Innovation at Speed (Topics in ITP) +

Melissa Parsey | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.2379 | Mon 6:00pm to 8:30pm in 370 Jay St, Room 411 Meetings:7-Second Half
Last updated: March 24, 2025

How do you get more teens to participate in sport? Ensure that generative AI tools don’t perpetuate bias? Or make the process of renting a car suck less? These are some the big, broad questions you’ll tackle as part of this course.

The format: Each week you’ll be tasked with a new, real-world challenge to address as part of a team. To help you, subject-matter experts in research, strategy and design will share valuable, relevant knowledge and frameworks for you to pressure-test. Your team will be expected to use these frameworks to break-down the problem, ideate quickly and present-back solutions. The form and shape of these solutions is for you to define. The only limitation is time.

The goal is to help you hone your skills through rapid, practical application, while also exposing you to new methodologies and expertise that can elevate your craft. Innovation is a practice, not just a process, and at the end of 7 weeks we hope you’ll be more confident approaching ambiguous questions and working with others to shape new, unexpected solutions.

We can’t predict the future, but we know the questions we’ll need to collectively solve will only become bigger, and more urgent. This is a bootcamp for everyone and anyone who’s up for taking them on.

Critical Objects +

Art, design and experimental electronics can be great tools for inciting discussions of complex issues such as privacy, sexism, racism, economic inequality and climate change. This course aims to provoke thoughtful discussions of pressing issues through the combination of Art, Industrial Design and Embedded Electronics (sensors, actuators, Wi-Fi enabled microcontrollers – ESP32, raspberry pis). Topics will include technological disobedience, adversarial design and critical engineering.

In this 14-week class, students will combine technology, design, and critical theory to build Art Objects / Interactive Sculptures that are aesthetically intriguing while socially relevant.

This is a production heavy four-credit course, where students will learn about new-media critical theory, design and electronics. Prerequisites include an open mind, the drive to make, and physical computing.

Developing Assistive Technology +

Anita Perr | Amy Hurst | ITPG-GT.2446 | Tues 5:00pm to 7:50pm in 370 Jay Street, Room 316C Meetings:14
Last updated: March 24, 2025

This multidisciplinary course allows students from a variety of backgrounds to work together to learn about and develop assistive technology. Partnering with outside organizations, students will work in teams to identify a clinical need relevant to a certain clinical site or client population, and learn the process of developing an idea and following that through to the development of a prototype product.
This course provides an overview of some of the assistive technologies currently used by people with disabilities to participate in life’s activities, including those used for computer access, mobility, and activities of daily living (ADLs). Working in small groups, you will work with a mentor with a disability to solve a problem by creating a tech solution making the problem easier to deal with. We have a number of ongoing projects such as developing interactive activities to improve balance of preschoolers with hearing impairments and cochlear implants, or working with a deaf woman in Argentina to develop a tool that can allow her to participate in group discussions. Other projects may include working with people with physical and sensory disabilities. This course provides you your own evidence of the benefit of using client centered design with input from multiple professionals.

User Experience Design +

Peiqi SU | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.3017 | Fri 12:20pm to 2:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 411 Meetings:7-First Half
Last updated: March 24, 2025

This 2-pt 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, apply proven research techniques for approaching and defining UX problems and apply design frameworks including mapping and testing techniques. The class format will include lectures, discussion, in-class design exercises and a final project. 

Week 1: what is UX

Week 2: inclusive research methods

Week 3: frameworks for defining a problem

Week 4: understanding behavior and motivation

Week 5: mapping flow and visual strategies, final project intro 

Week 6: testing methods and future UX

Week 7: final projects

Disrupting (with) Technology: Computational Political Action (Topics in ITP) +

Theo Ellin Ballew | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.2379 | Fri 12:20pm to 2:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 410 Meetings:7-First Half
Last updated: March 24, 2025

