary and emergent properties of nature in software? Can understanding the mathematical principles behind our physical world world help us to create digital worlds? This class focuses on the programming strategies and techniques behind computer simulations of natural systems. We explore topics ranging from basic mathematics and physics concepts to more advanced simulations of complex systems. Subjects covered include physics simulation, trigonometry, self-organization, genetic algorithms, and neural networks. Examples are demonstrated in JavaScript using p5.js (https://p5js.org). Much of the class time will be dedicated to in-class exercises and self-study as the course is available online through a video series (https://www.youtube.com/user/shiffman/playlists) and textbook (http://natureofcode.com/book).
This course teaches the ins and outs of using image processing software with an aim towards some type of real-time use (e.g. a performance or installation). The class looks at ways to manipulate different visual media (time-based, still, vector, and rendered) in real-time to allow students to develop interesting real-time performance systems. While the focus of this class is on using Max for visual work (through a software package called Jitter), it also looks at how to integrate interactive elements (sound, physical interfaces, etc.) into the work. Class time is spent on interface design and software development issues as well. The class explores some interesting capabilities of the software in terms of real-time camera input and tracking, generative graphics systems, and media transcoding. Throughout the class students develop and share ideas on live performance as a medium for visual expression, and learn the software tools necessary to put these ideas into practice in the form of idiosyncratic performance systems. A final presentation in the form of a group performance will be arranged. Students should have some working knowledge of Max/MSP before taking this class.
If you were inventing a museum today, what would it look like? Who would be there? What would its main purpose be? What would the audience experience? The first museums were called Cabinets of Wonder. Usually, a viewer with a guide, often the collector, would open doors and drawers to see what was inside–amazing things from different parts of the world, different times. They were windows on the world to places the visitors would probably never be able to go; to see things they would never otherwise be able to see. And now there’s television, movies, the internet, and travel. Why do people go to museums now? Will they in the future? Today, most museums seek to educate and to include more and more diverse visitors than they used to. How do people learn in public spaces? How do we know that they do? How can they make use of the new interactive technologies to support the experience and not lose what’s special about them? The class is an exploration, observation, theory, and design class for you to imagine the future of museums and exhibits. Museum and exhibit visits are your primary assignments for the first half of the course—usually accompanied by a reading. You will also make some record of your visit (including a sketchbook, a diorama, reviews). There will be guest speakers from Museums and exhibit design firms, and several field trips. In the second half of the course, you begin to imagine how you might reinvent a museum and develop a full-scale presentation of your own Cabinet of Wonder. About Emily Conrad: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily/
Course will provide a forum in which to explore & engage the relationship between photography, performance & contemporary art. Through class assignments & readings in contemporary theory we will develop a critical vocabulary for an understanding of the relationship between photography & performance & a forum in which to challenge & push our individual art practice to the next level.
This course aims to provide students with the critical thinking and practical skills for creating effective and compelling interfaces. We will dissect what a compelling user experience is and discuss and apply design methods for creating one. Throughout this 14-week course we will examine a wide range of examples of interfaces with a focus on understanding the attributes of a successful interface and applying proven research, mapping and testing techniques. The class format will include lectures, case studies, student presentations, discussions of readings and in-class design exercises. The format is very hands-on with assignments that focus on problems that are typical of those a UX designer will encounter in the professional world.
Assistive technology is a term that includes a wide variety of technologies for people with disabilities. This two-point survey course is designed to provide students with an overview of the field of assistive technology. Field trips, readings, and guest speakers will provide students with an understanding of current research and development as well as processes used in determining appropriate technologies. Weekly assignments and a final research project. This course satisfies 2 credits of the Experimental Interfaces and Physical Computing Courses category for the IMA major. Prereq: Creative Computing. This course meets once per week.
