Topics in Interactive Media Arts courses are courses within the broader field of emerging media, covering a wide range of topics depending on the expertise of the current course instructor. This course will cover a specific emerging media topic from a practical and/or theoretical perspective. Students will learn about the topic from readings, discussions, and writings, as well as through hands-on assignments and projects. Students can enroll in multiple “Topics in IMA” courses simultaneously in one semester and receive full credits for each course. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: IMA elective; IMB IMA/IMB elective.
In this class, we will use AI as a writing and editing tool and study the history and philosophy of augmented and automated writing. Through a combination of lectures and hands-on workshops, we will explore the theoretical aspects of AI and writing with case studies and examples, as well as experiment with different AI tools and techniques. Prerequisite: None.
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
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.
This course explores the fundamentals of storytelling through animation and takes students from traditional animation techniques to contemporary forms. In the first part of the course, students will focus on traditional animation, from script to storyboard through stop motion and character-based animation. The course then examines opportunities afforded by new technologies, such as interactivity, projection mapping and game engines. Drawing skills are not necessary for this course, however students will keep a personal sketchbook.
This course examines mobile food networks as a method to research and map the contemporary city. In Shanghai, over the past few years, there has been an enormous transformation in the way the city feeds itself. Street food stalls, restaurants and marketplaces have all migrated online. This tendency towards virtualization was intensified during the Coronavirus pandemic, when, during lockdown, people used their phones to order food, which was delivered straight to their door.This course treats mobile food delivery as a media infrastructure. It examines how these new delivery systems form part of a distributed urban ecosystem that underlies the emergence of a Sentient City. Students will use the tools of critical cartography and digital storytelling to explore the cultural, economic and political issues that are raised by the explosive growth of mobile food delivery. Research topics include the economics of company platforms; logistical networks; the reorganization of food production; the socio-economic conditions of delivery workers; changing cultural habits of urban residents; the shifts in the city’s built environment as well as the design of the apps themselves. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: IMA Major Electives; IMB Major Interactive Media Elective.
In this era of virtual production, time-based media faces new opportunities and challenges in terms of pipelines, workflows, and distribution. Decentralizing, hybridizing, and outsourcing among film studios, production houses, broadcast design, interactive studios, and the gaming industry have become major topics of discourse in academia and industry. This course focuses on the history/context, present practice, and the emerging trends of VFX studies and its applications. Through collaborative research with academia and industry, the course investigates the theory and practice of VFX studies and further examines the feasibility of emerging technologies through the spirit of entrepreneurship. Prerequisite: Interaction Lab / Creative Coding Lab / Communications Lab / Application Lab Fulfillment: IMA Major Electives; IMB Major Interactive Media Elective.
Learn how to creatively harness the power of your computer’s graphics card by writing your own shaders! Shaders are small programs that run on the GPU and are used for purposes most commonly related to graphic effects, video post-processing, and the generation of geometry. They are an incredibly powerful tool for creating hardware accelerated graphics and form the building blocks of the modern graphics pipeline. Vertex, fragment, and geometry shaders will be the main focus of the course. However, if time permits, compute shaders (GPGPU) will also be explored. The topic will be approached platform-agnostic, so that it can be applied to the different implementations in various software environments such as WebGL, Unity, Max, Touch Designer, etc. This an advanced-level 2-credit course. Prerequisite: Instructor Consent Fulfilment: IMA/IMB elective; IMA advanced elective.
This class focuses on the history and theory of ecology-related digital media, emerging technological solutions to the environmental crisis, and cultural imaginations that address the possibility of human extinction and ecosystem collapse. Zooming in on both luddite and futurist proposals for post-carbon futures across the global political and cultural spectrum, the class discusses emerging technologies in scientific and popular discourses about ecological futures. From geo-enginnering to terraforming, space colonialism, genetic engineering, and other scenarios that relate to the technological survival of humanity in fraught environmental conditions, it aims to take students to the forefront of contemporary technological imaginations related to our future on (and off) this planet. Prereq: None. Fulfillment: IMA Major Electives; IMB Major Interactive Media Elective.
The possibility of truth telling has been challenged and debated throughout the history of art and across various genres. What does it mean to tell the truth in art? How does art cross the boundaries between the real and the fake, truthfulness and misrepresentation? This course will examine social engagement in art and the construction of authenticity in creating works based on trust rather than the truth and will investigate a variety of artistic sources and genres including, but not limited to, propaganda, documentary, video art, public art, and installation art. Students are expected to develop projects demonstrating a comprehensive understanding of the subject. Prerequisite: Interactive Lab, Communication Lab, Application Lab or permission of instructor Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
This course offers students the opportunity to develop a self-initiated project with close mentorship from a faculty member. Projects undertaken can span the areas of conceptual research, business development, creative practice, and media production. The course includes structured weekly workshop and critique times with peers and special guests. It is expected that students will be invested in the work of their peers by providing feedback and carefully consider the feedback they receive during critiques. In addition to weekly meeting times, students are expected to also participate in regular one-on-one meetings with faculty, peers, and guests. A formal project proposal, weekly assignments and documentation, a final project presentation, and participation in the IMA End of Semester show are all required. Although students are encouraged to continue work they may have initiated in a prior class, they may not combine or in any way double count work from this class in another class taken in the same semester. Group work is allowed assuming all group members are enrolled in this class. Students may take this course in either the first or second 7 weeks for 2 credits or repeated across 14 weeks for 4 credits. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing. Fulfilment: IMA/IMB elective; IMA advanced elective.
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.
Industrial Design in Action is a course that will help you bridge the gap between your ideas and their physical form. From initial research to conception, you will practice and apply different design methodologies that lead to creative and innovative ideas; acquire a fundamental understanding of form, function and design language; and utilize sketching and visual storytelling to communicate a message and features of a compelling product. In addition, you will become familiar with various Computer Aided Design (CAD) softwares; explore different types of materials for different uses and applications; and experiment with a myriad of fabrication techniques, from basic hand tools to advanced digital fabrication, you will learn to use the right tool for the job. Altogether these skills will enable you to go from prototype to a finished product. In a nutshell, this course is about designing and fabricating things we love. Prerequisite: Interaction Lab or Communications Lab or Application Lab. Fulfillment: IMA/IMB Elective.
The current design methods and technologies in the field of digital entertainment, from design concepts to design tools, are still based on 2D screens, but the product is often 3D. This contradiction results in the designers not being able to see the final consequences of their work directly. Can existing VR technologies solve this contradiction? Immersive design is a new design method for digital creativities beyond the screen. It usually takes VR, AR, or MR devices as design interfaces to craft 3D models, textures, game environments, and other gaming experiences. Not only game assets creation but also game design concepts can be changed with these new technical inputs. In this course, students will answer the following questions: ○ Is immersive design more intuitive? ○ Is immersive design more efficient? ○ Do immersive design techniques have lower learning costs? ○ What traditional design lessons and concepts can be applied in an immersive design environment? In view of these questions, students from different disciplines will give answers through discussions, projects, collaboration, documentation, and VR games. Prerequisite: Communications Lab. Fulfillment: IMA/IMB Elective.
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.
This course draws from net art, interface design, and post-digital / post- internet practices to explore interactions that bridge screen and physical. Students are led to conceptualize and develop bespoke “interfaces” (in the widest sense), in which either aspects of the web are reflected in the physical world, or – conversely – the habitual mode of browsing is being updated in ways that capture the user’s physical and bodily presence. A reflection of the medium web, its vernacular, and practical daily use is the starting point of this project. The students’ work is additionally being informed by analysis of select examples from art and design, exemplary for ways of re-framing the technical everyday. This course will make use of web technologies (p5.js), and physical computing techniques – and introduce students to various ways those can be technically, and conceptually, combined. Prerequisite: Interaction Lab or Creative Coding Lab. Fulfillment: IMA/IMB Elective.
This course investigates digital art and new media from creative, theoretical, and historical perspectives. We will examine the paradigm shift resulting from the rise of digital art and its expansion as well as explore current ideas, creative strategies, and issues surrounding digital media. The topics of study will include digital image, digital sound, net art, systems, robotics, telematics, data art, and virtual/augmented reality. The course provides students with the means to understand what digital media is, and establish their own vision of what it can become, from both a practical and a theoretical perspective. The course consists of lectures, field trips, and small studio-based practices. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: IMA/IMB Elective.
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.