This course explores “disruptive” political action that employs new technology. We look at initiatives with various ends and means—some noble, some explosively controversial, and others patently abhorrent. The level of “disruption” also varies extremely—from bureaucratic inconvenience to civilian casualties. However, all the actions express ideological or political protest, either by disrupting technology-driven systems themselves, or by appropriating technology to disrupt non-technical systems of power. Organized via mode of disruption, the class will focus less on the political ends of each action, and more on the modes of achieving those ends. We will also read theorists like Audre Lorde, Laboria Cuboniks, Tung Hui-Hu, Mark Fisher, Hito Steyerl and McKenzie Wark, to help us think about how/when/if recent technology may disrupt, rather than preserve, the status quo. In a world where our technology seems ever more aligned with hegemonic power structures, we must look at the moments where it is used, instead, to veer from them—if we are to see that technology clearly at all. Students will leave the class with a solid grasp of what it means for technology to be complicit in political disruption. Throughout, students will keep an ideation journal in the medium of their choosing, in which they plan their own disruptions and document one guided mini-disruption.

The Art of Projection Mapping (Topics in ITP) +

Motomichi Nakamura | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.2379 | Tues 3:20pm to 5:50pm in 370 Jay Street Room 450 Meetings:7-First Half
Last updated: March 24, 2025

The course aims to teach the technical and artistic aspects of
Projection Mapping, enabling the creation of immersive and
experiential art installations. The focus extends beyond acquiring the
necessary technical skills for producing Projection Mapping works; it
also emphasizes the effective use of the medium to bring concepts to
life. Encompassing various types of projection mapping, such as
outdoor mobile projection, interactive wall, and holographic
projection, the curriculum encourages students to experiment with the
medium as much as possible. The goal is to produce work that
authentically represents each artist and achieves a harmonious balance
between art and the technologies they employ.

Outside The Box: Site-Specific + Immersive Explorations (Topics in ITP) +

Mia Rovegno | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.2379 | Mon 6:00pm to 8:30pm in 370 Jay St, Room 408 Meetings:7-First Half
Last updated: March 24, 2025

This course introduces students to modalities for creating site-specific and immersive art and performance. Assignments will examine the work of artists who challenge the limitations of the physical, psychological and transactional spaces that have come to define conventional production models. Students will regularly receive prompts from which collaborative work will be workshopped, generated and presented. The sites and practices explored will de-center script/text as spine, institutional space as gathering place, linear storytelling as narrative, and separation between audience and artist as social contract. Through group performance projects and presentations, students will investigate how Site evokes Narrative and Event differently in brick & mortar, virtual, historic, liminal, dead, found, contested, democratized and community spaces. Our work will unpack the challenges and opportunities presented when we relinquish creative control of such unfixed elements as serendipity, impermanence, improvisation, audience agency, public space, weather, and pandemic.

Synthetic Identity: Building Expressible Individuality Across Mediums (Topics in ITP) +

Scarlet Dame | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.2379 | Thur 3:20pm to 5:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 411 Meetings:7-Second Half
Last updated: March 24, 2025

I hope to teach a class about synthetic identity and how the architecture, operation, and misuse of technical, social, and political systems has shaped the narratives that we use to tell the stories of who we are and what we’re meant to do. Different technologies present different perceivable surface areas of our identity and distort our presentations in way both harmful and liberating. Can we trace the ways the uniqueness of the individual leaks past the boundaries of different mediums, say handwriting, print, email, SMS, voice, video chat, and virtual reality? Can we explore generative AI not as a stepping stone to general intelligence, but as a already extant synthetic identity – full of perspective, narrative, voice, tone, history, context, presentation, etc. Can we construct a general model for the properties of synthetic identity? Can we use this to create identities that are stored within different physical and digital mediums and that are able to generate and express themselves? Can we encode and represent parts of ourselves, our environments, and the changes we wish to see in the world and place them in direct relationship with others?