Wall labels, audio guides and informative maps are just some of the ways galleries and museums convey additional information about an art collection. How can we utilize new interactive mixed reality tools to design and deliver immersive experiences that breathe new life into an exhibit. Augmented and virtual reality are powerful tools for new media production and storytelling, but how can these tools serve to enhance our Wall labels, audio guides and informative maps are just some of the ways galleries and museums convey additional information about an art collection. How can we utilize new interactive mixed reality tools to design and deliver immersive experiences that breathe new life into an exhibit. Augmented and virtual reality are powerful tools for new media production and storytelling, but how can these tools serve to enhance our gallery experience without distracting from the power and importance of a pre-existing collection? This production course seeks to experiment with new ways to experience a museum collection through mixed reality. Topics covered include exhibition installation and curation, mixed reality production in Unity, mobile development for Augmented Reality.
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.
Causal Inference provides students with the tools for understanding causation, i.e., the relationship between cause and effect. We will start with the situation in which you are able to design and implement the data gathering process, called the experiment. We will then define causation, identify preconditions required for A to cause B, show how to design perfect experiments, and discuss how to understand threats to the validity of less-than-perfect experiments. In this course, we will cover experimental design and then turn to those careful approaches, where we will consider such approaches as quasi-experiments, regression discontinuities, differences in differences, and contemporary advanced approaches.
The Nature of Code is an intermediate course based on Daniel Shiffman’s The Nature of Code course at NYU ITP and was adjusted for undergraduate students. This course explores the fundamentals of programming, such as Object-Oriented Programming, and the application of simple principles of mathematics and physics in order to recreate natural behaviors in a digital environment. Prerequisites: This class uses p5(p5js.org) and requires Interaction Lab, Communication Lab, Application Lab, or similar programming background. Knowledge of other languages, such as Processing, three.js and OpenFrameworks, is also encouraged.
An attempt to better understand and participate in the communications revolution we are undergoing through an investigation of the nature and consequences of previous communications revolutions. Using readings ranging from Plato to Sontag to Kundera, the course will look closely at the history of spoken language, images, writing, printing, photography, film, radio and television. How were they understood? How were they initially used or misused? What were their effects upon social patterns, politics and thought? How did innovations occur? What can that tell us about the potential and potential influence of digital communication? Students will be asked to undertake innovative experiments of their own in forms of new media. Prerequisites: None
This class focuses on the curiosity behind the greatest discovery of electromagnetism. By replicating experiments both with magnetic and electrical fields, we will explore the major breakthroughs that enabled us to power up devices, connect people, and store information. During the course we will have seminar discussions analyzing texts that contextualize the lab experiments and we will work toward conclusions on the implications of these discoveries. We will analyze different perspectives that led to the development of theories about the electromagnetic field, radio waves transmissions, and the quantum properties of electrons. Students will propose their own creative experiments, linking their personal interests with how electrons behave. As part of their final project report, they will submit an essay describing the technical methodology, critical framework, and the results of their experiment. Throughout the course they will acquire a working knowledge of components like capacitors, lasers, antennae, and circuit prototyping tools. Prerequisites: None Fulfillment: CORE ED; IMA/IMB elective.
Exhibition: Next class is an exploration and observation of the fields of exhibition design and museum studies. This class will explore how emerging and interactive technologies can be applied to museum and exhibition design to enhance visitors’ experiences. What is an exhibition in a museum of today and how should it be experienced? What is the role of a museum in contemporary society? How does it engage the audiences of tomorrow? The class discusses curatorial practices, various exhibition concepts and forms, museum visitor experience, and exhibitions’ social values. Students will visit and immerse themselves in many museums and exhibitions as a professional observer who will be asked to write reflections of their observations as an essay for each museum visit. Students will choose a research topic at the beginning of the class and they will start collecting materials, building objects, designing experiences, and writing a statement for their final exhibition based on this topic. Students’ design work will be frequently reviewed and given feedback by the instructor, classmates, and guest speakers/critics. After the midterm, the instructor will initiate a collaboration with a local museum or art space. Based on the specific circumstances, students will face a design challenge to propose an exhibition proposal or provide a creative solution to the partner organization. By the end of the course, students will install and present their work as a group art show in the student art gallery. Prerequisites: Interaction Lab or Creative Coding Lab Fulfillment: IMA Major Electives; IMB Major Interactive Media Elective.