Web Page to Web Space is a course that explores virtual interactive experience in the context of Virtual Embodiment, Virtual Space, Telepresence, and Metaverse. Students will investigate new possible ways of using the Web to create new immersive environments in a web platform, by utilizing algorithmic 3D animation and server-side programming. This is an advanced course with technically challenging concepts with three.js and node.js and suitable for students with prior knowledge in visual programming. Prerequisite: Nature of Code or Machine Learning for New Interfaces or Critical Data and Visualization or ABC Browser Circus or Kinetic Interfaces or Machine Learning for Artists and Designers or Expanded Web or Movement Practices and Computing. Fulfillment: IMA/IMB Elective, Advanced IMA Elective.
Learning with Turtles explores programming languages, systems, and activities designed to help learners in computational environments. Starting from a constructionist principle that systems designed for beginners must be able to embody the most powerful ideas in computing, we master some of those systems, explore how those have been designed, and engage in contemporary debates. The environments we learn with include Turtle Geometry, Craft Computing withTextiles, Modelling, and other interactive projects using programming and modelling systems such as Snap!, TurtleArt, Turtlestitch and NetLogo. Individual and group projects involve students in advancing their computational knowledge and skills and provide opportunities to design for others, to teach, to study learning and expertise, and present projects in community and public forums. The course is fundamentally about ideas, and how some powerful ideas from computation can empower a learner to be a better creator and problem solver. Writing, presentations, and discussions will emphasize reflection on our own learning within the course. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: IMA Major Electives; IMB Major Interactive Media Elective.
Welcome to the ABC Browser Circus (ABC), where acrobats juggle with hyperlinks, dance across scrolling grids, and jump through open server ports. This course introduces the students to the history of the internet, the World Wide Web, and specifically to the browser as a cultural object and its role in (net)art; in parallel, it teaches web development and guides the students to create three web-based projects. Theory and practice-based components are each conducted during one of two 75 minute classes per week. Prerequisite: Creative Coding Lab. Fulfillment: IMA Major Electives; IMB Major Interactive Media Elective.
While traditional forms of art such as painting and sculpture only expect intellectual communication with the spectator, interactive arts consider the audience as active participants and directly involve their physical bodies and actions. Interactive art invites its audience to have a conversation with the artwork or even be part of it. Well designed interactions add new meanings to the artwork and enhance effective and memorable communication with the viewer through their magical quality. Artists have achieved interactivity in their art through different strategies based on various technologies. For example, some projects have physical interfaces such as buttons and knobs, some projects react to the audience’s presence or specific body movements, and yet others require collaborations between the audience as part of the interaction process. Some artwork involves interactions that require a long period of time for the engagement. In many of these interactive art projects, interaction methods are deeply embedded into the soul and voice of the work itself. In this class, we will explore interaction as an artistic medium. We will be looking at interactive media art history through the lens of interaction and technology to explore their potential as art making tools. Every 1-2 weeks, you will be introduced to a new interaction strategy along with a group of artists and projects. You will learn about relevant technologies and skills for the interaction strategies and build your own project to be in conversation with the artists and projects. You will also explore and discuss the future of interactions and how interactive art can contribute to innovations in interactions, and vice versa. You will also learn about how to contextualize and articulate your project in an artistic way. The assignments include reading, short writing, hands-on labs, and production assignments. Technical topics covered in class include but are not limited to: physical computing, sensing, and interaction design.
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 class focuses on the art of computer graphics and image processing. We explore the concepts of pixilation, image representation and granularity and the tension between reality and image. Students are introduced to the tools and techniques of creating dynamic and interactive computer images from scratch, manipulating and processing existing images and videos, compositing and transitioning multiple images, tracking and masking live video, compositing and manipulating live video as well as manipulating depth information from Kinect. The class uses Processing and the Java language and also introduces students to shaders and the glsl language.
This course is 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.
This is an interactive media art class for people who want to develop creative experiences that are about something specific with a specific point of view! This sounds vague, but your projects won’t be! You’ll be provided with a step-by-step methodology for making research-driven creative and critical projects with a focus on experience design. For the first part of the semester, you’ll make a low-tech guide to a somewhat wacky random topic you’ve been assigned to. For the second part you’ll choose a topic you are passionate about and make an interactive experience that engages deeply with that topic. Skills touched upon: research methods, ideation, critique, experience design, intro-level Unity3d. Class time will consist of: creative exercises; discussion of readings, methodologies, and artworks; student presentations; critique sessions; guest artists and researchers; and a handful of demos. Why critical? In this class, critical means: discerning, eager to participate differently, cast new light on, re-examine, course-correct. Why experience? The work in this class will be looked at through the lens of its ability to change a user, participant, audience, viewer. Interactivity is one way of doing that, but through the lens of experience design, all art is temporal and embodied. A research-based art practice brings together an eccentric mixture of skills, including traditional forms of research (library and interview techniques, informal ethnographies) and experimental hands-on research (hunch-following, experimentation, systems thinking, prototyping, daily practice, user experience design, and user-testing). We’ll try ’em all!
This two-point workshop is centered on the examination and creation of collective storytelling environments. We will examine a wide-range of storytelling spaces including participatory and user-generated environments, site-specific works, community based arts practices, and transmedia storytelling. Weekly assignments, field trips, and student presentations.
This class looks at the chatbot as a unique medium of art in the context of the bigger art world and the current landscape of chatbot technologies. Students will engage in discussions about topics such as humanity under machine mediation, experiment with various computational tools, and develop creative projects using chatbot technologies.
If so much of life is circumstance, being in a certain place at a certain moment in time… Can we shape a life or at least a few brief moments of a life by designing the circumstances in which that life inhabits a space? In this course, we will treat space as a time-based medium and ask how interactive spaces can generate narratives that are lived rather than told. We will do so by interrogating four so-called “space-narrative” forms: Wandering The Desert, Processions, Circles and Territories. Through play, discussion and hands-on workshopping of both technical topics and ideas we will ask and attempt to answer some of the following questions: What constitutes a space? How do we experience a space over time? How does space shape our experience of time? How can space form a personal narrative? Media outputs we will employ include: lights, projection and sound. Interaction input sources will come from cameras and microphones. We will use p5.js, websockets and node.js for real-time interaction. Class time will be split between group improvisation exercises, playing with and critiquing examples and translating design strategies into code and logic.
Beginning with the invention of paper, the paper craft movement has roots on all continents. This course is divided into several subject areas: the history of paper and paper making, paper folding, paper cutting, paper engineering, paper automata, and the contemporary DIY electronics and paper craft moment. Each subject area has associated readings, a short research presentation on international traditions and forms, several hands-on mechanical exercises, and one individual creative exercise.
This course aims to provide students with the means to understand immersive media experiences, and conduct experiments from both a practical and a theoretical perspective. The course consists of lectures, research, discussion and studio-based practice. Students will learn to produce stereoscopic – 3D images and photogrammetric 3D models, utilize multi-channel video and sound systems, and be introduced to the Unity game engine and VR hardware. For the final project, students produce VR environments in experimental and meaningful ways. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
Electronic Textiles spans the worlds of craft, electronics, and computing. We will build skills in the often surprising world of using soft, stretchy or low tech materials where one might have expected hard, dimensionally stable, or high tech materials and vice versa. Weekly projects will have requirements for craftsmanship and design, and will build skills in integrating electronics and computing with soft items and wearables, making sensors and displays, tailoring and costuming, and creating your own materials. You will gain familiarity with materials and with hand and machine crafting skills. Weekly readings for discussion will be required, and presentations and guest speakers will offer you ideas and critical challenges. Pre-req: None. Fulfillment: IMA/B Elective
In this course we combine both analytic and embodied learning about human movement practices. We will learn selected computational and physical movement sensing techniques (webcam-based, wearable-based, and commercial motion capture technologies). We will combine guest and student-led presentations and activities that involve us in movement while learning structures and history of selected movement practices such as dance and circus arts. We will do four sprint projects of approximately one week in length (each semester projects differ, but may include examples such as PoseNet/MoveNet, Creating a Fitness Tracker, Rhythm Game, Non-humanoid MoCap avatars), alternating with work on a class choreographic project and individual research and writing of a paper on a movement practice. Prerequisite: Creative Coding Lab or equivalent programming experience. Fulfillment: IMA/B Elective.
