Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks
This class is an intensive, hands-on workshop addressing the complex challenges of game design. The premise of the class is that all games, digital and non-digital, share common fundamental principles, and that under- standing these principles is an essential part of designing successful games. Learning how to create successful non-digital games provides a solid foundation for the development of digital games. In this workshop, students will: analyze existing digital and non-digital games, taking them apart to understand how they work as interactive systems; create a number of non-digital games in order to master the basic design principles that apply to all games regardless of format; critique each other’s work, developing communication skills necessary for thriving in a collaborative field; explore the creative possibilities of this emerging field from formal, social, and cultural perspectives; develop techniques for fast-prototyping and iterative design that can be successfully applied to all types of interactive projects.
This class is an overview of the field of games that approaches them from several theoretical and critical perspectives. No special theoretical background or prior training is needed to take the course, but to have had a broad practical experience with and basic knowledge of games is a distinct advantage. Also, an interest in theoretical and analytical issues will help. You are expected to actively participate in the lectures, which are dialogic in form, with ample room for discussion. The course will prepare the student to: Understand and discuss games from a theoretical perspective, as well as the components of a game; Apply new theories and evaluate them critically; Assess and discuss game concepts and the use of games in various contexts; Analyze games, and understand and apply a range of analytical methods.
Media Studies (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
This advanced experiential production course will introduce students to the latest techniques for stereoscopic 360 video, manual 360 video stitching and depth map creation, camera-paired Depthkit volumetric video, and mixed-format photogrammetry. Techniques introduced in the class will presume some working knowledge of more basic forms of these capture methods as well as how to integrate them into Unity. Alongside an intense technical focus, the course will also deconstruct recent groundbreaking experiential works that utilize similar experimental production designs. The format of each class will combine lectures and workshops with the ultimate goal of introducing students to the expectations demanded by professional productions. All of the techniques introduced are being employed by top experiential creators and creative studios. The course will try to show viable paths for students to engage with immersive media pipelines, at an expert level, with an expanded sense of possibility and inspiration. Topics heavily examined throughout the course include: surveillance, race, socioeconomics, carceral capitalism and technoscience, algorithmic bias and oppression, and post-work societal structures.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 5 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2065-000 (23513)03/25/2020 – 04/29/2020 Wed12:00 AM – 3:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Niederhauser, Matthew
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
In this class students will learn math tools to boost their digital practice, fix common problems, and understand the math behind our human perception of the physical world. This course spans different branches of math including geometry, linear algebra, logarithmic thinking, and statistics as they relate to a programmer making digital art with our contemporary media ecosystem. The aim of this course isn’t to become calculators, rather strengthen our intuition through historical and ethnomathematics perspectives and foster a new relationship to math. The prerequisites to this class are basic arithmetic skills and an introduction to programming. We will create applications using free and open-source software, including Python and p5.js.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2058-000 (23070)01/27/2020 – 05/11/2020 Thu6:00 PM – 9:00 PM (Evening)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Kraft, Robert
Tangible interfaces are interfaces that you touch. You control them with your hands, feet, and other body parts. Their shape, feel, and arrangement provide feedback. This is where interaction design meets industrial design. In this class, you’ll design, program, and build devices with tangible controls in order to better understand how humans understand and control technical systems through our sense of touch. We’ll discuss physical interaction concepts such as expressive interfaces and utilitarian ones, real-time control vs. delayed control, and implicit vs. explicit interactions. You’ll learn programming and electronic techniques to sense state change, thresholds, peaks, and other signs of user action. You’ll also learn how to design, shop for, and construct housings for the devices you build. On the electronics side, the primary tools will be the microcontroller and common tangible controls: pushbuttons, switches, rotary encoders, rotary and slide potentiometers, force sensors and touch sensors. The class will also cover on-device feedback through LEDs, speakers, and force-feedback actuators. On the fabrication side, you’ll work with the tools of the shop and XXX CAD program. You’ll design and build four projects in the course of the semester. Projects will be designed (and parts specified). Projects will build on the skills learned in Intro to Physical Computing and Intro to Fabrication. Prerequisites: Intro to Physical Computing and Intro to Computational Media, or a working knowledge of microcontroller programming in Arduino; Intro to Fabrication or basic knowledge of laser cutter.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2061-000 (23076)01/27/2020 – 05/11/2020 Wed9:00 AM – 11:00 AM (Morning)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Igoe, Thomas · Light, Benjamin
What is the relationship between American musician and poet, Gill Scott-Heron and cybernetics? Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not be Televised” was created in hopes to wake-up 1970’s America from complicity in societal oppression to then realize the revolution begins in your mind and something created through active participation, not passive media consumption. While, iterated forms of cybernetics also challenge the notion that “technology [or society] is self-correcting”, through fostering design thinking and systems theory through a meta-scale analysis of computational practices, essentially promoting being an observer of systems through conversation with process and feedback loops. Both ideologies center intention and holistic design within innovation — concepts vital to the equitable well-being of society in a technocratic era. In this course, students will explore the origins and history of the internet and HCI technologies as stemming from hippie communes, counterculture and warfare; survey historical and current social relations in the U.S.; study how these social relations have been replicated and embedded into everyday technologies; and consider potential futures in tandem with rapid technological advancements. We will study the works of pioneering designers and thought-leaders from Norbert Wiener, Stewart Brand, and Victor Papanek to Alondra Nelson and Ruha Benjamin. Phenomena discussed throughout the course range from the power of Black Twitter, the social media revolution of Egypt’s Tahrir Square, to cryptocurrency being used in bail reform. After in-depth historical analysis of societal structures, geo-political dissent, and algorithmic patterns, students will engage with futurism and speculative practices, techno-culture manifestos, and design and systems theory to develop a variety of research-driven projects. We will conclude with using both second-wave cybernetics as a design framework, and an anthropological lens to imagine, innovate and design more equitable technocratic futures. Topics heavily examined throughout the course include: surveillance, race, socioeconomics, carceral capitalism and technoscience, algorithmic bias and oppression, and post-work societal structures.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 8 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2064-000 (23447)01/27/2020 – 03/23/2020 Mon12:00 AM – 2:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Melenciano, Ari
As demographics in consumer markets and the global labor forces shift rapidly, diverse, equitable and inclusive (DEI) designers are necessary in all facets of business, from product and service design, to organizational and business design. In this multimedia and interactive Intro to Design for Diversity™(D4D), students will be provided with critical thinking skills to begin viewing diversity, equity and inclusion as design processes necessary for the future wellbeing of humans. D4D is a design framework that marries design thinking with diversity, equity and inclusion best practices and frameworks to illuminate cultural and racial biases. D4D is not only a means to harm reduction, but also a way-finding tool for better business. Students will be provided with historical context and case studies of racially biased practices that are now prevalent in biased algorithms in tech, as well as the lineage of culturally biased media narratives and how that plays a central part in today’s design practices, as well as their negative impacts. Students will be provided with a shared language and the outline of the D4D framework’s 5 Key Areas to enable them to design away from dominant culture, and instead, design for all people.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
1 credits – 2 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2062-000 (23284)02/20/2020 – 03/05/2020 Thu3:00 PM – 6:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Gao, Boyuan · Mantin, Jahan
This class will introduce the basic skills and resources required to pursue a career as an artist. Students will learn the day to day tasks of working artists, such as writing critically about their own work, drafting grant proposals, and planning the business administration of their studios. They will also learn how to balance commercial and experimental projects, collaboration and community work, and teaching and studio practice. They will engage in the critical text about ethical dilemmas of working with art institutions, corporations and academia. By the end of class, students will write a personal statement, update an art portfolio, and apply for an artist residency. While the class will focus on contemporary art and artists, students who are interested in other disciplines may benefit from learning about entrepreneurship, authorship and cultural industry.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 12 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2057-000 (23266)01/30/2020 – 04/23/2020 Thu12:00 AM – 3:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Choi, Taeyoon
Inspired by the Japanese art of Chindōgu, this class will introduce a playful and whimsical approach to learn industrial design. In this 14-week studio format class, students will develop gadgets, inventions, and electronic devices that present absurd solutions to problems, while learning concepts and techniques of design ideation, prototyping, model making, CMF (color, material, and finishes), and manufacturing. This is a production heavy four-credit course, where students will learn about industrial design and tangible interactions. Prerequisite: Intro to Phys. Comp. (ITPG-GT 2301)