Application Lab is an intensive project-driven course where students explore current challenges and opportunities at the intersections of emerging media and innovation through the lenses of design, prototyping and innovation. The course seeks to help students understand how these high-level concepts intersect with skills to form the basis for new applications of technology and human industrial art. At the end of this course, students will be able to think critically and holistically about not only what makes innovations possible but will also how to utilize emerging media technologies and ideas to bring innovations into the world that respect and acknowledge the values of design, iteration and innovation. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: IMA Major Other Foundation/Electives; IMB Major Emerging Media Foundation/ Interactive Media Elective.
Debates about the role of crime in the media have been among the most sustained and divisive in the field of communications, and they are dependent on a foundation of equally divisive debates about “media influence.” This course will broaden this discussion to consider the culture of crime in relation to conventions of news and entertainment in the mass media, and its larger social and political context. Topics will include crime reporting, the role of place in crime stories, the aesthetics of crime, moral panics and fears, crime and consumer culture, and the social construction of different kinds of crimes and criminals.
This course examines the vast & rich myth-making power of Hollywood film narratives that influence dominant cultural views of American identity. Students view films that explore problems & promises of American culture & society such as equality, democracy, justice, class, gender, sexual orientation, & race/ethnicity. Students analyze films while considering the work of historians, sociologists, film critics, media studies scholars, anthropologists & journalists. Students will screen films outside of class. Assignments include creating a short film that explores the city where myths are both lived out & refuted on a daily basis.
This course will combine a history of video art and experimental film with practical training in the use of live video performance art technology. Students will explore new ways to create and edit films and videos using VJ software, projections, and multi-channel video surfaces. Workshops will demonstrate concepts and software that can be integrated into the creative process of video performance art and video art installations. COURSE OBJECTIVES At the completion of this course, the student will be able to: Draw inspiration from the recent history of incredible video and multi-media artists. Develop an understanding of audio and visual hardware used by VJ’s. Use live VJ software to manipulate digital media in real time to create Video Performance Art. Use Projection Mapping techniques to project video art onto 3D surfaces. Create original video performance art, video installations, and other performance pieces. Utilize skills to make video art in the professional market.
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 explores the practices, principles and aesthetics of comedic performance. Questions examined include: What makes something funny? Why do audiences laugh? What is the relationship between performer and audience in comedy? How does a performer get the laugh without ‘asking’ for it? How is humor specific to certain cultures, historical periods, genders or age groups? Are any elements of humor universal? Does the nature of performing comedy change from medium to medium? The course investigates these questions through readings, lectures, discussion and experiential exercises. Students are challenged to synthesize theory, historical traditions, and practical application into viable comedic performances. Students will experiment with this synthesis through discussing, analyzing, rehearsing and performing scenes/monologues drawn from major comic traditions including: masked forms (such as Greek Old Comedy and Commedia dell’Arte), high comedy (like the comedies of Shakespeare and Moliere), low comedy (such as the slapstick of Charlie Chaplin, Mel Brooks, as well as modern sketch, improv and stand-up comedy) and that which defies easy categorization (such as Monty Python or Sacha Baron Cohen). The course will culminate in a public presentation, allowing students to share select comedic performances with an audience. Students are expected to rehearse outside of class time.
This is an introductory course to the fundamentals of 3D computer animation. Through in-depth discussions and hands-on assignments, students will gain a thorough beginner’s understanding of the 3D production process. Using industry-leading Autodesk Maya running on high-end Mac Pro workstations, students will learn the basics of modeling and proceed through UV layout, texturing, rigging, animation, lighting and final render. At the end of the class students will have completed a series of exercises that will culminate in a final scene that showcases all they learned.This course allocates as a Craft for Film & TV majors. COURSE SUBJECT TO DEPARTMENTAL FEES.