Hedonomic VR Design: Principles and Practices +

Michelle Cortese | ITPG-GT.3025 | Thur 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 409 Meetings:14
Last updated: March 24, 2025

To be a VR creator, it’s not enough to learn the hard skills—it’s also our responsibility to prime ourselves for the human impact of our work. As a means to design VR that is both enjoyable and accountable, this class proposes we borrow design principles from Hedonomics, a branch of ergonomic science that facilitates pleasurable human-technology interaction. Through the Hedonomic Pyramid, we’re able to section our thinking off into regions (Safety, Function, Usability, Pleasure and Individuation) and map out industry-tested VR design guidance for each. The result is a hierarchical checklist of proven principles, specifications and practices—that promote a culture of inclusive and holistic design—built to serve as a quickstart guide to designing accountable VR interfaces and systems. This class, divided into units that represent each level of the Hedonomic pyramid, will unpack both technical and conceptual strategies for creating VR, from visual interface fidelity to avoiding locomotion cybersickness to designing safer social VR spaces.

Multisensory Storytelling in Virtual Reality and Original Flavor Reality +

Winslow Porter | ITPG-GT.3026 | Thur 3:20pm to 5:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 409 Meetings:14
Last updated: March 24, 2025

In this course, we will explore how to create immersive narratives that leverage our full suite of senses like touch, taste and smell as well as lesser-known ones like space, time, balance and scale. We will dig into the history of experiential storytelling, starting from immersive theater and Smell-O-vision to cutting-edge haptics and mind-bending illusions of proprioception. To help center this back in practical applications, we will also explore how this evolving art is commonly used in exhibition design, experiential marketing and brick and mortar retail. The class will be a healthy mixture of game theory as well as experienced based learning (meaning there will be field trips and many multisensory VR projects to explore).

We will dig into the process of making the immersive experiences Forager (SXSW, NAB, SIGGRAPH) and Tree VR ( Sundance, Tribeca, WEF, TED), looking at both the project files as well as all of the work that went into ideation and pre-production. All of this will culminate with a show to exhibit all of your final projects.

A basic knowledge of Unreal Engine is extremely advantageous because it is our primary tool for both creating and experiencing projects during the class semester.

Time +

Jeffrey Feddersen | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.2040 | Thur 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 407 Meetings:14
Last updated: March 24, 2025

“A computer is a clock with benefits” writes Paul Ford in Bloomberg’s issue dedicated to code. Time, at once fundamental and mysterious, is of course a basic part of any time-based media, but uniquely more so for programmed media that can evolve as it runs. In this course, we’ll reflect on the deep mysteries of time while also building hands-on skills that will improve our command of temporal media and technologies.

Specific topics will range from the marvelous engineering of historical clocks and orreries through modern computer architecture. We’ll draw inspiration from a technological tradition stretching back at least 2000 years to the Antikythera Mechanism that includes humanity’s earliest efforts to understand temporal patterns in nature. Practically, we’ll build mechanical and software clocks; experiment with time-series data and time protocols; and survey techniques for digital signal processing and software state transitions.

Students will improve their skills in:

– Extracting meaning from data in time-series sets, like sequential sensor readings in a physical computing project or a public API;
– Creating experiences with a beginning, middle and end; a narrative arc;
– Getting to the “metal” in microcontrollers and CPUs;
– Integrating real-time clock modules and network time protocols with projects;
– Using programmatic timelines and variable ‘tweening’ to add grace and sophistication to our creations

Students will execute production assignments throughout the semester. Students should have taken or be taking physical computing, a programming course, or have equivalent experience.

Prerequisite: ICM / ICM: Media (ITPG-GT 2233 / ITPG-GT 2048) & Intro to Phys. Comp. (ITPG-GT 2301)

Designing for Well-Being +

Steve Downs | ITPG-GT.3000 | Fri 12:20pm to 2:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 410 Meetings:7-Second Half
Last updated: March 24, 2025

This course would focus on the questions of 1) what makes people healthy? and 2) how can we design tools and environments that support healthy lifestyles? Key topics to be covered include public health concepts like the multiple determinants of health and the social-ecological framework, plus a little evolutionary biology; the role of behavior in health, key tenets of behavioral economics and behavior change strategies; and systems thinking concepts from Donella Meadows and others. Students will come away with a much more sophisticated understanding of the complex system of factors and forces that affect people’s health; understanding of key systems concepts and some techniques for understanding systems; and experience designing for behavior at scale. A potential final project could be to reimagine/redesign a popular commercial service so that it would have a more health-producing impact — or, alternatively, to focus on designing changes to the ITP environment that would promote better health for students, faculty and staff.