Increasing possibilities brought about by emerging forms of technology and decreasing costs of connecting people to things have not only enabled technological innovations, but have also opened the door to new applications, business models, products and services. Experimentation and calculated risk taking are keys to successfully harnessing the possibilities of today’s most cutting-edge technologies and innovative methods to first build, understand and then redefine how humans and products interact. In this course, student ‘co-founders’ will conceive of and market a new media, physical or technology product designed to fit a market while also allowing them to accelerate and validate a sustainable business model. Students will ‘get out of the classroom’ and put these products into potential customers’ minds. The course will touch upon topics such as how to design a minimum viable product, design a business model, talk and work with customers, and develop a product community. Prerequisite: None.
An introductory course to machine learning aimed at a hands-on engagement and development of an intuitive understanding of related techniques and effects. The course uses the JavaScript language, and the ml5.js and p5.js frameworks to introduce the theory and application of machine learning algorithms. In exercises and assignments, students will experiment with building, using and critiquing machine learning models and datasets. Readings and discussions will cover relevant issues and frame the practice. This course builds on an existing practice of computer programming. Weekly assignments are required. Prerequisite: INTM-SHU 103 Creative Coding Lab Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
In this course, students focus on the study and development of responsive environments, framed within a contextual and critical exploration of the architectural space as a cultural, social and technological phenomenon, and also on the application of practical scenarios for interaction, sentience, and intelligence. Through the making of creative media designs and physical prototypes, students aim to demonstrate how our habitats/spaces/architectures can facilitate novel frameworks for experiencing and living. Prereq for INTM-SHU 138 is Creative Coding Lab OR Interaction Lab OR Application Lab OR Media Architecture Fulfillment: IMA/IMB Elective
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.
This course investigates and illuminates the concepts and the aesthetics of kinetic sculpture and installation art in various forms from creative and historical perspectives. Students will learn to regard sound and performance as part of a sculptural form and learn to work with space. Students will gain woodworking and digital fabrication skills to expand on their physical computing skills to create moving sculpture and installation. The course consists of lectures, readings, and hands-on studio work.
Beginning with a design problem or challenge, and following a period of analysis and research, a designer can begin to draft, prototype, test, and evaluate possible solutions, often repeating these operations several times until the design reaches maturity. Agile software development methodologies, which involve the formation of self-organized cooperative teams, frequent deadlines with deliverables, and a willingness to accept changing conditions and requirements, have radically changed the way software is being produced. Additionally, new applications, such as Fritzing, 123D Circuits, and Eagle have greatly facilitated the process of electronic circuit design. And Computer Aided Design (CAD) applications, for example Rhinocerous and Tinkercad, and newly available digital fabrication equipment have dramatically quickened the pace with which designers can create physical prototypes. Students in this course will be confronted with a series of design challenges for which they have to propose and prototype possible solutions. The first design challenge will entail the entire class working together to produce a software prototype by adopting agile strategies. The second design challenge will involve students in the process of refining a circuit, and will require bringing a prototype from schematic, to breadboard, perfboard, and finally resulting in a printed circuit board. For the third design challenge, students will explore the use of 3D printers, laser cutters, computer numerical control (CNC) machines, and other tools to produce a physical prototype. Students will then be free to work on a personal design challenge for their final project. Prerequisite: Interaction Lab Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
This course offers students the opportunity to develop a self-initiated project with close mentorship from a faculty member. Projects undertaken can span the areas of conceptual research, business development, creative practice, and media production. The course includes structured weekly workshop and critique times with peers and special guests. It is expected that students will embrace open-source and open-content ideals in their work, be invested in the work of their peers by providing feedback, and consider the feedback they receive during critique. In addition to weekly meeting times, students are expected to also participate in regular one-on-one meetings with faculty, peers, and guests. A formal project proposal, weekly assessments and documentation, a final project presentation, and participation in the IMA End of Semester show are all required. Although students are encouraged to continue work they may have initiated in a prior class, they may not combine or in any way double count work from this class in another class taken in the same semester. Group work is allowed assuming all group members are enrolled in this class. Students may take INTM-SHU 140T-A in the first 7 weeks for 2 credits or take this course in the second 7 week or take both of them across 14 weeks for 4 credits. It is open to anyone in any major assuming they have satisfied the prerequisites. Prerequisites: None Fulfillment: IMA /IMB elective.
This course offers students the opportunity to develop a self-initiated project with close mentorship from a faculty member. Projects undertaken can span the areas of conceptual research, business development, creative practice, and media production. The course includes structured weekly workshop and critique times with peers and special guests. It is expected that students will embrace open-source and open-content ideals in their work, be invested in the work of their peers by providing feedback, and consider the feedback they receive during critique. In addition to weekly meeting times, students are expected to also participate in regular one-on-one meetings with faculty, peers, and guests. A formal project proposal, weekly assessments and documentation, a final project presentation, and participation in the IMA End of Semester show are all required. Although students are encouraged to continue work they may have initiated in a prior class, they may not combine or in any way double count work from this class in another class taken in the same semester. Group work is allowed assuming all group members are enrolled in this class. Students may take this course in the first 7 weeks for 2 credits or take INTM-SHU 140T-B in the second 7 week or take both of them across 14 weeks for 4 credits. It is open to anyone in any major assuming they have satisfied the prerequisites. Prerequisites: None Fulfillment: IMA /IMB elective.
This course will provide a foundation for understanding modern web development with a focus on front end technologies and accessing public data. The forms and uses of these technologies are explored in a laboratory context of experimentation and discussion. This studio stresses interactivity, usability, and the quality and appropriateness of look and feel. Students will create two web applications, including one that leverages public APIs and Javascript libraries. The goal of the course is for students to learn how to think holistically about an application, both by designing a clear user experience and understanding the algorithmic steps required to build it. Assignments are arranged in sequence to enable the production of a website of high quality in design and engineering.
Real-Time Media is a 4-credit class using MaxMSPJitter to survey how real-time and reactive media can be used for art installation and performance. Classes will be a mix of coding labs, surveys and lectures on historical examples of the medium, guest artists talking about their practice, class field trips, and in-class performances and critique. While the primary focus will be on video and sound there will also be attention given to sensors, electronics, web APIs, and more. The class has coding assignments building to solo video and audio performances and final group installation project.
Fairy tales, myths, and stories of magic have always served as a way for both children and adults to make sense of the unpredictabilities of the world around them. How do these stories serve us today? How do new technologies allow us to reinterpret them so that they have new meaning for our times? Through readings, weekly exercises, and a final project, students in this course will explore the historic role and structure of fairy tales as well as the potential contemporary frameworks that allow us to entertain the impossible. Students will work with stories of their choosing however we will examine their implementation through traditional material and book art techniques, as well as projection mapping, 3D and VR (using Unreal Engine.)
Physical Computing is an approach to computer-human interaction design that starts by considering how humans express themselves physically and how computers can sense that expression. This course is designed to provide students with hands-on experience in researching, designing, and building physical interfaces for computers and other digital devices. Physical computing takes a hands-on approach. Students will learn to understand electronic sensors, connect them to computers, write programs, and build enclosures to hold sensors and controls. They will also learn to integrate all of these skills in the design of devices which respond to human physical expression.
This course aims to provide students with the critical thinking and practical skills for creating effective and compelling user interfaces. We will dissect what a compelling user experience is and discuss and apply design frameworks and methods for creating one. Throughout this 2pt course we will examine a range of examples of interfaces with a focus on understanding the attributes of a successful interfaces and hands-on experience applying proven research, mapping and testing UX techniques. The class format is lecture and studio and will include discussions, student presentations and critique, and in-class design exercises. The exercises and assignments focus on problems that are typical of those a UX designer will encounter in the professional world.
This course investigates digital art and new media from creative, theoretical, and historical perspectives. We will examine the paradigm shift resulting from the rise of digital art and its expansion as well as explore current ideas, creative strategies, and issues surrounding digital media. The topics of study will include digital image, digital sound, net art, systems, robotics, telematics, data art, and virtual/augmented reality. The course aims to provide students with the means to understand what digital media is, and establish their own vision of what it can become, from both a practical and a theoretical perspective. The course will consist of lectures, field trips, and small studio-based practices. Prereq: None Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
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.