This course examines the current developments in contemporary art over the past decade – the art of ‘now’ – from the viewpoint of an artist’s practice & working ideas, looking at current global art production in aesthetic, economic, & social contexts. The major movements in painting, photography, sculpture, installation & performance are examined. Readings will be drawn from first hand interviews & point-of-view accounts, reviews, & critique; a major emphasis on interviews & online studio visits will accompany the texts. Guest artist lectures & off-site museum & gallery viewings will complement the weekly visual presentations & theory conversations. Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent – satisfies the requirement for Expressive Cultures
Prerequisite: Algebra and Calculus (MATH-UA 9) or equivalent. Focuses on individual economic decision-makers—households, business firms, and government agencies—and how they are linked together. The emphasis is on decision making by households and firms and how these decisions shape our economic life. Explores the different environments in which businesses sell their products, hire workers, and raise funds to expand their operations; the economic effects of trade between nations; and the effects of various government policies, such as minimum-wage legislation, rent controls, antitrust laws, and more.
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.
Ah, love. L’amour. The very word stirs our imaginations and pulls at our heartstrings. This most fundamental of emotions has long been a source of creative inspiration – a muse for literature, song, and art. The importance of love and intimacy in human life is clear, but what can the latest observations and scientific discoveries about the brain tell us about this supreme emotion? Through discussions, papers, and projects, we will examine the concepts of love and intimacy through various lenses, including those of neurobiology, evolutionary psychology, culture, and art. Focusing on the development of love throughout the lifecycle, we will study how people seek intimacy, how love evolves over time, the influence of love on human behavior, and love and intimacy’s relation to psychological well-being.
Re-make: make (something) again or differently. In this class students will investigate why China became the world’s largest importer of waste. They will study local communities in China, how they manage their waste, and explore innovative ways to transform discarded materials or products around us into something new and precious in areas such as art, graphic and industrial design, architecture, fashion, textiles, etc,. Through research and development, students will learn how traditional techniques and new technologies among the sustainable design philosophy can be utilized as powerful tools for addressing social and environmental problems.
Data is at the heart of the increasing role technology has in our lives. Data collection and algorithmic processing are not only central to recent technical breakthroughs such as in AI and automation but have created new economic paradigms where data equals value and shape political approaches to power and control. Decisions based on algorithms affect society at large whether it’s changing the way we transport and distribute goods, or influencing the things we buy, the news we read or even the people we date. The *world* that algorithms *see* is data. For the average person, however, data is seldom more than an abstract idea. So what exactly is data? How is value extracted from it? And why should we care? How can we ethically balance the positive uses of data-driven systems with the threats they pose to discriminate and infringe basic human rights? This class seeks to untangle some of these issues practically and theoretically. Each week will include a lecture introducing contemporary theorists, artists, groups, and in-class discussions or exercises. Potentially there will be a guest speaker, too. Topic sections may include surveillance and privacy, data journalism and activism or automation and machine bias. What we cover will be complemented by reading and research assignments. The other half of the week is a programming lab in which you will learn the fundamentals of web-based data visualization using JavaScript. Programming assignments will allow you to further practice what we learn. Throughout the semester, you will work on three main visualization projects that are inspired by the theoretical subjects that we cover. The form of these projects will usually be a website. Successful projects feature data visualizations that are both playful as well as effective in conveying information and a reflection that links the practical work to the theoretical learnings. Prerequisite: Interaction Lab, Communications Lab or Application Lab
This class examines the idea and practices of ‘cultivation’ in relation to the challenging environment of the 21st century city. Through field trips, readings and discussions, the class explores the concept of cultivation, and how it can be used as a basis for researching the urban ecology of Shanghai, both as a past and future city. The class incorporates a major project in the digital humanities, in which students use the tools of interactive media (audio, video and cartographic technologies) to research, map and narrativize the ways in which architects, designers, artists and thinkers engage with the traditions of cultivation in order to imagine and recreate the future metropolis. Prerequisite: Writing as Inquiry
