This practical, hands-on course will explore questions such as: How can we design engaging, creative learning experiences that are relevant to the cultural goals and needs of today’s youth in China, while laying the foundation for creative learning for the workforce of tomorrow? What are engaging, effective creative learning resources, and how are they best implemented in Chinese learning settings? How can we take advantage of young people’s near ubiquitous love of the arts to facilitate creative learning?’ In this course, students will work in teams to design digital learning resources and experience designs at the intersection of music, coding, arts, and technology. The course will begin with an introduction to emerging trends in learner engagement and design-based research, especially related to web- and mobile-based musical experiences and principles of making music with new media. Innovations in and applications of musical interaction, interactive technologies, user-centered design & engagement, scaffolded learning, creative learning, pedagogies of play and making, and educational entrepreneurship will also be explored. Students will work together in teams and paired with a partner audience of learners and teachers in Shanghai drawn from local and regional international schools, ed-tech startups, and cultural partners. Together they will assess the needs and opportunities of partner students and teachers, and engage in a two-stage iterative, reflective co-design process prototyping custom learning resources and experience designs with their partner end users. At the end of the course, students will present and demo their learning resources as part of a public showcase to an external audience of partners, educators, technologists, musicians, entrepreneurs, and experience designers in Shanghai. Prerequisites: None. Fulfillment: IMA Major Electives; IMB Major Business Elective/Interactive Media Elective; Business and Finance Major Non-Finance Electives; Business and Marketing Major Non-Marketing Electives.
What can machines tell us about the human condition? Is something that appears to be intelligent, really intelligent? Is a device that appears to have likes and dislikes “alive”? As robots and Artificial Intelligence become more powerful and prolific, what makes us unique? This course will address these questions by exploring a series of increasingly complex software “creatures” which seem to have qualities usually associated with living beings. This course will primarily follow a classic text that proposes “experiments in synthetic psychology”, with excursions into cybernetics and how it relates to art. Course material will incorporate both theoretical and practical components. Readings include critical analysis regarding the historical and contemporary theories and practices in these fields. Students will develop software “vehicles” which will embody the ideas being explored. By creating and simulating multiple and increasingly complex vehicles, interactions and behaviors will be explored.
An introduction to the history, theory and practice of computer-aided artistic endeavors in the field of prose and poetry. This class will focus on the appearance and role of computers as a new way for artists to write and read both programming and natural languages. While elaborating and discussing concepts and paradigms specific to computing platforms, such as recomposition, stochastic writing and ambiguity, students will be encouraged to explore their own artistic practice through the exclusive use of their computers, by writing their own programs. As such, Software Art: Text will be a literary history and critical studies course with an active writing component (in both Python and English). Students will be exposed to new creative perspectives on reading and writing in the digital age. Software Art: Text is a complement to Software Art: Image, a 7-week course approaching software and computation from the perspective of the visual arts. The two courses can be taken in series or independently.
An introduction to the history, theory and practice of computer-aided artistic endeavors in the field of visual arts. This class will focus on the appearance of computers as a new tool for artists to integrate in their artistic practice, and how it shaped a specific aesthetic language across traditional practitioners and newcomers alike. We will be elaborating and discussing concepts and paradigms specific to computing platforms, such as system art, generative art, image processing and motion art. Drawing on those areas, students will explore their own artistic practice through the exclusive use of their computers. The course will also serve as a technical introduction to the OpenFrameworks programming environment to create works of visual art. As such, Software Art: Image will be an art history and critical studies course with a studio component. Software Art: Image is a complement to Software Art: Text, a 7-week course approaching software and computation from the perspective of poetry and fiction. The two courses can be taken in series or independently.
The first wave of data science focused on accuracy and efficiency: on what we can do with data. The second wave is about responsibility: what we should and should not do. Accordingly, this technical course tackles the issues of ethics and responsibility in data science, including legal compliance, data quality, algorithmic fairness and diversity, transparency of data and algorithms, privacy, and data protection. An important feature of this course is its holistic treatment of the data science lifecycle, beginning with data discovery and acquisition, through data cleaning, integration, querying, analysis, and result interpretation.
