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DIY Energy (Topics in Physical Computing)

Jeffrey Feddersen | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 240 | Friday 12:20pm to 3:20pm in 370 Jay St. Meetings:14
4 Point, Elective, No Tags, Physical Computing (New Structure), Physical Computing and Experimental Interfaces (Old Structure), Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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Energy is in everything, from the most ephemeral thought, to the rise and fall of civilizations and the evolution of the universe. Energy is the “universal currency” (Vaclav Smil) but also “a very subtle concept… very, very difficult to get right” (physicist Richard Feynman). It is precisely this combination of significance and subtlety that motivates the Energy class.

Understanding energy is useful, important, and fun. This class will help you see energy quantitatively and intuitively, and use that knowledge to make art, get your projects working better, and interpret the world around you.

How? Building on skills introduced in Creative Computing, we will generate and measure electricity hands-on in order to see and feel energy in its various forms. We will turn kinetic and solar energy into electrical energy, store that in batteries and capacitors, and use it to power projects. We will develop knowledge useful in a variety of areas, from citizen-science to off-grid installations, and address topics such as climate change and infrastructure access through the lens of energy. Students will build a final project using skills learned in the class.
Prerequisites: Creative Computing

3D in the Browser (Topics in Media Art)

Aidan Nelson | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 220 | Tuesday and Thursday 12:20 Meetings:7-First Half
2 Point, Elective, Media and Entertainment (Old Structure), New, No Tags, Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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3D in the Browser provides students with a foundation for designing and creating engaging 3D web experiences from the ground up. Students will learn aspects of 3D web programming through a series of practical exercises – drawing inspiration (as well as photos, video, audio, 3D captures, “gaussian splats” and more) from their own lives together into a series of mini-sites.   Project outcomes might include elements of collage, self-portrait, and experimental interactivity, with a focus on bringing meaningful content together in space, developing a personal aesthetic sensibility and learning to work creatively within constraints.

On the technology side, students will develop a familiarity with the three.js Javascript library for 3D rendering, techniques for gathering and preparing media content for the web, and the creative potential of emerging machine learning / artificial intelligence-enabled approaches to 3D capture (Gaussian Splats) and 3D mesh generation within this space.

Creative computing or equivalent web programming experience is a prerequisite.

Video Art (Topics in Media Art)

Motomichi Nakamura | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 260 | Friday 9:00am-12:00pm
4 Point, Elective, Media and Entertainment (Old Structure), Media Arts (New Structure), New, No Tags, Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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Video art is a time based media art form which emerged during the late 1960’s as video cameras and recorders became available to the general public.

Video art is a time based media art form which emerged during the late 1960’s as video cameras and recorders became available to the general public. In this class we will look at both the history of video art as well as new ways of implementing video and time based media installation today. The course will cover topics of projection, augmented reality, video sculpture, public art and interactive installation through a series of lectures and workshops. How do we create video artworks that are emotionally engaging with the audience while they truly represent who you are as an artist? What is a harmonious balance between art and the technologies we use? Through a series of weekly experiments and assignments, students will work with projection, video mapping and combine with various media to hack time based media into meaningful works of art. Class will be divided between lectures, guest speakers and critical discussion/presentation of work.

Intro to Fabrication

Molly Ritmiller | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 242 | Thur 09:00am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 410 Meetings:7-First Half
2 Point, Elective, In-Person, No Tags, Physical Computing and Experimental Interfaces (Old Structure), Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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Time to get your hands dirty. Prototypes need to be created, motors have to be mounted, enclosures must be built. Understanding how things are fabricated makes you a better maker.

But hardware is hard. You can’t simply copy and paste an object or working device (not yet anyway), fabrication skills and techniques need to be developed and practiced in order to create quality work. You learn to make by doing.

In this class you will become familiar and comfortable with all the ITP/IMA 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.

Digital Bodies (Topics in Media Art)

Snow Fu | IMNY-UT 260 | Thursday 2pm to 5:45pm in 370 Jay St. Meetings:14
4 Point, Elective, No Tags, Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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Digital Bodies is an intermediate 3D imaging studio course that examines and explores the current technological applications and conceptual implications of post-photographic digital human simulations. We will regularly study the work that deals with digital bodies by contemporary artists and photographers such as LaTurbo Avedon, Chen Man, Quentin Deronzier, Hyphen-lab, Hayoun Kwon, and Gregory Bennett, and many digital art platforms in various categories, such as artificial human imaging, digital fashion models, and deepfake. We will be discussing the various theories relating to the idea of cyborgs and post-human conditions. Students will be learning 3D imaging skills for building, scanning, appropriating, and customizing prefabricated body models from multiple resources, exploring their movements that both imitate and go beyond the limits of reality and expanding conceptual themes. Besides the technical exercises, students are encouraged to create semester-long self-directed research and a final project using the imaging technology they’ve learned. Artist visits, field trips, and exhibition visits will also be arranged online or according to the public health safety situation. The exhibition of the student’s final projects will be arranged at the end of the semester. *The class is suitable for students with basic skills of 3D imaging in Maya.