Programming Design Systems is a course focused on the intersection between graphic design and code. Class time is divided between design topics like form, color, grid systems, and typography, and more computational topics like randomization, repetition, transformation and generative form. The students work to write software that abstract design theories into the code, and show the work in class for design critique. Weekly readings include relevant writings from the history of graphic design, articles from the history of computation, and everything in between. The class aims not only to teach the students how to create designs via code, but also to have something interesting to say about it. The course is based on the Programming Design Systems book, and more background info can be found in the book’s introduction. Prerequisite:Communications Lab
Since the beginning of civilization people have fantasized about intelligent machines sensing and acting autonomously. In this course we will discover what robots are, learn how to design them, and use simple tools to build them. Students will use open source hardware to explore sensors and electronics, as well as design and build robot bodies and actuators through a variety of digital fabrication technologies. Using a set of community developed tools, students will become familiar with concepts such as mechatronics, inverse kinematics, domotics and machine learning. No previous programming or electronics experience is necessary, however students will be guided through a series of design challenges that their robots should be able to accomplish. With an emphasis on experimentation, peer learning, and teamwork, the objective of this course is to share in the excitement of robotics by enabling students to make their own creations. By the end of the course, students will present a short research paper and documentation about their robotic explorations. Co-requisite or Prerequisite: Interaction Lab or Creative Coding Lab. Fulfillment: CORE ED; IMA Majors Electives; IMB Major Interactive Media Elective.
In this course, students will work in teams to design digital learning resources and experience designs at the intersection of music, coding, arts, and technology. The course will begin with an introduction to emerging trends in learner engagement and design-based research, especially related to web- and mobile-based musical experiences and principles of making music with new media. Innovations in and applications of musical creativity, interactive technologies, user-centered design & engagement, scaffolded learning, creative learning, pedagogies of play and making, and educational entrepreneurship in Chinese contexts will also be explored. The market for creative educational experiences in afterschool settings for youth in China is exploding. For-profit educational service companies are competing and searching for differentiated, learning experiences in music, coding, and creative project based learning that will attract high-paying parents looking for the best supplemental education for their children. This practical, hands-on course will explore questions such as: How can we design engaging, creative learning experiences that are relevant to the cultural goals and needs of today’s youth in China, while laying the foundation for creative learning for the workforce of tomorrow? What are engaging, effective creative learning resources, and how are they best implemented in Chinese learning settings? How can we take advantage of young people’s near ubiquitous love of music and technology to facilitate creative learning? Students will work together in teams and paired with a partner audience of learners and teachers in Shanghai drawn from local and regional international schools (e.g. Alibaba’s Cloud Valley), local afterschool programs (e.g., Music Lab), and cultural partners (e.g., Shanghai Symphony). Together they will assess the needs and opportunities of partner students and teachers, and engage in a two-stage iterative and reflective co-design process prototyping custom learning resources and experience designs with their partner end users. At the end of the course, students will present and demo their learning resources as part of a public showcase to an external audience of partners, educators, technologists, musicians, entrepreneurs, and experience designers in Shanghai. Prerequisites: None.
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.
For more than four centuries, opera has made us cry and laugh, and it still speaks to us today about ourselves and our lives. It does so by telling us stories of love and death, of power and despair, through a unique way of combining words, music and stage action, and ever new styles of performance. This course is designed to develop an understanding of the details of such combination and the way they cooperate in making an opera work in general and for us today. It does not develop chronologically, but through exposure to a selection of major works by Monteverdi, Mozart, Verdi, and Puccini. The presentations will be organised around individual operas, exploring their historical background, text and music, performing issues, reception history, and adaptation to other media (not necessarily in this sequence). Each opera will also be taken as a vantage point to explore one main thematic issue, while broader issues – such as genre, the development of formal conventions of librettos and music, Italian opera and its terminology, modes of production, cultural expression, social factors that give rise to certain narratives, how opera fits into the larger history of ideas in Western culture – will build up over the course.
