Foundation – IMA Course Listings

Capstone

Theo Ellin Ballew | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 400 | Mon 10:40am to 12:10pm in 370 Jay St, Room 407> Wed 10:40am to 12:10pm in 370 Jay St, Room 407 Meetings:14
4 Point, Elective, Foundation, In-Person, No Tags, Spring 2026, Undergraduate

Last updated: October 23, 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!

Creative Computing

Last updated: October 23, 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 | TBD Meetings:14
4 Point, Elective, Foundation, No Tags, Spring 2026, Undergraduate

Last updated: October 23, 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

IMA Cohort: Community is a Practice

Blair Simmons | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 99 | Tues 10:40am to 11:40am in No Room Required (Brooklyn) Meetings:14
Elective, Fall 2025, Foundation, Foundation, online

Last updated: July 3, 2025

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IMA Cohort: Community is a Practice provides incoming IMA students with an opportunity to consider the IMA program, and their role within it. This zero-credit course is based around in-class activities, discussions, viewings, texts, and lectures that begin from the students’ varying perspectives and ultimately provide a grounding within the tenets of the IMA program.
IMA is an interdisciplinary program that draws students from across the United States and around the world. This course functions as an opportunity for students to consider the knowledge that they already have, the contexts in which that knowledge is situated, and how students can relate to and work with classmates who come from their own diverse contexts and backgrounds.
Students will be guided through discussions, viewings, and visits from other members of the university. Because this is a zero-credit course and there are no assignments outside of class, student participation and engagement in these activities is especially important.