This 2-unit interdisciplinary research seminar will be held in conjunction with an international symposium convened by the NYU Center for AI and Culture, which will bring leading scholars, curators, science fiction writers, and heads of major platform research groups to campus. The seminar will host a deeper interdisciplinary conversation on the issues that underpin their work. Seminar participants will meet each of the conference speakers. We will emphasize the overlapping and intersecting histories of “AI” in cognitive science, philosophy, interactive and computer arts, and science fiction literature and film. The frequent back-and-forth between AI in fiction and in fact is the basis of how we will, together, attempt to map the divergent futures of AI. It is said that artificial intelligence will be as important to the twenty-first century as oil was to the twentieth. AI is promoted by China, Europe, Russia and the USA as central to their innovation strategies and, as such, may portend a new computational arms race. There is consensus that geopolitical peace and conflict may be determined by how great nations use AI for good or ill. To define AI is is to conceive what is and is not “intelligence” and what is and is not “artificial.” Because no two cultures understand these basic terms in the same way, they will not understand AI in the same way. As such, any global discussion about the future of AI must be cross-cultural. The more we understand what each culture “means” by AI the more fruitful the collaborative design of AI can be. The seminar is suggested for students of Interactive Media Arts, Computer Science, Political Science, Philosophy, and anyone interested in algorithmic art, automation, machine vision, computational economics, and geopolitics. We will read and discuss 10 key texts and students will prepare an original project, paper or hybrid. Prereq: WAI Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
“In this course, students focus on the study and development of responsive environments, framed within a contextual and critical exploration of the architectural space as a cultural, social and technological phenomenon, and also on the application of practical scenarios for interaction, sentience, and intelligence. Through the making of creative media designs and physical prototypes, students aim to demonstrate how our habitats/spaces/architectures can facilitate novel frameworks for experiencing and living. The course aims to introduce students to a range of contemporary techniques on interactive and computational system development with a creative and speculative approach, using state-of-the-art development tools, such as Internet of Things, cognitive computing, as well as physical computing and real-time media design. The course consists of lectures (⅓), workshops (⅓), and practical sessions (⅓), and intends to provide a comprehensive and critical understanding both on the theory and practice of designing and implementing technologies for responsive spaces.” Prereq for INTM-SHU 138T is Interaction Lab, Communications Lab, Creative Coding Lab, Application Lab, Media Architecture
Science fiction, in literature, graphic novels, motion pictures, video games, and other mass media, has been a valuable form of sociocultural expression for generations. We use it to express our concerns for humanity, as well as our relationship to technology, one another, and our forms of governance. In the first half of this course we will learn about the field of future studies as we examine a body of works across various media which explore a popular theme in science fiction, such as time travel, space exploration, robots, dystopia and utopia, or pandemic. In the second half of this course we will produce a collective work of transmedia science fiction that reflects on the past, address concerns about the present day, and forecasts possible future scenarios. The theme of this semester will be pandemic. Prereq: None. Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
Learn woodworking as a form of expression. Wood can be used to create both practical and artistic projects, from sculpture to furniture to musical instruments. Students will use the IMA woodshop to learn hand tools and machine tools and woodworking techniques. They will learn to safely operate woodshop tools. They will learn about wood: its structure, its properties, its use as a material and as a medium. We will learn about tone woods, sound, and music. Projects will include the design and fabrication of practical and artistic woodworking artifacts, and will include a major project in an area that is selected by the student. Woodworking sits at the intersection of design, engineering, and performance of a specific set of motion practices. During the course, we will reflect on the woodworking process, and relate it to other practices such as software design and construction. Prereq: None Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
The Internet and computer devices have evolved rapidly. New technology may soon allow us to communicate virtually through Web VR/AR platforms. 3D contents may eventually overpower 2D images and textual content on the platforms. Web pages will become Web Spaces. This class allows students to explore new possible ways of using the Web by utilizing basic web development knowledge and advanced 3D visualization to create new immersive environments in the web platform. This is an advanced course with technically challenging concepts. Prereq: Creative Coding Lab, or similar programming background Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
This course offers students the opportunity to develop a self-initiated project with close mentorship from a faculty member. Projects undertaken can span the areas of conceptual research, business development, creative practice, and media production. The course includes structured weekly workshop and critique times with peers and special guests. It is expected that students will embrace open-source and open-content ideals in their work, be invested in the work of their peers by providing feedback, and consider the feedback they receive during critique. In addition to weekly meeting times, students are expected to also participate in regular one-on-one meetings with faculty, peers, and guests. A formal project proposal, weekly assessments and documentation, a final project presentation, and participation in the IMA End of Semester show are all required. Although students are encouraged to continue work they may have initiated in a prior class, they may not combine or in any way double count work from this class in another class taken in the same semester. Group work is allowed assuming all group members are enrolled in this class. Students may take this course in either the first or second 7 weeks for 2 credits or repeated across 14 weeks for 4 credits. It is open to anyone in any major assuming they have satisfied the prerequisites. Prerequisites: None
This course will focus on designing, creating, and performing with self-built electro-acoustic music systems to explore the limits of human musical expression. Over the semester, students are asked to research examples of contemporary work by creators of musical interfaces and discuss a wide range of issues facing technology in the performing arts. Readings and case studies will provide background for class discussions on the theory and practice of designing gestural controllers for musical performance. Students will invent and prototype a complete system encompassing musical control, mapping input to sound, and the creation of sound itself. Interaction Lab is a prerequisite, however, prior performing experience is not required. The performance discipline is inherently interdisciplinary and collaborative, so an open mind to working with others is imperative. The class will culminate in a performance where students will play their instruments live as well as a formal presentation of the students’ works at the NIME2021 conference hosted by NYU Shanghai. Prerequisite: Interaction Lab Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
Students in this class will be asked to embrace Theodor Adorno’s notion that, “All art is an uncommitted crime.” First, we will explore the vibrant history of dissent in art, comics, design, film, literature, music, and emerging media through the consideration of work by artist dissidents such as Ai Weiwei, Cindy Sherman, Henry David Thoreau, Henry Rollins, Howard Cruse, Jenny Holtzer, Maya Angelou, Michael Moore, Václav Havel, and more. The work of these people is aimed at raising awareness, at disrupting the status quo, and at holding people, organizations, nations, and / or society itself accountable for wrongs committed. Next, students will individually create bold responses to something of concern for them by adopting the methods of a dissident from history or contemporary practice. Finally, we will form an artist collective and create a campaign of dissent aimed at creating positive change within the organization that we are all part of.
We have all played and enjoyed games, but how do people actually design and develop them? How to describe a game from a professional standpoint? What are the basic elements and structure in video game development? How do game designers create an interactive experience for the player? What about prototyping and iterating in development? This course explores these questions and others through playing, analyzing and making games over 14 weeks. Students will understand game not only as an entertaining production and business model but a form of interactive media impacting current life and future. Students will be introduced to game design concepts, emphasizing the development: paper and digital prototyping, develop iteration, interactive narratives design and embedment, object-oriented programming, 2D/3D game art design, sound effects composition and user testing. For the course project, students will work in teams and create games in multiple projects, from board game focusing on gameplay prototype to digital playable experience with creative game art designs. This course leverages Unity, a game engine that uses C# based programming language. Basic knowledge of any programming language will come in handy. Prerequisite: Creative Coding Lab, Interaction Lab or equivalent programming experience. Fulfillment: IMA Major Electives; IMB Major Interactive Media Elective.
From the history of visual music and abstract film to the contemporary notion of live cinema, this course will be an exploration of the synesthetic relationship between sound and visuals in a real-time performance setting. Dating back as far as the 18th century, systems have been invented to produce images alongside music linking the two through formalized arrangements. Current media technologies make developing such systems both more approachable and more expansive in their scope. Through readings, viewings, and case studies students will gain an understanding of the history and theory of live audiovisuals. During the course students will team up to develop and master a real-time audiovisual system of their own invention. The class will culminate in a show in which they will present their work through a live performance.
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.
This course will examine the relationship between planetary-scale computation and the development of planetarity. We take as starting points that (1) the very notion of climate change is an epistemological accomplishment of planetary-scale sensing, modeling and computation systems and (2) the ecological costs of computation are on an unsustainable trajectory. The seminar will ask: what are alternative futures for computation as human and ecological infrastructure? The primary subject of research is the transition from computation as a digital media object to computation as continental scale infrastructure. The scope and significance of this shift are fundamental for the development of interactive art and design that seeks to explore critical alternatives to extant models for this. What we call planetary-scale computation takes different forms at different scales—from energy and mineral sourcing and subterranean cloud infrastructure to urban software and massive universal addressing systems; from interfaces drawn by the augmentation of the hand and eye to users identified by self—quantification and the arrival of legions of sensors, algorithms, and robots. Each of these may represent a direct harm upon effected ecosystems and/or a means for and informed viable administration of those same systems. The course is primarily geared to advanced IMA students but is open to students from any major who are interested in engaging with contemporary issues of computation, society and ecology. Final projects will combine original written work and speculative design that can draw on diverse student core skill sets. Prerequisite: Sophomore Standing. Fulfillment: IMA Major Electives; IMB Major Interactive Media 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.
Welcome to the ABC Browser Circus (ABC), where acrobats juggle with hyperlinks, dance across scrolling grids and jump through open server ports. This course introduces the students to the history of the internet, the World Wide Web, and specifically to the browser as a cultural object and its role in (net)art; in parallel, students are guided to creative uses of the web. In three consecutive modules, the browser is interpreted as a blank canvas, a susceptible agent and as a window to other realities respectively. Technologies used in the ABC Browser Circus are advanced HTML, CSS and JavaScript as well as Node for server-side programming. Participants must have completed either Communications Lab or Creative Coding Lab (IMA Foundation Classes). Students are expected to comfortably apply fundamental programming concepts to solve problems.
This course investigates and illuminates the concepts and the aesthetics of kinetic sculpture and installation art in various forms from creative and historical perspectives. Students will learn to regard sound and performance as part of a sculptural form and learn to work with space. Students will gain woodworking and digital fabrication skills to expand on their physical computing skills to create moving sculpture and installation. The course consists of lectures, readings, and hands-on studio work.
Many of us have played and enjoyed games. Have you ever wondered how people actually design and develop them? Can a games as a profession and practice be described? What are the basic theories, structures and skills involved in game development? How do game designers create compelling interactive experiences for the player? How do they respond to feedback, prototype and improve these experiences? This course explores these questions and others through playing, analyzing and making games over 14 weeks. Students will understand games not only as entertainment, production and business models, but as a form of mass interactive media and culture. Students will be introduced to game design concepts, emphasizing all stages of game development: paper and digital prototyping, iteration, interactive narrative design, object-oriented game programming, 3D/2D game art creation, sound effects composition and user testing. For the course project, students will work in teams and create games in multiple projects, from simple board games to a digital game with original game art, mechanics and other design elements. This course leverages multiple tools for game prototyping and design, but will focus on Unity, a game engine that uses C# based programming language, for game build-up.
We will explore a range of programming languages, systems, and activities designed to help learners acquire computational skills and become creative problem solvers and project designers, including arts and interactive projects. We will create projects in turtle geometry, animation, and programmable embroidery (Snap!, Turtle Geometry, TurtleArt, and TurtleStitch), and in simulation systems which model complex systems in the life and social sciences in order to acquire a deeper understanding of their underlying phenomena (NetLogo). The course is fundamentally about ideas, and how some powerful ideas from computation can empower a learner to be a better creator and problem solver, acquire a deeper understanding of social and scientific phenomena, and become a self-directed learner. We will identify these ideas and actively engage with the pedagogical theories that underlie embodying them by creating with systems designed for children, beginners, or people coming from disciplines which traditionally had less emphasis on computing-based tools. We will emphasize reflection on our own learning within the course.”
“The practice of using light and motion as artistic media traces its roots back to the architectural design of spiritual structures in ancient cultures and the use of fire and shadow in religious ceremonies. However, not until the invention of electricity, the incandescent bulb, and electric motors did light and motion really become artistic media themselves. The current availability of cheap and abundant sources of motion and light have opened up new possibilities for the creation of sculptural objects which compose structures in light and movement. Drawing upon the combined histories of lumia, kinetic sculpture, and op art, we will be investigating the historical and current developments of kinetic art and light art. Students will create kinetic light sculptures of their own design, building upon and expanding their knowledge of digital fabrication, physical computing, and generative software systems. They will learn how to compose in color, light, rhythm, movement, and space and how to install and present their work in a public setting.”
In this foundation course students will learn the fundamentals of computation, software design, and web technologies, through a series of creative projects. The course is intended to equip students with the skills to develop artistic and business projects that include a significant computational component. Topics such as variables, functions, components, and functional and reactive programming will be brought together to create interactive applications, generative art, data visualization, and other domains. Within the framework of these creative projects students will develop a greater understanding of how computer programs operate, be exposed to various concepts used to create experiences and interactions, and become more familiar with some of the technologies that constitute the internet. This course is intended for students with no prior programming background. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: CORE AT; IMA Major Other Foundation; IMB Major Emerging Media Foundation.
What is the place of human creativity, agency and intelligence in complex technical networks? This class aims to build a foundation for studying how automation, artificial intelligence, robotics, digital image production, predictive software, and eco-technologies signal the ascent of a posthuman society. It provides a selection of texts and case studies that introduce basic philosophical and sociological questions about posthuman technologies and support creators, writers and thinkers in conceptualizing the posthuman nature of new media. The class is a combination of lectures and writing workshops. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
Architecture has always been considered as an immediate extension of the human civilization, and its connection with state-of-the-art technologies has always been essential. In our current highly mediated and augmented environments, architecture shifts from static, solid, and predefined, to a fluid, interactive, and ever-changing. Computational, interactive, and media technologies challenge our understanding of what architecture is, redefining our engagement with exterior and interior spaces. The course investigates the area of media architecture from a contextual and critical perspective, examining and implementing in theoretical and practical scenarios current emerging trends. Students are expected to develop a comprehensive understanding of media architecture, to thoroughly investigate the media cityscape (including motivations, social implications, technological requirements), and to develop installation work that utilizes contemporary media development practices and demonstrates artistic, technological, and scientific rigor. Prerequisite: None
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.
This course emphasizes on the 3D animation through digital modeling / sculpting techniques, keyframe and blend-shape animation . The course breaks down into 4 stages : 1. basic topology of head model, 2. high-poly sculpting and projection texturing, 3. Keyframe and blend-shapes animation, 4. 3D animation final project. In the final project, students get to choose either lip-sync animation or conceptual piece utilizing the created head models. An overview of digital editing / compositing and sound design will also be introduced to assist with students’ final project at the end of the semester. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
Sound is all around us. The way we perceive or experience these sounds are largely dependent upon their environments, whether artificially constructed or naturally present. In this studio-based course, students will learn about the development of sound art through readings and listenings by artists, musicians and designers who investigate our sonic environment through sound sculptures, multi-channel immersive installations, soundscapes, audio tours, podcasts and field recordings. The course will begin with an introduction into the physics of sound with time for deep listening exercises. We will read selected texts and listen to pieces by those working in the field of Acoustic Ecology, an interdisciplinary field that employs ethnographic practices to create sound studies or art. We will look at artists who employ narrative techniques to engage the audience. We will study musicians such as Alvin Lucier and John Cage and the history of experimental music that takes into consideration the physical space its recorded or played in. There will be weekly exercises that will help develop the student’s spatial awareness of sound and music. We will take listening and recording trips into the field to understand the acoustic urban environment. We will use different types of microphones such as hydrophones and binaural mics. Students will learn how to build their own contact microphones. Students will have the opportunity to create works for multi-channel speakers. The final project can take on any form within the realm of sound art–multimedia, narrative, non-narrative, music, installation.
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.
The interactive project will illustrate students’ unique interests as well as evidence of competency within the field of interactive media production. Students are encouraged to develop their project around a theme previously explored in their work. Projects will be presented and critiqued repeatedly throughout the capstone process to peers, faculty, and industry professionals. A final presentation of the interactive project will be delivered late in the semester. The research paper (4000-5000 words) will focus on at least one aspect of the interactive project: e.g. culture, theory, philosophy, or history, the project context, and/or production methods. For example, students may write about their project’s reception by a set of specific users, or by users who are part of a larger culture, society, or market. It is important that students think beyond the project itself and situate it in a broader context accessible through research. The research paper will include an annotated bibliography of the books and other resources they used for their research. Students will also be guided in the production of an online portfolio to showcase their work and accomplishments to the outside world. Graduates will be evaluated by their portfolio when applying for jobs, graduate school, artist residencies, grants, and the like. Portfolios will be tailored to the demands of each student’s future goals and target audience.
This course is designed to provide students with hands-on experience working with computational media (programming, creative coding, etc.) and data. The forms and uses of computational media and its application are explored in a laboratory context of experimentation and discussion.
This course will provide a foundation for understanding modern web development with a focus on front end technologies and accessing public data. The forms and uses of these technologies are explored in a laboratory context of experimentation and discussion.