This is a chance to immerse yourself in the musical culture of Prague. You will attend five music performances together with the class and two on your own. Each of the concerts will be in a different style, and performed in a different sort of venue. Each concert will be preceded by a lecture/listening session, often involving the actual performers; you will also be assigned a reading excerpt relevant to the music you will hear. The concerts, scheduled about once every two weeks on evenings between Mondays and Thursdays, will be supplemented by architecture walks and film showings, which will usually take place during class time. In addition, you will undertake a “Personal Connection Project”, in groups of two or three, in which you will choose a local genre, performer or composer to research. The research will include reading relevant contextual material, attendance at a live concert or rehearsal, and an interview with a performer. You will share your project with the class in an oral presentation, which will take place at the end of the semester. after which you will submit your conclusions in a final paper, in lieu of a final exam.
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.
Data Science for Everyone is a foundational course that prepares students to participate in the data-driven world that we are all experiencing. It develops programming skills in Python so that students can write programs to summarize and compare real-world datasets. Building on these data analysis skills, students will learn how draw conclusions and make predictions about the data. Students will also explore related ethical, legal, and privacy issues.
This class acquaints the student with the fundamentals of Design by focusing primarily on layout, composition & color through use of the grid. The grid is a fundamental building block for publication design (print & digital), website design, & animation design. This class focuses primarily on Graphic Design but proposes basic concepts that can be extrapolated into other design fields. Classes will be client & solutions-based and will assume a professional career orientation. Additionally the class will provide a current overview of what’s happening in the contemporary design world through field trips, readings & presentations.
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.
Games 101 is the foundational course for the NYU Game Center. The focus of Games 101 is game literacy – a shared understanding of games as complex cultural and aesthetic objects. The class will incorporate lectures, discussion, readings, and writing assignments, but the primary activity of the class is critical play – playing games in order to better understand and appreciate them. The class will cover games on and off the computer, including classic and contemporary board and card games, sports, and games on the PC, internet, and consoles.
Hollywood in your palm. That is what this combination of lectures, screenings, demonstrations and practical production workshop will offer to the students in this course. There will be several professional guests making presentations and Q&A sessions from the mobile phone filmmaking industry. In addition to the historical and critical overview of the emergence and exponential growth of global cell phone cinema, students will shoot all footage on cell phones and download them for computerized editing. The final project will be under three minute shorts. Projects will include all genres of film and television: news, mini-documentaries, animation, music videos and narrative shorts. Completed student projects will be suitable to be posted on the Internet and entered into domestic and international mobile phone film festivals. For example, two minute long improvisations of Bollywood Style Music Videos shot on Cell Phones by the students have been projected at the Tribeca Cinemas as part of the New York Indian Film Festival. It is suggested but not compulsory that students bring to the class a cell phone capable of recording video.
An examination of the great debate concerning the effects of mass media and mass communication on our society. Analysis and application of major perspectives and approaches used in formulating modern theories of mass communication.
An exploration of television as a medium of information, conveyor and creator of culture and a form of aesthetic expression. Course examines the historical development of television as both a cultural product and industry.
Examines the emergence of video games as sites of contemporary cultural production & practice. Special attention is given to the symbolic & aesthetic dimensions of video games, including their various narratives forms and sub-genres, & concentrates on their interactive dimensions. The course provides insight into the emerging trends in the interface between humans & media technologies. The course also situates video games within the business practices of the entertainment industries.
Critical making is hands-on hardware practice as a form of reflection and analysis that draws on the literature of media studies and digital humanities. We turn to the physicality of computation and communications infrastructure, taking objects apart both literally and figuratively to understand how they work. In the process we learn to interpret and intervene in the material layer of digital technologies, using prototyping, reverse engineering, hardware hacking and circuit bending, design fiction, electronics fabrication, and other approaches.