Big Ideas in the History and Future of Technology (Topics in Media Art)

Theodora Rivendale | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 260 | Mon, Wed 7:00pm to 8:30pm in Bldg:370 Jay, Room: 409 Meetings:14
4 Point, Elective, No Tags, Spring 2026, Tech and Society (New Structure), Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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This class will provide students with a critical perspective on contemporary issues in media technologies and discuss the history, controversies, consequences, and ethical questions in emerging media. The first half of the class charts a history of media technologies from the 1940s to the present, focusing on the idealogical and social conditions that led to the creation of the technologies that exist now. The second half examines possible futures, and the tools we can use to predict (and build) those futures.

Instructor Website: http://alden.website

The Nature of Code: Motion (Topics in Computation and Data)

Lenin Compres | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 220 | Thursday 5:20pm-8:20pm
4 Point, Computation and Data (Old Structure), Elective, New, No Tags, Programming and Data (New Structure), Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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Can we capture the unpredictable evolutionary and emergent properties of nature in software? Can understanding the mathematical principles behind our physical world help us to create digital worlds?  This course covers the first six chapters of Daniel Shiffman’s The Nature of Code, introducing how motion and behavior emerge from simple physical rules. Students will explore randomness, noise, vectors, forces, oscillations, autonomous agents, and particle systems.  Through hands-on coding projects in JavaScript and p5.js, students learn to translate natural forces into digital motion, bridging physics, art, and computation to create lifelike kinetic systems. The course concludes with a look ahead to the book’s later chapters, which move beyond motion into emergent complexity and offer a glimpse of how similar principles give rise to intelligence and self-organization.

Prerequisites: Creative Computing

The Code of Music

Luisa Pereira | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 222 | Mon 12:20pm to 3:20pm in 370 Jay St, Room 408 Meetings:14
4 Point, Computation and Data (Old Structure), Elective, In-Person, No Tags, Programming and Data (New Structure), Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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This course explores how sound, code, and interaction can merge to create musical experiences that invite listeners to shape the music, not just hear it. Students create a series of browser-based musical systems that respond to users, incorporate randomness, and draw patterns from existing music.

We begin by creating a series of audio-visual interfaces—an instrument, a score/mixer, and a loop-based piece—that invite deeper listening through play. Incorporating elements of sound and music production, these projects turn tools normally hidden in the studio into interactive spaces where listeners, performers, and audiences can engage with music in new ways. From there, we dive into the inner workings of music, examining how sound organizes into rhythm, melody, timbre, and harmony, and how these patterns can be expressed in code. Students design interactive studies on each musical element, reimagining tools like drum machines, sequencers, and synthesizers into experimental, playful, or educational systems that incorporate creative coding, machine listening, and machine learning techniques. 

Classes combine lectures, coding tutorials, listening sessions, design exercises, and discussions of existing interfaces. Throughout, students bring their own musical sensibilities into the work while developing their creative coding skills using p5.js and Tone.js. Students regularly share work and receive feedback, using input from the class to develop and iterate on their ideas. The semester culminates in an interactive or generative piece that builds on the semester’s studies, documented through sketches, demos, and code.

About Luisa Hors: www.luisapereira.net/

Prerequisite: Creative Computing (IMNY-UT 101)

Physical Computing

David Rios | Jesse Simpson | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 245 | Monday 3:40pm to 6:40pm Meetings:14
4 Point, Elective, No Tags, Physical Computing (New Structure), Physical Computing and Experimental Interfaces (Old Structure), Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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This course expands the students’ palette for physical interaction design with computational media. We look away from the limitations of the mouse, keyboard and monitor interface of today’s computers, and start instead with the expressive capabilities of the human body. We consider uses of the computer for more than just information retrieval and processing, and at locations other than the home or the office. The platform for the class is a microcontroller, a single-chip computer that can fit in your hand. The core technical concepts include digital, analog and serial input and output. Core interaction design concepts include user observation, affordances, and converting physical action into digital information. Students have weekly lab exercises to build skills with the microcontroller and related tools, and longer assignments in which they apply the principles from weekly labs in creative applications. Both individual work and group work is required.

Prerequisite: Creative Computing or equivalent programming and physical computing experience.

Networked Media

Sam Heckle | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 223 | Tues 3:40pm to 5:10pm in 370 Jay St, Room 409>Thur 3:40pm to 5:10pm in 370 Jay St, Room 409 Meetings:14
4 Point, Computation and Data (Old Structure), Elective, In-Person, No Tags, Programming and Data (New Structure), Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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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 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.

**** it is HIGHLY recommended you take Front End Web Development (or have equivalent front end web development experience) to get the most out of this course. We will be going over fundamentals of HTML/CSS but it would be useful to have prior knowledge ***

Prerequisite: Creative Computing or equivalent programming experience.

Introduction to Digital Fabrication

Maya Pollack | IMNY-UT 252 | Mon 09:00am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 410 Meetings:14
4 Point, Design and Fabrication (New Structure), Elective, In-Person, No Tags, Physical Computing and Experimental Interfaces (Old Structure), Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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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.

Immersive Experiences

Thomas Martinez | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 282 | Thur 3:40pm to 6:40pm in 370 Jay St, Room 408 Meetings:14
4 Point, Elective, Media and Entertainment (Old Structure), Media Arts (New Structure), No Tags, Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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This course is designed to provide students with hands-on experience creating immersive experiences, with a focus on designing artistic, meaningful worlds 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. This class uses VR as a lens for understanding experience design in general. Some basic familiarity with programming, image-making, and time-based media is a plus, but not required.

Communications Lab: Hypercinema or equivalent experience.

Critical Experiences

Sarah Hakani | IMNY-UT 206 | Thur 09:00am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay Street Room 450 Meetings:14
4 Point, Art and Design (Old Structure), Elective, In-Person, Media and Entertainment (Old Structure), No Tags, Project Development and Research (New Structure), Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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​​Critical Experience is an experiential journey through a research driven art practice rooted in care, community, and somatic inquiry. This class is based on the premise that there are many ways to know things and we can draw upon these ways of knowing and our desire to know in order to nurture a creative practice grounded in research, clear intention, and a critical lens. Critical here means: discerning, eager to participate differently, cast new light on, re-examine, course-correct.

You will be guided through traditional research methods (library and interview techniques, citations, informal ethnographies) and experience design while also being asked to cultivate intentional awareness of your own positionalities, communities, personal strengths, emotions, and desires through experimentation, hunch following, rituals, and contemplative practices.This class was created for or artists/designers who are interested in participation/interaction and its relationship to social practice, critical design, and change-making as well as individuals curious about knowing what moves them.

Why experience? The work in this class will be looked at through the lens of its ability to transform (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.

Creative Computing

Dan O'Sullivan | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 101 | Tues 3:40pm to 6:40pm in 370 Jay St, Room 412 Meetings:14
4 Point, Elective, Foundation, No Tags, Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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What can computation add to human communication? Creating computer applications, instead of just using them, will give you a deeper understanding of the essential possibilities of computation. Conversely, excitement about your project ideas for using computation will best propel your acquisition of skills necessary to realize those ideas.  In this class you will learn to program the computer even if you have never coded before. But more importantly you will learn to develop a “why to program” the computer, at a personal level and a societal level.

Each week there are two small assignments, one to go further creatively with a technology introduced in class the week before, and one to respond with a blog post to writing prompts and short readings, podcasts or videos. Class time is divided into three parts, conceptual discussions of the students’ writing posts, a quick review of students’ “making” assignments, and then a workshop session getting the “hello world” of the next technical skill working before leaving class so you are ready to take it in a more creative direction during the week. 

The primary language used to teach the basics of repeat loops, variables, if statements, functions, arrays, and objects is javascript using the p5.js library.  Beyond that, the topics in the class keep up to date on the most fun and interesting new technologies, from Physical Computing to Machine Learning, to help students learn how, and more importantly, why to program the computer.

Communications Lab

Ami Mehta | Yuliya Parshina-Kottas | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 102 | Fri 12:20pm to 3:20pm in 370 Jay St Meetings:14
4 Point, Elective, Foundation, No Tags, Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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No prerequisites.

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

User Experience Design

Rebecca Blum | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 262 | Wed 09:00am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 412 Meetings:14
4 Point, Art and Design (Old Structure), Design and Fabrication (New Structure), Elective, No Tags, Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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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.

Capstone

Blair Simmons | Christina Dacanay | Rashida Kamal | Allison Parrish | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 400 | TBD Meetings:14
4 Point, Elective, Foundation, In-Person, No Tags, Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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The Capstone Studio course asks students to produce an interactive project (with documentation), a research paper, and a personal portfolio.