Students will create two well-designed single-page web applications, including one that leverages public APIs and digital services from a wide range of existing web products. The goal of the course is for students to learn how to think holistically about an application, both by designing a clear user experience and understanding the algorithmic steps required to build it.
This course is designed to provide students with hands-on experience working with sensors and other electronics to design interfaces for a live multimedia performance. Students will explore the expressive properties of sensors to control a variety of outputs such as light, sound, projection, and/or other media. The forms and uses of physical computing, computational media, and its application are explored weekly in both a hands on laboratory context, as well as weekly discussions of readings and existing performances. Prerequisites: Creative Computing or similar coursework with microcontrollers and coding.
This course is designed to provide students with hands-on experience working with interactive and emerging applications for creating immersive experiences, with a focus on designing for virtual reality headsets. The class will also touch on related technologies, methods, and fields including experience design, virtual painting, augmented reality, interactive installation, and 360 video/audio. The course materials will also include readings and discussions on prior art/relevant critical texts.
We live in a world where we have more data, computational power, and access to digital connectivity than ever before. But how do we make sense of the promise inherent in this reality while holding space for the challenges that it presents for different groups and communities? How do we situate the technologies that we have come to take for granted? And more importantly, how do we leverage an artist’s perspective to creating active responses that interrogate and hint at the potential for different futures? This course examines emergent technological fields, spanning topics like data collection/representation, digital archives, artificial intelligence, social algorithms, and automation and asks how the technologies inherent to each can be leveraged for artistic response, creation, and critique. While this course is primarily conceptual and art theory-based, the content covered will be technical in nature and students will be tasked with making three creative responses to the content in the tradition of the new media, digital, and conceptual art worlds.
This course explores the elements of music through the lenses of computation and interactive design. Each of the five course units focuses on one element of music (rhythm, melody, timbre, harmony, and structure), approaching it from the perspective of music theory, computation, and design. For each element, students listen to examples from different periods and styles, represent and manipulate the element in code, and create an interactive study around it. As students work toward their final projects, the class takes a more self-directed approach. Final projects can take the form of digital applications, spatial installations, or physical devices. In-class coding and assignments will be done in P5.js, but students will be free to use other languages and frameworks for their final projects. Creative Computing or equivalent programming experience is required.
The network is a fundamental medium for interactivity. It makes possible our interaction with machines, data, and, most importantly, other people. Though the base interaction it supports is simple, a client sends a request to a server, which replies; an incredible variety of systems can be and have been built on top of it. An equally impressive body of media theory has also arisen around its use. This hybrid theory and technology course will be 50% project driven technical work and 50% theory and discussion. The technical work will will utilize JavaScript as both a client and server side programming language to build creative systems on the web. Technical topics will include server and client web frameworks, such as Express, HTML, CSS, templating, and databases. The theory portion of the course will include reading and discussion of past and current media theory texts that relate to the networks of today; included in this will be works by Marshall McLuhan, Wendy Chun, Lev Manovich, Philip Agre, Tiziana Terranova, and more. In short, this course will be about developing full-stack web applications (such as anything from the beginnings of Google, YouTube, and Twitter to class registration systems and other purpose built system) as well as thinking, reading, and discussing the implications with a culture and media theory perspective.
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.
An introductory course designed to familiarize students with all the IMA prototyping shop has to offer. We will cover everything from basic hand tools to the beginnings of digital fabrication. You will learn to use the right tool for the job. There will be weekly assignments, created to develop your fabrication techniques. There will be in class lectures, demos, and building assignments. Emphasis will be put on good design practices, material choice, and craftsmanship.
“Big Ideas in the History and Future of Technology” is designed to provide students with a critical perspective on current issues in technology in the context of the history, controversies, consequences, and ethical questions in emerging media. This first course in the series includes: in the first half –some seminal early works that imagine a future in which technology enhances/augments human intelligence and capabilities and how that might affect society; in the second half–2 classic works of fiction and some podcasts/ audio lectures that address questions relating to “What is Human.”
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.
We live in an era of information where the information can be written, accessed, shared, and also eliminated with a single stroke. As a result, the objective “truth” is brought to a question. In the last decade, artists have been experimenting with the fakeness of the truth and the truthfulness of the fake by creating fake documents, staged marriages, an arguably authentic artifact, imaginary advertisements both historical and contemporary. What does it mean to tell the truth in the context of art? How does art cross the boundaries between the real and the fake, truthfulness and misrepresentation? This course will examine social engagement of art and how “truth” is treated, interpreted, and presented. The class will take a field trip to a propaganda museum, have readings and discussions, and analyze artists working with fiction as a medium in art making. Students will work on projects to construct believable reality through object making (3D fabrication) and narrative construction (audiovisual material). Prerequisites: Interaction Lab or Communication Lab or Application Lab
Tangible heritage (site, object, and structure) and intangible heritage (motif, icon, character, textile, wardrobe, music, performance, language and ritual) are unseparated parts of the cultural heritage. The narrative and messaging of cultural heritage can be preserved by moving sequences, motion design and animation. The richness of heritage contents can be further disseminated and known by the dynamic media. This course aims to utilize animation and motion media to depict and preserve the richness of cultural heritage contents. 3D animation and motion graphics techniques will be addressed and applied to the storytelling. Students will be guided to research the Asian cultural heritage contents including the tangible and intangible heritage. They will further explore the visual design and production pipeline of animation. Visiting expert of interactive media design and intangible heritage performance will get involved to share the insights to the students. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
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.
In this course students will learn the fundamentals of computation, software design, and web technologies, through a series of creative projects. The course is intended to equip students with the skills to develop artistic and business projects that include a significant computational component. Topics such as variables, functions, components, and functional and reactive programming will be brought together to create interactive applications, generative art, data visualization, and other domains. Within the framework of these creative projects students will develop a greater understanding of how computer programs operate, be exposed to various concepts used to create experiences and interactions, and become more familiar with some of the technologies that constitute the internet. This course is intended for students with no prior programming background. Prerequisites: None
Utilizing technological and scientific research / case studies / artifacts, this class introduces students to the topic of enhanced / extended perception and how technological augmentation allow us to sense and perceive alternative layers of our surrounding world, reconfiguring our understanding of what reality really is. Students will be asked to develop their own prototypes that demonstrate a conceptual or functional outcome on how perception can be extended, enhanced, or even hacked.
Ours is a time of unceasing image production. CCTV cameras wrap around the planet, machines make visual learning sets for other machines, hundreds of billions of hours of video material is livestreamed online every year, artists speculate about the possibility of making virtual reality for animals, and seemingly natural phenomena such as climate change can only be apprehended through risk simulations and data visualisations. Simultaneously, from deep fakes to computergenerated influencers and webcam models, digital images without real-life referents are set to become a part of social life, posing questions about the agency of media makers and consumers in an increasingly simulated world. Contemporary visual culture is not made by humans alone and sometimes not even meant for human eyes. What are we to make of aesthetics when they become automated? How can human collectives be thought from the perspective, or collaborate with, the semi-autonomous technological systems around us? What kind of conceptual capacities do we need to be able to think about the future of such media globally, and in specific geographical locations? In this class, we will explore the shi< that media theory and philosophy of technology have made towards the inhuman. From biometrics, insect media, and eco-media to so<ware art, augmented reality, and satellite imagery, we are witnessing a paradigm change in how we think about the relationship between human, animal, and machine agency in visual culture. Looking at a variety of contemporary media objects, we will read state-of-the-art theory, write a research paper, and collaborate on a post-human media studies syllabus spanning texts and objects from across the globe.
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.
People use their bodies in the workplace whether they are dancers or athletes, managers or engineers. Physical wellbeing, social teamwork, and cognition may be affected by our movement practices. How do people use physicality and motion to think? What is the interaction between body, motion, place, and goals? We will explore these questions by building physical-computing-based systems that encourage us to bring movement into new times and places in daily life, that coach users and develop learning environments for movement practices, and that test our understanding of ways that we “think with the body”. In this course we will bring practices such as fitness, dance, sports, and martial arts into a series of interactive installations, movement learning projects, and workspace modifications built on computing, sensing and actuator technologies. In this course we will also explore these questions through review of existing creative projects in this area, readings, presentations, and knowledge-sharing sessions. Prerequisites: Creative Coding Lab, Interaction Lab or equivalent programming experience Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
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
As no two cultures define “artificial” the same way, and no two define “intelligence” the same way, so too they will not define and imagine “artificial intelligence” in the same way. As China and the West engage in what is sometimes called a new scientific and technological race, the fundamental terms of a shared conversation across cultures may be missing or contested. As planetary-scale economies shift toward increasing automation, AI moves out of the laboratory and into the fabric of supply-chains, urban infrastructures, and everyday life. This research seminar will allow students to explore different ways that different cultural connotations of “face”, “city”, and “governance”, for example, imply different paths for the development of this fundamental technology. NYU Shanghai will host an international conference in the Spring 2020 that examine these same topics. Prerequisites: Interaction Lab / Application Lab / Communication Lab / What’s New Media
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. Prerequisite: Creative Coding Lab or equivalent programming experience. Fulfillment: CORE AT; IMA/IMB elective.