This course examines the fast-changing landscape of global media. Historical and theoretical frameworks will be provided to enable students to approach the scope, disparity and complexity of current developments. These frameworks will be supplemented with the latest news and developments. In short, we ask: what is going on in the hyperlinked and hyper-turbulent realm of blogs, Buzzfeed and The Sydney Morning Herald? Key issues examined include: shifts in patterns of production, distribution and consumption; the implications of globalisation; the disruption of established information flows and emergence of new information channels; the advent of social media; the proliferation of mobile phones; the ethics and regulation of modern media; the rise of celebrity culture; the demise (?) of privacy; the entertainment industry and its pirates; Edward Snowden and the NSA; and the irrepressible octogenarian Rupert Murdoch. The focus will be international, with an emphasis on Australia.Ultimately, the course will examine the ways in which global communication is undergoing a paradigm shift, as demonstrated by the Arab spring and its uncertain legacy, as well as the creeping dominance of Google, Facebook and Twitter. In other words Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.
This course investigates the mediation of music & music-like sounds in both private & public life. Commercial venues, from restaurants to rest rooms, pipe Muzakl into its spaces; radios broadcast more music than any other content today; soundtracks imprint the texture of signifying associations for television shows & films; we carry personal playlists on mobile music players; & musical media & technological, ideological & metaphysical dimension; as well as the relation of music to mass media (radio, television, the internet) & the film and music industries.
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 focuses on techniques of communication in public relations including creation of press releases, press packets and kits, and developing public relations campaigns.
An exploration of film as a medium of information, conveyor and creator of culture and a form of aesthetic expression. Course examines the historical development of film as both a cultural product and industry.
In many political movements, the festive emerges as a major force shaping alternative social practices, forms of gathering, being together, and moving together. These alternative modes of being in collectivity are actively redefining the political. This sense of collectivity becomes particularly evident in the aesthetics of the Global South and its Diasporas. Consequently, this course explores the festive’s role in forming political movements beyond the traditional scope that reduces it to a simple byproduct of social life. It also explores how the pandemic has forced us to reimagine what coming together means. Taking Latin American and Caribbean aesthetics as an initial case, this seminar engages in a detailed interpretation of performances that challenge traditional definitions of both the festive and the political. A wide range of performance practices, such as carnival parties, sound systems, cabaret shows, popular dance styles, artworks, organized slave riots, and indigenous uprisings, shape the modes students will engage in theory and practice. For this course iteration, we will focus on questions around Black and Indigenous relations to carnival performance, structures of mutual aid as festive practice, and how they enact utopian modes of communal life, and how these modes of communal life redefine current understandings of art and politics. The class involves field trips, visits to several performance events, and conversations with artists and organizers who use the festive as a political tool to engage in political action in NYC. Questions regarding race, gender, and class will be directed to the philosophical, anthropological, and historical texts paying close attention to their involvement in the formation of colonial oppression. Performance studies’ methodologies will serve as the guiding mode to articulate these questions.
Making Webisodes is an intensive 14 week course which combines lectures and workshops in which students create unique and compelling content for the web and then learn how to post that content on the web. Students will explore the basics of film production and online webisode distribution, working with – concept creation – writing – directing – acting – production design – camerawork – sound – editing – online tracking tools and social media – web monetization and advertising. The webisode is an exploding new art form. Web series, embedded ads, 5 second hooks, snapchats, vines 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, or shock and engage our perspective, as in political propaganda videos. Lectures provide students with an overview of the emerging web series industry, concentrating on how the webisode is used to hook the audience, generate hits, and drive customers to websites and/or online advertising. Workshops then employ practical exercises to help the students conceive and create their own unique webisode, which can be narrative or non-narrative, fiction or non-fiction, experimental or satire, personal or political. The goal is to use the resources at hand and create instant media – webisodes. As the students produce their webisodes, they will learn by doing and they will be provided with practical knowledge of the art, craft, and commerce of webisodes.
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: