Tech and Society (New Structure)

Useless Machines

Blair Simmons | IMNY-UT 272 | Mon 12:20pm to 1:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 410> Wed 12:20pm to 1:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 410 Meetings:14
4 Point, Elective, Spring 2026, Tech and Society (New Structure), Undergraduate
Last updated: October 23, 2025
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Useless Machines is about redefining “usefulness.” Through making, we will explore what it means, on an ideological, political and historical level, to create something ‘useful’ or ‘useless.’ We will play with these definitions and explore how these objects serve to be humorous, critical, disruptive and at times… useful. 

We will study ‘useless’ machines throughout history, which will provoke conversations and disagreements around the implications of existing and emerging technologies. The students will design ‘useless’ machines for their final project.  Examples of ‘useless’ machines are drawn from Kenji Kawakami’s The Big Bento Box of Unuseless Japanese Inventions, Dunne & Raby’s Speculative Everything, Stephanie Dinkins’ Conversations with Bina 48, esoteric.codes/, CW&T, Mimi Ọnụọha’s  Missing Data, Jacques Carelman’s Catalog of Impossible Objects, viral videos/objects and much more.

Instructor Blair Simmons Website: www.Blairsimmons.com

Design Skills for Responsible Media (Topics in Media Art)

Art Kleiner | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 260 | TBD Meetings:14
4 Point, Elective, Spring 2026, Tech and Society (New Structure), Undergraduate
Last updated: October 23, 2025
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Generative AI and other digital media affect people in unexpected ways. This is a course in the skills of responsible design and development of all forms of media covered by IMA and ITP. We will look critically at the belief systems that affect design, and will build skills for assessing the unexpected implications and consequences of any new digital project, including generative AI projects. Together, we will create personal and group processes to bring these issues safely to the surface, and create standards and guardrails (a “calculus of intentional risk”) that you can apply to your own work and to work you do in the future. This course is structured around three comprehensive group assignments:
1. Group project: Produce a case study of an ethical dilemma in a real-world tech company, based on news reports and other sources. How did this dilemma come about? How did the company respond? What could they have done differently? We will discuss these cases, and others, in class.
2. Group or solo project: Produce work in any format [not too elaborate] that brings an ethical issue to light.
3. Solo project: Propose a design practicum – a set of ethical standard – that would help you evaluate the impact of one or more pieces of your own work (or someone else’s you know well). Use this “calculus of intentional risk” to explore how you would change the design and use of these projects.
The class lectures will cover themes related to these three assignments, drawing on the instructors’ extensive research in the fields of organizational and technological ethics and responsibility. The recently published book, The AI Dilemma: The 7 Principles of Responsible Technology, will be one resource for the class. We will also draw on work on responsible technology going on elsewhere throughout NYU.

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

Theodora Rivendale | Syllabus | IMNY-UT 260 | TBD Meetings:
4 Point, Elective, No Tags, Spring 2026, Tech and Society (New Structure), Undergraduate
Last updated: October 23, 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

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

Rae Bruml Norton | IMNY-UT 281 | TBD Meetings:
2 Point, Elective, New, No Tags, Spring 2026, Tech and Society (New Structure), Undergraduate
Last updated: October 23, 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.

Topics in Media Arts:Communications and Technology

Shawn Van Every | Syllabus | IMNY-UT.260 | TBD Meetings:14
4 Point, Elective, Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Studies/Seminar (Old Structure), Tech and Society (New Structure)
Last updated: March 12, 2024
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From alphabets to virtual realities, this course will explore the development, reaction, and long term impact of various communication technologies. How have these technologies, such as writing, printing, the telegraph, television, radio, the internet and beyond, transformed society? And what changes can be observed both today and tomorrow? After students look closely at past and current inventions, students will speculate on the future of communication in a connected world by proposing their own transformative technology. Readings and discussion will cover communication theory, technical processes, creative applications, and critical investigation. Writing assignments will be paired with practical assignments where students will be challenged to bring their analysis and ideas to life. The web will also be utilized as a test bed for experiencing and experimenting with various forms of communication both old and new.

This course will be part seminar and part studio. In the seminar portion of the class, time will be spent engaging in short lectures, critical discussions, and reviews of both reading and writing assignments. In the studio portions, students will participate in hands-on creative and technical activities, share and evaluate project ideas, and present practical assignment work. Throughout the class, students will be encouraged to learn through play, experimentation, collaboration, and exploration. Both individual and group work will be assigned.

Topics in Media Art: Useless Machines

Blair Simmons | IMNY-UT.260 | TBD Meetings:14
4 Point, Elective, Fall 2024, IMA Major Elective, Spring 2024, Spring 2025, Studies/Seminar (Old Structure), Tech and Society (New Structure)
Last updated: October 20, 2023
Show Course Description

Useless Machines is about redefining “usefulness.” Through making, we will explore what it means, on an ideological, political and historical level, to create something ‘useful’ or ‘useless.’ We will play with these definitions and explore how these objects serve to be humorous, critical, disruptive and at times… useful. 

We will study ‘useless’ machines throughout history, which will provoke conversations and disagreements around the implications of existing and emerging technologies. The students will design ‘useless’ machines for their final project.  Examples of ‘useless’ machines are drawn from Kenji Kawakami’s The Big Bento Box of Unuseless Japanese Inventions, Dunne & Raby’s Speculative Everything, Stephanie Dinkins’ Conversations with Bina 48, https://esoteric.codes/, CW&T, Mimi Ọnụọha’s  Missing Data, Jacques Carelman’s Catalog of Impossible Objects, viral videos/objects and much more.

Instructor Blair Simmons Website: www.Blairsimmons.com

Topics in Media Art: Politics of Code

Joerg Blumtritt | Syllabus | IMNY-UT.260 | Mon 12:20pm to 3:20pm in Meetings:14
4 Point, Elective, Fall 2024, IMA Major Elective, New, Spring 2024, Spring 2025, Studies/Seminar (Old Structure), Tech and Society (New Structure)
Last updated: October 20, 2023
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Current description based on NYUAD iteration of the course (https://github.com/jbenno/nyuad_politics_of_code). Please be advised this is in the process of being-updated by the instructor.

Deconstructing the design and implementation of software as a political medium and re-building functional alternatives.

Code is political. It is a means of political processes and activism. It is political inherently by the ethical choices often hidden in the black box of The Algorithm. In the course we aim to deconstruct the design, implementation, and data of software as a political medium. We will work through political applications such as simulations, ownership of intangible assets, predictive policing, algorithmic recommendations, suggestions, and filters, social networks, and the blockchain.

Along with an introduction to the related political theory and media studies, students will work on several hands-on projects to offer actual or speculative alternatives to the existing systems. To that end, this course will include several workshops in JavaScript, Python, and other tools.

Big Ideas in the History and Future of Technology

Theodora Rivendale | Syllabus | IMNY-UT.203 | Tues 7:00pm to 8:30pm in > Thur 7:00pm to 8:30pm in Meetings:7-First Half
2 Point, Elective, Fall 2024, IMA Major Elective, In-Person, Spring 2024, Spring 2025, Studies/Seminar (Old Structure), Tech and Society (New Structure)
Last updated: October 20, 2023
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Big Ideas: The History and Future of Technology
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