Toys are not only for kids. Toys are part of our culture and an important medium to develop essential skills like creativity, problem-solving, and socialization. They can also be a great contribution in education, medicine, and business, and can improve the quality of life for children and adults alike. The emphasis in this class is on designing for play and entertainment. Students will be introduced to the underlying essential concepts in designing toys and they will create their own utilizing hand-making craft skills and new technologies. This course will equip the students with a basic knowledge about various design topics including: brainstorming, sketching, graphic design, concept development, basic mechanisms, 3D modeling, rendering, and rapid prototyping. This is a hands-on class and students are required to bring their imagination in addition to a willingness to experiment and explore creative solutions for class assignments. Prerequisites: Interaction lab / Communication lab Fulfillment: IMA/IMB 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.
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.
In this foundation course students will be asked to think beyond the conventional forms of human computer interaction (i.e. the keyboard and mouse) to develop interfaces that consider the entire human body, the body’s capacity for gesture, as well as the relationship between the body and its environment. Students will learn the fundamentals of electronics and programming as they build projects using the Arduino microcontroller platform. Arduino is a small computer based on open source hardware and software. When used in conjunction with various sensors and actuators, Arduino is capable of gathering information about and acting upon the physical world. In addition to these physical computing techniques, students will also learn to harness the methods of traditional computation. The fundamentals of programming will be explored using the Processing programming language. Processing has a simplified syntax and an approachable computer graphics programming model, making it an ideal platform for first-time programmers. Students will gain a deeper appreciation of the expressive possibilities of computation as they learn to author their own software and systems and not simply use off-the-shelf solutions. Additional topics will include algorithmic drawing and animation techniques, digital modeling and fabrication, data exchange, manipulation, and presentation, as well as control of images, audio and video, including computer vision techniques. Structured weekly exercises are aimed at building specific skills, however students are free to pursue their own diverse interests in their midterm and final projects. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: CORE AT; IMA Major Other Foundation; IMB Major Emerging Media Foundation.
User experience design (UXD, UED, or XD) is the process of enhancing user satisfaction with a product by improving its usability, accessibility, and desirability provided throughout the user’s interaction with a product. The class is designed for those who are passionate about creating user-centered experiences with interactive media. Students are encouraged to empathize with users, engaging them to make informed design choices from prototype right through to project completion. Prerequisites: None Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality represent, respectively, visions of “being” somewhere else or augmenting your present environment. These visions are not new, but new technologies have made it possible to produce experiences unlike anything before, particularly through the use of headsets, spatial audio, touch sensors, and custom location-based installations. These new technologies are becoming small, powerful, and inexpensive, and as a result we are witnessing the birth of a powerful new medium, new art form, and new industry – all very quickly. The speed of VR and AR growth has created both opportunity and confusion. “VR / AR Fundamentals” takes a long, deep perspective. We will overview such basic elements as audiovisual resolution and fidelity; spatiality and immersion; other senses such as touch, smell, taste (and even mind); input and interactivity; and live and social. We’ll look at distinctions such as cinema versus games, movies versus models, public versus personal, real world versus fantasy worlds, linear versus interactive, and narrative versus ambient. These elements and distinctions will be presented partially as technical but in an understandable way for general liberal arts students, and will rely heavily on experiencing content and keeping up with current events. That’s the first half-semester. The second half-semester we’ll concentrate on collectively producing a series of timely and relevant projects, all short, entertaining, and useful to others exploring the world of VR / AR. Prerequisites: None Fulfillment: IMA Major Electives; IMB Major Interactive Media Elective.
In this foundation course students will explore the possibilities of emerging media by successively producing projects that make use of digital images, graphics, audio, and video. The course is designed to provide students with a framework to effectively communicate and tell stories through digital means. Students learn through hands-on experimentation in a laboratory context and the principles of interpersonal communication, media theory, and human factors will be introduced in readings and investigated through discussion. Adobe Creative Cloud and other relevant software applications will be examined to establish a diverse digital toolkit. Both traditional and experimental outputs will be explored. Weekly assignments, group and independent projects, as well as documentation of projects will be assigned in each of the core areas of study. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: IMA Major Other Foundation; IMB Major Emerging Media Foundation.
Rules of play shape competitive games from checkers to football. But how do the rules of interaction shape non-competitive play? In this course, we will explore, code and test design strategies for playful group interactions while at the same time interrogating both what it means to play and how individual identities and group behaviors. Some of the questions we will ask and attempt to answer: What motivates participation? What hinders it? When does participation become oppressive? What’s the difference between self-consciousness and self-awareness? Who has power? Who doesn’t? Are leaders necessary? What’s the difference between taking turns and engaging in conversation? What happens when the slowest person sets the pace? Interaction inputs we will play with will include: mouse, keyboard, mobile device sensors, and microphone. Outputs will include, visuals, text and sound. We will use p5, websockets and node.js for real-time interaction. Class time will be split between playing with and critiquing examples and translating design strategies into code and logic.
This class aims to provide students with the critical thinking and practical skills to explore and communicate ideas visually. This foundational course is a combination of lecture and studio format that will introduce the fundamental principles of design including typography, color, composition, branding and product design, and offer hands-on application of those principles through both in-class exercises and weekly assignments. The course will serve as a solid foundation of skills relevant to pursuing a degree in Interactive Media Arts and expose students to the myriad of opportunities a grounding in design principles opens up for them.
An introductory course designed to provide students with hands-on experience developing creative coding projects with machine learning. The history, theory, and application of machine learning algorithms and related datasets are explored in a laboratory context of experimentation and discussion. Examples and exercises will be demonstrated in JavaScript using the p5.js, ml5.js, and TensorFlow.js libraries. In addition, students will learn to work with open source pre-trained models in the cloud using Runway. Principles of data collection and ethics are introduced. Weekly assignments, team and independent projects, and project reports are required.
3D environments and objects are powerful prototyping tools. This class will introduce the basics of 3D modeling techniques in Rhino and students will learn to create assets for prototyping and 3D printing. The class will take an industrial design approach to design and build with specifications and materials in mind. Students will learn to think, plan, design, and produce well thought out objects to fit their specific needs. (examples: motor mounts, enclosures, wearables etc.)
Whether it’s through photo realistic scans found in current-gen video games or the cartoonish and low-fi aesthetic of Bitmoji there is no limit to ways in which the body and the self are represented in digital spaces. This 2-credit class will look at how avatars have been historically used in the realm of art, commerce, and entertainment and utilize existing avatar creation tools to develop projects that examine identity, body politics, and contemporary performance. In class, we will cover the basics of Unreal Engine, photogrammetry, 3D scanning, and model rigging although students will be encouraged to use existing skill sets and creative thinking to complete some of the smaller week-by-week assignments. The class will culminate with a short performance, small installation or single/multi-channel video piece using one or more of the techniques covered in class. This can be a solo project or a group project. In this class students will: – Explore how avatars can be utilized in your creative practice – Gain an introductory understanding of Unreal Engine, photogrammetry, model rigging, and 3D scanning. – Learn how to recontextualize digital spaces for the purposes of art, installation, and performance. – Broaden your thinking of what performance can be, both in a physical setting and digital setting. – Think critically about how physical bodies inhabit digital spaces and how the hardware and software we use reinforces the acceptance and value of certain kinds of bodies.