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.
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.
How many types of people are there? When and how will you die? Will you make money? Is the system fair? This fully online course introduces students to topics in data science, probability, and statistics through big life questions. Students learn to code in the R language and use simulation-based methods rather than equations for inference. Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equiv – Satisfies Quantitative Reasoning for some programs; check with your Academic Advisor
This course allows students to harness the power of visual language in order to convey messages and meaning. The elements of visual foundation that will be covered include components (color, texture, image and typography), composition, and concept. Although the class takes place in the Game Design department, we will be less concerned with visuals as they are applied to games and instead will look at visual communication across a wide range of disciplines, from visual art to graphic design to web and interface design. Although non-digital mediums will be addressed, the understanding and use of industry-standard software is also a primary goal. The class is about the importance of visual design, how it shapes our culture. The students will learn about and discuss widely-practiced methods of visual communication, and then find their own voice through developing their own works, driven by a clearer understanding of their own tastes and interested fields.
Introduction to Programming for Games is a course that introduces students to the concepts, problems, and methods of computer programming, and how these apply to the creation of video games. The course assumes no prior programming knowledge, and is designed to touch on the basic principles of digital design in the form of computer code. There will be an emphasis on programming fundamentals; they will be motivated through the lens of designing and producing video games.
Students learn how to design algorithms to solve problems and how to translate these algorithms into working computer programs. Experience is acquired through programming projects in a high level programming language. CSCI-UA 101 is intended as a first course for computer science majors, and for students of other scientific disciplines. Programming assignments.
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.
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.
“How would you like to pay?” A simple question may provoke diversified answers in the digital age. The financial applications of digital technologies, or so-called fintechs have engendered many alternative forms such as QR codes, mobile apps, and Bitcoin for financial activities including payment, loans, and investment. What technologies make these innovations possible? What are the aesthetic norms embedded in fin-tech app designs? How do the fin-tech companies interact with banks, policy-makers, and regulators? While Ant Financial and Tencent Finance make China the leader of fin-tech innovation, how does the global map of fin-tech innovation look like? After all, how have fin-techs re-shaped people’s everyday life, and perhaps will reform human being? Through a weekly three-hour meeting, this course is to make sense of fin-techs from a wide variety of perspectives. Integrating lectures with workshops and company visits, this course will equip students with critical thinking and practical skills that allow them to dialogue with various actors, such as computer programmers, project managers, investors, as well as academic intellectuals. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: IMA Major Electives; IMB Major Business Elective/Interactive Media Elective; Business and Finance Major Non-Finance Electives; Business and Marketing Major Non-Marketing Electives.
This course is about designing your life. What if you used the same innovation principles that startups use and applied them to your own lives? Students are introduced to design thinking as a framework to process their college experience and explore life after graduation. This course will use rapid prototyping methods to test out career interests, engage in behavior design, and ideate on multiple futures. The course will be delivered in a studio setup with in-class design workshops, group discussions, personal reflection, individual coaching and field trips. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: IMA Major Electives; IMB Major Business Elective/Interactive Media Elective; Business and Finance Major Non-Finance Electives; Business and Marketing Major Non-Marketing Electives.
This course examines the role of language in media, culture, and communication. Topics will include language ideologies, register-formation, language politics, standardization, raciolinguistics, code-switching, voicing, speech and text genres, orthographies, fonts, and more. Students will learn to analyze interpersonal and mediated communication-in-context, with attention to pragmatics, performativity and participation frameworks, using key analytics and methods from the fields of socio-linguistics, linguistic anthropology, and semiotics.
A hands-on introduction to the technical & creative uses of digital photography. The class will explore the use of digital technologies to compose, shoot, scan, alter, & print images, as well as considering the ways in which photographic meaning has been changed by the use of the computer. Student provides their own camera & paper.