Media and Entertainment (Old Structure)

Video Art (Topics in Media Art)

Motomichi Nakamura | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 287 | 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.

Digital Creatures (Topics in Media Art)

Jiayi Li | IMNY-UT 260 | Fri 12:20pm to 3:20pm in Meetings:14
4 Point, Elective, Media and Entertainment (Old Structure), Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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In this hands-on 3D class, students will use Blender to model, rig, texture and animate creatures inspired by nature, folklore and machines. Meant for absolute beginners, the course will cover manual and procedural modeling techniques, rigging basics for non-humanoid characters, physically based rendering (PBR) materials, painted and procedural textures, and Blender’s animation tools. Rendering will be the primary mode of exporting 3D content, with a basic introduction to exporting for interactive applications (e.g. Unity, Unreal Engine and three.js).

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.

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.

Alter Egos

Ali Santana | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 297 | Fri 09:00am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 408 Meetings:14
4 Point, Elective, Media and Entertainment (Old Structure), Media Arts (New Structure), New, Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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Alter Egos is a course that embraces abstract storytelling, improvisation, resourcefulness, ritual, performance and self-expression through art and technology. Students will develop original characters based on a series of stream of conscious exercises around identity. They will explore various creative techniques, including costuming, sound design, and multimedia collage while experimenting with unique methods of self expression via audio/visual performance. 

Students will assemble recycled materials, field recordings, emerging tech and textiles into costumes, props and digital worlds that embody their invented personas. This course will culminate as a live event showcasing audiovisual performances by participants in costume as their Alter Egos.

Class discussions will examine notions of identity, technology, community, health, privacy and encourage participants to venture outside of their comfort zone to radically imagine new approaches to creative expression.

Prerequisites: Communications Lab: Hypercinema
Instructor Website: http://www.alisantana.com

Comics (Topics in Media Art)

Tracy White | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 281 | Tues 12:20pm to 3:20pm in 370 Jay St, Room 408 Meetings:7-First Half
2 Point, Elective, In-Person, Media and Entertainment (Old Structure), Spring 2026, Undergraduate
Last updated: October 30, 2025
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Open to anyone who wants to create comics regardless of drawing experience. Drawing experience UNNECESSARY! In this course students will learn the building blocks of comics – the myriad ways to pair words and images, panels, borders and color – by doing weekly assignments, in class drawing exercises and studying specific graphic novels, comics books and digital/interactive comics.

The last two weeks of class will be devoted to a specific project that can be combined with work in another class. Comics are a powerful medium to tell personal stories, narrative medicine stories, as a tool for advocacy, and for producing a riveting tale of your choosing. We will discuss how comics can be used for entertainment as well as a tool for change. Mostly we will MAKE COMICS.

Please bring:

A notebook of your choosing to class.
A uni ball black pen, fine tip.

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.