This course combines two powerful areas of technology that will enable you to leap from being just a user of technology to becoming a creator with it: Physical Computing and Programming. The course begins with Physical Computing, which allows you to break free from both the limitations of mouse, keyboard & monitor interfaces and stationary locations at home or the office. We begin by exploring the expressive capabilities of the human body and how we experience our physical environment. The platform for the class is a microcontroller (Arduino brand), a very small inexpensive single-chip computer that can be embedded anywhere and sense and make things happen in the physical world. The core technical concepts include digital, analog and serial input and output. The second portion of the course focuses on fundamentals of computer programming (variables, conditionals, iteration, functions & objects) as well as more advanced techniques such as data parsing, image processing, networking, computer vision. The Javascript ‘p5’ programming environment is the primary vehicle. P5 is more oriented towards visual displays on desktops, laptops, tablets or smartphones but can also connect back to the physical sensor & actuators from the first part of the class. The course is designed for computer programming novices but the project-centered pedagogy will allow more experienced programmers the opportunity to go further with their project ideas and collaborate with other students. What can computation add to human communication? You will gain a deeper understanding of the possibilities of computation–– possibilities that will augment and enhance the perspectives, abilities and knowledge you bring from your field of study (e.g. art, design, humanities, sciences, engineering). At first it may feel foreign, as foreign as learning a new language or way of thinking. But soon, once you get some basic skills under your belt, you’ll be able to make projects that reflect your own interests and passions.
Physical Computing is an approach to learning how humans communicate through computers that starts by considering how humans express themselves physically. In this course, we take the human body as a given, and attempt to design computing applications within the limits of its expression. To realize this goal, you’ll learn how a computer converts the changes in energy given off by our bodies (in the form of sound, light, motion, and other forms) into changing electronic signals that it can read and interpret. You’ll learn about the sensors that do this, and about simple computers called microcontrollers that read sensors and convert their output into data. In the other direction you will learn how to actual physical things in the world with devices like speakers, lights and motors. Finally, you’ll learn how microcontrollers communicate with other computers. To learn this, you’ll watch people and build devices. You will spend a lot of time building circuits, soldering, writing programs, building structures to hold sensors and controls, and figuring out how best to make all of these things relate to a person’s body.
How does someone become famous on the internet? What does it take to capture our digital attention? While movie stars, rock gods, and other mainstream A-listers struggle to find their place in a sea of emerging technologies and platforms, a new swarm of micro celebrities and influencers has coasted into the cultural space they once filled. Riding a wave of viral content and memes, the newly-famous rule an internet where anyone can have adoring fans… for a price. They are nimble, niche, obnoxious, empowering, and sometimes disturbing. This class explores what happens when fame is freed from the traditional intermediaries of print, television, and radio, when social media provides everyone with the tools to be their own marketing studio and PR department. It examines the transformation of celebrity, from a 19th century sales gimmick to the formidable cultural, social, and technological force it is today. Students will study a wide array of fame-related topics, from the privacy effects of trolling to the class implications of selfies. And we will engage in practices and exercises that produce real-world instances of celebrity in case we, too, wish to join the ranks of the internet famous.
An introductory course designed to provide students with hands-on experience using various technologies including time based media, video production, digital imaging, audio, video and animation. The forms and uses of new communications technologies are explored in a laboratory context of experimentation and discussion. The technologies are examined as tools that can be employed in a variety of situations and experiences. Principles of interpersonal communications, media theory, and human factors are introduced. Weekly assignments, team and independent projects, and project reports are required.
This course will explore the fundamentals of new media scholarship. Together, we will review and engage with different theories of emerging media in its social, cultural, political, and historical contexts. Students will be able to research, think and write critically about some of the central debates in media studies, including new media forms and aesthetics, issues of gender, race, and labor, platforms, infrastructure and various emerging paradigms. Classes consist of theoretical readings, media example discussion, and writing workshops. Prerequisite: WAI (or co-requisite). Fulfillment: IMA Major Foundations/Elective; IMB Major Emerging Media Foundation/Elective.
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.
Machine Learning for New Interfaces is an introductory course with the goal of teaching machine learning concepts in an approachable way to students with no prior knowledge. We will explore diverse and experimental methods in Machine Learning such as classification, recognition, movement prediction and image style translation. By the end of the course, students will be able to create their own interfaces or applications for the web. They will be able to apply fundamental concepts of Machine Learning, recognize Machine Learning models in the world and make Machine Learning projects applicable to everyday life. Prerequisite: Creative Coding Lab or equivalent programming experience Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
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
Artificial Intelligence Arts is an intermediate class that broadly explores issues in the applications of AI to arts and creativity. This class looks at generative Machine Learning algorithms for creation of new media, arts and design. In addition to covering the technical advances, the class also addresses the ethical concerns ranging from the use of data set, the necessarily of AI generative capacity to our proper attitudes towards AI aesthetics and creativity. Students will apply a practical and conceptual understanding of AI both as technology and artistic medium to their creative practices.
This interdisciplinary project-based class focuses on the design, development, and use of technology that increases the quality of life of individuals of disabilities. Students will be introduced to various assistive technology and strategies, including no-tech and low-tech as well as software and online-based practices. This class features lectures, discussions, guest lectures, field trips, and project presentations by students. Software programming, physical computing, machine learning, and 3D fabrication will be introduced for developing an assistive device. Field trips of local facilities will be scheduled during the semester. They provide an off-campus real-world learning experience as well as an opportunity for students to interact with users of assistive technology in the local community. Students will participate in a team-based design project that identifies challenges for an individual of disabilities and create an innovative and useful assistive device to meet their needs. Prerequisite: Interaction Lab
From the history of visual music and abstract film to the contemporary notion of live cinema, this course will be an exploration of the synesthetic relationship between sound and visuals in a realtime performance setting. Dating back as far as the 18th century, systems have been invented to produce images alongside music linking the two through formalized arrangements. Current media technologies make developing such systems both more approachable and more expansive in their scope. Through readings, viewings, and case studies students will gain an understanding of the history and theory of live audiovisuals. During the course students will team up to develop and master a realtime audiovisual system of their own invention. The class will culminate in a show in which they will present their work through a live performance. Prerequisite: None.
This course investigates and explores the integration between cultural heritage and digital conservation, specifically towards the objects, deities, sites, and gardens of China. Through the reflection of Chinese cultural heritage from the global perspective of Chinese history, the course raises awareness of heritage conservation and critical heritage studies towards the origins and the transformations of China in the contemporary era. Academic readings and oral presentations revolving around this theme will enhance students’ skills for documentation and restoration by innovative digital techniques in China. Conservator presentations, field trips, gallery visits and art projects enable students to communicate with practitioners in the field and examine the values of Chinese cultural heritage from a global perspective. Prerequisites: None Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective; GCS Chinese Media, Arts, and Literature.
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
We live in a world immersed in sound yet we rarely attend to how sound can reflect our social structure or reveal cultural meaning. This course introduces students to acoustic ethnography, soundscape studies and narrative, non-narrative audio storytelling. We will gather and analyze the acoustic environment of China, using recorded sounds to create ethnography through text and sound. Ethnography (literally, “culture-writing”) is both the act of gathering data about culture through observation and interviews as well as the practice of writing analytically about cultural difference. Visual ethnography incorporates the analysis of visual and material aspects of our social environment into creative, multimedia rich projects. With an ethnographic approach to sound, we will document the rich tapestry of sounds around us in the context of the Yangtze River Delta region and think about how this conveys China’s culture, society and history. Through lectures, discussion, readings, listening assignments, field studies and projects, we will re-learn how to listen, observe and record the sounds in our environment. We will study Chinese sound art and Chinese cultural productions in music, film, television and multimedia installation. We will contextualize Chinese sound art against major theoretical approaches to sound including archives and preservation, form versus content, and social studies of science. Students will work collaboratively or individually on a final project that combines sound recording and production, to create an ethnographic analysis of an aspect of social and cultural life in the Yangtze River Delta region. Students will gain experience in gathering ethnographic data and they will transform it into an analytical or creative project integrating sound art and text. Prior knowledge of sound editing and Chinese language is not required. Prerequisite: None
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.
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
This course will be like the two previous ones (http://ima.nyu.sh/vr-ar-fundamentals/), with the first half-semester as seminar and the second half semester as production. For Fall 2019, production will be something in complement with Zaanheh: A Natural History of Shanghai (https://zaanheh.research.shanghai.nyu.edu/), a new NYU Shanghai interdisciplinary project. Prerequisite: None
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.
A site for IMA NY Students to find equivalent courses outside of IMA NY
For most students joining IMA in Fall 2022 and beyond, there is a new program structure that affects the categorization of courses on this site:
Any class in any IMA major elective category (ie "Art & Design") refers to the IMA program structure previous to those entering in Fall 2022. If you are in the class of 2026 (most entering Fall 2022 or later), any course in an IMA elective category are generic IMA electives in the new structure.