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.)
This is a standard digital photography course designed for those with little or no experience in photography. This course will emphasize personal expression through the application of technique to the presentation of subject matter. Open Arts will have enough Sony A7r cameras for students to share. If students plan to borrow the DSLR cameras, they are first required to purchase College Student Insurance, (CSI). While it is not required that you own your own digital camera to enroll in this course, it is recommended that you borrow or acquire your own camera for the duration of this course, or if you would like to avoid having to share one of the department’s cameras with another student. If you would like to purchase your own camera, a digital single lens reflex (SLR) or mirrorless digital camera is highly recommended for this course. The camera needs to have manual aperture and shutter speed controls. The purpose of this course is to develop an understanding of the technical and aesthetic aspects of making photographic images. We will apply fundamental photographic techniques such as composition, framing, lighting and manual camera controls to the images we create. We will discuss the way we see, compared to how cameras and lenses see, evaluate the similarities and differences and how that impacts the creation of images and how we analyze them. Students will make photographs that are effective as individual images and photographs that work together in a series. Students will learn how to create a narrative with a series of photographs and express a feeling or mood with a series of photographs. Class discussions will introduce students to a variety of concepts related to visual literacy. Students will also be introduced to the work of historically significant photographers from a broad range of backgrounds. Students will learn how to use Adobe Creative Cloud software to adjust images for print and digital publishing. By the end of the course, students will understand how to use a digital SLR or mirrorless camera to create compelling photographs using manual controls, process their images using Adobe Creative Cloud software and best practices for publishing their images digitally as well as best practices for printing their images. Finally, students will enhance their critical thinking skills while developing a deeper understanding of visual/photographic language. Students are expected to shoot a minimum of 108 exposures (photographs) each week.
The purpose of this course is to enable the student to gain a heightened awareness, appreciation, and knowledge of dance through movement and performance. We focus on the foundations of dance such as control, aesthetics, alignment, development of strength and flexibility, dynamics, athleticism, musicality, use of space, development of learning strategies within a group context, and personal, artistic expression. The student’s mastery of their body, expression with their body and creativity through their body is the center of the work. Through individual and collective kinesthetic participation in unfamiliar patterns, related, but not limited to China, West Africa, United States, and Japan, the student is physically and conceptually challenged and informed. Using these learned dances as inspiration, students go on to re interpret, improvise and choreograph their own variations on dance forms in their class assignments. Dance experience is not necessary.
This course will explore the basic tools of digital imaging. We will cover the three main Adobe products for creative imaging – Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. Through a series of short assignments we will look at various graphic design and layout ideas using Illustrator and InDesign and will touch on the wealth of image enhancement techniques afforded by Photoshop. The short assignments introduce the basics of design, typography and compositing images. Students have the opportunity to complete a small project of their own for the end of the term. Class time will be divided between lectures, critiques, and work in class sessions. This course is not intended to completely cover the software listed, but will give students a fundamental understanding of the possibilities of digital imaging. While the majority of the class focuses on print media (images, books and magazines), we discuss the growing importance of screen output. We do not have time to cover specific web or media projects, but will address transferable skills and understanding. We will incorporate some Adobe apps to augment the desktop applications. Additional reading materials will be distributed during the semester. Students should have access to the Adobe Creative Suite through the NYU license.
“The smartphone is not only the primary site for digital communication and consumption, it also hosts emerging forms of media production. Let’s investigate the potential of the mobile touchscreen as a creative instrument! This is a project based course, and we will explore by creating and testing a series of functioning web-based toys – including drawing apps, character creators, and writing tools. You can expect to sharpen your skills in javascript and design. “
Today’s internet, made up of mostly text documents and two-dimensional images and videos, is the result of historical limitations in bandwidth, graphics processing and input devices. These limitations have made the internet a place where the mind goes, but the body cannot follow. Recent advances in motion capture devices, graphics processing, machine learning, bandwidth and browsers, however, are paving the way for the body to find its place online. This course will explore embodied interactions in the browser and across networks. Specifically, we’ll explore TensorFlow.js models like PoseNet and BodyPix, and Microsoft Kinect in p5.js and Three.js. Assignments will consider designing engaging embodied experiences for individual and social interactions online. Experience with Node, HTML and JavaScript is helpful but not required. ICM level programming experience is required. The course will have weekly assignments that explore embodied interaction online. Assignments will begin with exploring single points of interaction (i.e. one mouse or one joint), and progress to considering full bodies and multiple bodies in one browser. Students will have a 2-3-week final project with which they will delve more deeply into the subject matter in one piece of work. Students will have readings/watchings focused on embodied and networked user experience. Some influential works that will likely be assigned/discussed are Laurie Anderson’s “Habeas Corpus,” Todd Rose’s “The End of Average,” and Myron Krueger’s “Artificial Reality.” The course examples will be taught in Javascript using web technologies/frameworks. However, students are welcome to work in their preferred medium.
What can cybernetics, the study of how we shape and are shaped by systems, teach us about the sexual and social reproduction of gender and sexism? How does sex become gender and what are the politics surrounding who gets reproduced? We will explore how social regulatory systems are encoded into technological platforms and disentangle how they produce social pressure and govern behavior through somatic exercises, discussion, and project making. In this class, we will not shy away from difficult conversations and work closely together to cultivate a space of openness and mutual support. Discussion and project-making is core to this class. Together we will read the work of scholars such as Donna Haraway, Ruha Benjamin, Paul Preciado, Silvia Federici, & Audre Lorde. Along with lecture, discussion, and in class activities, students will be encouraged to explore their own research interests and personal histories. When projects are discussed, we will practice communicating ideas through presentation as a medium and will co-create a culture of constructive feedback.
