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.
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.
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.
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.