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2052-000 (15716)09/05/2024 – 12/12/2024 Thu3:00 PM – 5:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Galvao Cesar de Oliveira, Pedro
Generative machine learning models open new possibilities for creating images, videos, and text. This class explores the idea of how artists, designers and creators can use machine learning in their own design process. The goal of this class is to learn and understand some common machine learning techniques and use them to generate creative outputs. Students will learn to use pre-trained models, and train their own models in the cloud using Runway. For each week, we will discuss the history, theory, datasets, application of the machine learning models, and build experiments based on the model. In addition to Runway, we will be using JavaScript libraries like the p5.js, ml5.js, and TensorFlow.js, and software like Photoshop, Unity and Figma. Students are expected to have taken ICM (Introduction to Computational Media), or have equivalent programming experience with Python or JavaScript. A list of ML models we will be covering: Image generation: StylanGAN: https://github.com/NVlabs/stylegan BigGAN: https://github.com/ajbrock/BigGAN-PyTorch Style Transfer Fast-style-transfer: https://github.com/lengstrom/fast-style-transfer Arbitrary-Image-Stylization: https://github.com/tensorflow/magenta/tree/master/magenta/models/arbitrary_image_stylization Semantic Image Segmentation/Synthesis Deeplab: https://github.com/tensorflow/models/tree/master/research/deeplab Sapde-coco: https://github.com/NVlabs/SPADE Image-to-Image Translation: pix2pix: https://phillipi.github.io/pix2pix/ pix2pixHD: https://github.com/NVIDIA/pix2pixHD Text Generation LSTM gpt-2: https://github.com/openai/gpt-2
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 6 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2054-000 (23367)01/31/2020 – 03/13/2020 Fri9:00 AM – 11:00 AM (Morning)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Shi, Yining
The ways in which we communicate has changed radically in the last 100 years. As the communication systems we use have increased in complexity, so has the effort it takes to understand how they work. Most of us use protocols like LTE, HTTP, TCP/IP, and BLE every day. We take them for granted, almost like we do the laws of nature. But there are more than the laws of physics, more than techniques of engineering, embedded in the design and implementation of our protocols of communication. To understand their role in our lives, we need to look into the societal and economic contexts in which they came to be. In this class, we will examine communication protocols using Raspberry Pi’s, Arduinos, Software Defined Radios, and other connected devices. We will look closer at organizations like iSOC, ICANN and IEEE to better understand how protocol designs are implemented and standardized. Through readings, research and hands-on work we will build an understanding of how these protocols work, how their designs incorporate the physical, technical, cultural, corporate and political assumptions of the actors behind them. In the first half of the class readings and assignments will help familiarize students with some of the different protocols we rely on every day. In the second half, students will work in groups to investigate a communications protocol and consider its impact from a technical, societal and environmental perspective. Final projects will communicate their findings in whatever form students deem appropriate – explanatory blog posts, physical or digital installations, or even videos and podcasts.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 6 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2056-000 (22886)03/30/2020 – 05/11/2020 Mon6:00 PM – 9:00 PM (Evening)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Mattu, Surya
With Machine Learning models are getting smaller, and microcontrollers are getting more computing power, Machine Learning is moving towards edge devices. This class explores the idea of how machine learning algorithms can be used on microcontrollers along with sensor data to build Physical Computing projects. In this class, we will learn about TensorFlow Lite, a library that allows you to run machine learning algorithms on microcontrollers. We will talk about common machine learning algorithms and techniques and apply them to build hands-on interactive projects that enrich our daily lives. Students will learn to use pre-trained models, and re-train the models with sensor data. We are going to talk about Image Classification, Transfer Learning, Gesture and Speech Detection. For each topic, we will first discuss its history, theory, datasets, and applications, and then build simple experiments based on the topic. Prospective students are expected to have taken Introduction to Physical Computing and Introduction to Computational Media course, or have equivalent programming experience with Arduino and JavaScript.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 6 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2050-000 (22889)03/24/2020 – 05/05/2020 Tue6:00 PM – 9:00 PM (Evening)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Shi, Yining