Masks have been used around the world since antiquity for ceremonial and practical purposes, as devices for protection, disguise, entertainment and bodily transformation, made to be worn or displayed. Sociologist Erving Goffman wrote about the everyday life as a masked theatrical performance. The performative aspect of our lives today is ever so present in our use of social media, where we present a curated version ourselves for the immediate visual consumption of others. In our `Selfies`, we can assume a multitude of identities and characters. Recent tools and platforms have evolved social media portraiture to an art form and have created new opportunities for artists to create and distribute interactive augmentations, forming new relationships between artists and viewers. This class explores the developing language of social media portraiture enhanced by Augmented Reality. Students will: – review masks in art history, leading up to today – ideate, design and develop an interactive mask (AKA effects/lenses/filters) – learn to use the Meta Spark software to create AR effects. This course requires CL: Hypercinema or equivalent experience.
How can light, sound and design transform the human experience within a given space? How can psycho-geography be manipulated through audio-visual techniques? In what ways have and will technology allow spaces for sonic entertainment to be more immersive and experimental? Through an exploration of audio-visual techniques (i.e. VJing, MIDI-ing devices, sound synthesis, projection mapping, experiments with spatial sonic composition) along with discussions on how counterculture movements have used music and design as a vehicle for political dissent and community building, students will be invited to imagine new club spaces for social contexts beyond pure aesthetics. Assignments will include the development of different forms of interactive spaces for expression. Ableton (and free DAWs), MaxMSP, Isadora, and Unity will be used within this course.
If we consider drawing as one of the most ancient forms of interaction, it has the power to engage users like no other technology. With the right setup and call for action – I’m always taken aback by how a cup full of crayons and a pile of paper can bring the child out of a serious businessman. But how do you pass the strong barriers of users who are afraid to draw? In this weekend workshop we’ll examine various techniques that can spark an interaction which is all focused on the action of drawing. Workshop topics include an exploring into collaborative drawing platforms, interactive drawing installations, drawing machines and drawing as a form of interactive storytelling. We’ll discuss the differences between digital and analog drawing and how to marry the benefits of both mediums. We’ll cover the work of important artist and researchers who are creating inspiring work in the field of drawing and interaction such as Shantell Martin, Zach Lieberman, Tobias Gutmann, David Ha and more There will be various collaborative drawing exercises in class. This workshop is meant for students who wish to focus on drawing as the driving force of their interactions and possibly expand it into thesis. Each student will design and prototype an interaction which is based on the subject of drawing. Alon Chitayat graduated from ITP in 2015, He works at Google as a Sr. UX and motion designer and on a collaborative digital whiteboard called Jamboard.
As game and interaction designers we create systems and choices that can either prey upon our psychological foibles or help us avoid decision pitfalls. It is our responsibility to understand how we decide, to consider the ethics of the systems we create and to practice designing systems in a purposeful manner. Game Design & The Psychology of Choice will provide interaction and game designers with an understanding of the factors that influence behavior and decision-making by looking at the intertwining of cognitive psychology and economics through the development of behavioral economics. These disciplines study behavior on the individual and group level, often revealing some of the why behind the rules of thumb and folk wisdom that game designers come to intuitively. But understanding the why—why we fall into decision traps; why certain tradeoffs tax our brain more than others; why we are overconfident about our abilities; why certain decisions make us uncomfortable—allows us to more purposefully apply our design craft, both in and out of games. Finally, as a class, we will take what we learn about how we think and create series of game experiences based around key cognitive science concepts. Assignments may include: •Mod a cognitive science experiment into a game or experience •Analyze and present a game through the lens of cognitive science and behavioral economics •Create game or experience based around a particular insight from cognitive science or behavioral economics
Computers are able to understand human speech better than ever before, but voice technology is still mostly used for practical (and boring!) purposes, like playing music, smart home control, or customer service phone trees. What else can we experience in the very weird, yet intuitive act of talking out loud to machines? The goal of this course is to give students the technical ability to imagine and build more creative uses of voice technology. Students will be encouraged to examine and play with the ways in which this emerging field is still broken and strange. We will develop interactions, performances, artworks or apps exploring the unique experience of human and computer conversation. Students will learn how to use text-to-speech and speech-to-text technologies, voice assistant devices, generative text techniques, open speech APIs, Node.js, and conversational UI design. There will be weekly assignments leading up to a final project. ICM or comparable programming experience required.
Making words and images public used to be difficult, complex, and expensive. Now it’s not. That change, simple but fundamental, is transforming the media landscape. A publisher used to be required if you wanted to put material out into the public sphere; now anyone with a keyboard or a camera can circulate their material globally. This change in the economics of communication has opened the floodgates to a massive increase in the number and variety of participants creating and circulating media. This change, enormous and permanent, is driving several profound effects in the media landscape today. This course covers the transition from a world populated by professional media makers and a silent public to one where anyone who has a phone or a computer can be both producer and consumer. This change, brought about by the technological and economic characteristics of digital data and networks, is upending old industries — newspapers, music publishing, moviemaking — faster than new systems can be put in place. The result is chaos and experimentation as new ways of participating in the previously sparse media landscape are appearing everywhere. This course covers the history and economics of the previous media landscape, the design of digital networks that upend those historical systems, and new modes of participation from weblogs and wikis and Twitter to fan fiction and lolcats. The course centers on readings and field observation, with three papers due during the course of the term.