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.

Prerequisites: Only available to graduating students!

Intro To Wearables: Adorning the Head and Face for Communication (Topics in Physical Computing)

Daniel Ryan Johnston | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 240 | Thur 3:40pm to 6:40pm in 370 Jay Street, Room 316C Meetings:14
4 Point, Art and Design (Old Structure), Elective, No Tags, Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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This course is designed to provide an introduction to designing wearable technology for the head, face and upper body. It will also present an overview of interaction design for the body. The class will begin with an introduction to nonverbal communication through upper body adornment as well as gesture. Next, the class will move into an E-textile 101 breakdown where we will create a simple circuit using soft materials and other sewable components (hand sewing only). After gaining an understanding of sewable electronics, the class will be working with a Nano 33 IoT along with other components. Over the weeks the class will explore the available example Arduino code in order to create interactions with LEDs and light/motion sensors. Throughout the course, the class will analyze everyday interactions and explore ways of creating wearables that interact with and communicate non-verbally to the world around us.

The course will culminate with a final project and presentation that will incorporate the tools and concepts discussed in class.

Prerequisite: Creative Computing (IMNY-UT 101)

Animation: Methods of Motion

Patrick Warren | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 288 | Tues 7:00pm to 8:30pm in 370 Jay St, Room 409>Thur 7:00pm to 8:30pm in 370 Jay St, Room 409 Meetings:14
4 Point, Elective, Media and Entertainment (Old Structure), Media Arts (New Structure), No Tags, Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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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 effective communication and storytelling through various animation and motion design techniques. Drawing skills are not necessary for this course, however, students will keep a personal sketchbook.

Game Show Design: Buzzers, Bells, and Big Ideas (Topics in Physical Computing)

Patrick Warren | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 240 | Monday and Wednesday 12:20pm-1:50pm
4 Point, Elective, New, No Tags, Physical Computing and Experimental Interfaces (Old Structure), Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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Explore the art and craft of game show design in this hands-on, project-based course. Students will dive into the mechanics of classic game shows, reimagining them as analog experiences, then experimenting with mashups, blending elements of two shows into classroom-ready versions that incorporate custom buzzers, Arduino-based tech, and light fabrication. For the final project, students will work collaboratively to design and produce an original game show, incorporating technologies including, but not limited to projection mapping and live-streaming. Culminating in a live performance in the NYU Performance Garage, this course challenges students to think creatively, prototype fearlessly, and engage audiences in innovative, playful ways.

Caring for Media Arts (Topics in Media Art)

Regina Harsanyi | IMNY-UT 281 | Monday 3:40-6:40pm Meetings:7-Second Half
2 Point, Elective, New, No Tags, Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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Drawing on the instructor’s experience as a preventive conservator and curator of time-based and digital media, this course shares strategies for proactive preservation of artworks in contemporary practices for artists. Students will learn how thoughtful documentation and technical awareness can sustain the integrity and longevity of complex artworks over time, addressing the material and digital vulnerabilities that arise from inadequate planning.

Each week, students will examine conservation case studies to understand the practical and ethical challenges of maintaining variable and evolving media. Through hands-on projects, they will apply preservation workflows to their own works-in-progress or existing projects.

Students will:

Conduct technical questionnaires and develop detailed process documentation.

Establish file naming and organizational systems suited to sustainable studio practice.

Select appropriate file formats and plan for long-term storage and migration.

Identify material vulnerabilities across digital and physical components of their work.

Engage with foundational material science principles relevant to artists and media practitioners.

Participate in collaborative preservation exercises by documenting peers’ projects and implementing shared archival protocols.

By the end of the course, students will have developed adaptable workflows that reinforce a collective responsibility to preserve contemporary art as a living, evolving practice.

 Histories and Critical Media Theories of the Digital (Topics in Media Art)

Rae Bruml Norton | IMNY-UT 281 | Tuesday 9am - 12pm
2 Point, Elective, New, No Tags, Spring 2026, Tech and Society (New Structure), Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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This course introduces students to the various ways scholars have discussed the “digital” and its associated phenomena, including computability, information, algorithms, and networks. Drawing on classic and contemporary texts in philosophy, political economy, and media studies, we will investigate how the categories of race, class, gender, and labor are necessary to any analysis involving the production of digital technologies. If algorithms, data, and the circulation of information help constitute the digital, what kinds of work are necessary? Who does the work? We will keep these questions in mind as we clarify and critique the ways that the digital has been defined. We will take note of our different interpretations and how our various definitions of the digital change over the course of the semester.