Art, design and experimental electronics can be great tools for inciting discussions of complex issues such as privacy, sexism, racism, economic inequality and climate change. This course aims to provoke thoughtful discussions of pressing issues through the combination of Art, Industrial Design and Embedded Electronics (sensors, actuators, wifi enabled microcontrollers – ESP32, raspberry pis). Topics will include technological disobedience, adversarial design and critical engineering. In this 14 week class, students will combine technology, design, and critical theory to build Art Objects / Interactive Sculptures that are aesthetically intriguing while socially relevant. This is a production heavy four-credit course, where students will learn about new-media critical theory, design and electronics. Prerequisites include an open mind, the drive to make, and physical computing.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2496-000 (11360)09/04/2025 – 12/11/2025 Thu3:00 PM – 5:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Galvao Cesar de Oliveira, Pedro
Introduction to Critical Mapping and Open Source Geospatial Web Analysis and Visualization is an introduction to critical perspectives in cartography and geospatial information systems and web technologies. This course will introduce students to the foundations of geographic data analysis and visualization, grounding practical studio based exercises and projects with critical readings and theory. Students taking this course will gain an appreciation for geographic thinking, learn to ask geographic questions, and apply basic methodologies to “make sense” of geographic data. The course will be conducted with open source geographic information systems and web technologies. Students are not expected to enter the class with knowledge of these tools, but will be expected to learn and apply them through studio exercises and project briefings.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 6 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2049-000 (22872)03/30/2020 – 05/11/2020 Mon6:00 PM – 9:00 PM (Evening)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Lee, Joseph K
This class is a project development studio for interactive music projects —that is, pieces of music that are not linear, but rather offer multiple dimensions for listeners to explore (on their phones in a crowded subway, at an abandoned factory in Palermo, back on their couches after a long day, at a classical concert hall). Students will take a project from concept to execution over several iterations, applying Interaction Design principles and techniques. During the first half of the semester, they will gather aural and visual references, compose graphic notations, and create interactive studies to explore specific elements of their composition. This work will lead to the implementation of the midterm project: a functional, high-fidelity prototype. For their final projects, students will evaluate their midterm pieces from the perspectives of music, visual design and interaction design, and refine them to produce an expressive piece of interactive music. ICM or equivalent experience is required. Some experience in making or producing music will be useful, but is not required.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2475-000 (22929)01/28/2020 – 05/05/2020 Tue12:00 AM – 2:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Pereira Hors, Luisa
Over 7 weeks students in this course will explore different game mechanics, puzzle mechanics, group dynamics, and narrative structures and work in groups to design and build a room sized escape game. We will explore how to design immersive and participatory experiences through play and problem solving. Students will construct weekly puzzles and narratives and in the final week build and operate an “escape room” experience. Prerequisites: Physical Computing and ICM. Comfort with fabrication strongly encouraged.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 6 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2491-000 (22864)01/28/2020 – 03/10/2020 Tue9:00 AM – 11:00 AM (Morning)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Rios, David
ITPG-GT 2491-000 (22865)03/24/2020 – 05/05/2020 Tue9:00 AM – 11:00 AM (Morning)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Rios, David
Autonomous Artificial Artists (AAA) is a class to explore ways of making artworks “autonomous.” In this context, “autonomy” brings together three independent but related criteria: 1) artificial intelligence being a primary determinant in an artwork’s aesthetics 2) autonomous software principles culled from peer-to-peer network design, blockchain and decentralization technology, serverless and federated machine learning, cryptoeconomics, and agent-based multiplayer simulation. 3) crowd-sourced art where mass, unbounded cooperation of many participants creates novel artworks which represent the “hive mind” or collective input. The goal of this class is to learn a little bit about each of these seemingly disparate fields, and see how they may interact in interesting new ways. The idea of autonomous artworks is very new, and is being actively discussed by a small group of interdisciplinary researchers and artists since 2016/2017. Although the topic is highly experimental, it is nevertheless based on concrete technologies, making simultaneous use of several techniques which are under active development and have potentially far-reaching ramifications well outside the domain of art. The time is ripe for people within more design-oriented fields to begin thinking about how they might be used in a broader context. The class has both a theoretical component (learning about each of the individual technologies and their interplay) as well as a practical component: training and deploying generative models on computational environments that are as close to decentralized or autonomous as possible. In addition, we will explore prior notions of crowd-sourced or mass-collaborative art, touching on older principles and strategies such as Oulipo, exquisite corpse, and crowd-sourced computational artworks like Electric Sheep, Exhausting a Crowd, and others.
Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
2 credits – 5 Weeks
ITPG-GT 2497-000 (22882)04/06/2020 – 05/11/2020 Mon3:00 PM – 6:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Kogan, Gennady