About Steve Downs: www.stevedowns.net

Visual Journalism +

Yuliya Parshina-Kottas | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.2071 | Fri 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 409 Meetings:14
Last updated: March 24, 2025

This course is designed to provide an overview of multimedia storytelling in the service of journalism, with a focus on visual narratives. We will explore a variety of digital and physical story formats, deep-dive into information design principles, create visual explainers and data visualizations based on original reporting, touch on the best practices and ethics of journalism and work on collaborative exercises and assignments. The goal of this class is to help you leverage your current skills to report, develop, design and build a fully-realized news story.

The Medium of Memory +

Simone Salvo | ITPG-GT.3019 | Wed 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 413 Meetings:7-First Half
Last updated: March 24, 2025

What is the medium of memory? In this 14-week studio class, we will dig into this question through creative storytelling. Starting from a lens-based practice, this class will introduce traditional and bleeding-edge documentary methods to inform our own varied approaches to activating archival material. Through weekly “readings” (articles, podcasts, films), written reflections, and creative assignments, we’ll explore:

• how technology has impacted our relationship to memory;
• how visual interventions can can surface alternative narratives;
• how to make under- and unrecorded histories visible, and call into question the power dynamics embedded in “official” records; and
• how we might recast objects and sites of memory-keeping, like heirlooms, journals, and memorials, as a mode of engaged preservation.

Mid-way through the course, students will identify either personal or collective histories to open up to their own individual creative reexamination, memorialization, or transformation––each producing a final project with the technology and approaches of their choosing that serves to answer the question we started with––what is the medium of memory?

New Interfaces for Musical Expression +

David Rios | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.2227 | Mon 3:20pm to 5:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 407 Meetings:14
Last updated: March 24, 2025

In this course students create digital musical instruments and do a live performance using them. Over the semester, we look at examples of current work by creators of musical interfaces, and discuss a wide range of issues facing technology-enabled performance – such as novice versus virtuoso performers, discrete versus continuous data control, and the relationship between musical performance and visual display. Readings and case studies provide background for class discussions on the theory and practice of designing controllers for musical performance. Students design and prototype a musical instrument – a complete system encompassing musical controller, algorithm for mapping input to sound, and the sound output itself. A technical framework for prototyping performance controllers is made available. Students focus on musical composition and improvisation techniques as they prepare their prototypes for live performance. The class culminates in a musical performance where students (or invited musicians) will demonstrate their instruments. Prerequisites: ITPG-GT.2233 (Introduction to Computational Media) and ITPG-GT.2301 (Physical Computing)

Prerequisite: ICM / ICM: Media (ITPG-GT 2233 / ITPG-GT 2048) & Intro to Phys. Comp. (ITPG-GT 2301)

Canvas for Coders +

Joohyun Park | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.3016 | Thur 6:00pm to 8:30pm in 370 Jay St, Room 409 Meetings:7-Second Half
Last updated: March 24, 2025

Your web browser is a digital canvas for 21st-century artists. While being one of the most common mediums today, web space has infinite possibilities for new aesthetics. This course covers Three.js fundamentals, providing students with the skills and insights to create arts in web 3D.

This course requires ICM or equivalent coding experience.

Prerequisite: ICM / ICM: Media (ITPG-GT 2233 / ITPG-GT 2048)

The Body Everywhere and Here (Topics in ITP) +

Lisa M Jamhoury | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.2380 | Sat 11:40am to 6:10pm in > Sun 12:10pm to 6:10pm in Meetings:S-Special
Last updated: March 24, 2025

For an estimated 300,000 years, human experience has been rooted in the physical body. In the past two decades, we’ve evolved to engage through digital mediations—video calls, text messages, social profiles—where presence is fragmented, and embodiment is abstracted. How do we design digital experiences that acknowledge and activate the body rather than ignore it?

This weekend course explores embodied interaction in digital spaces through both theory and practice. We will examine the history and politics of motion capture, the role of presence in mediated environments, and the ways computers perceive and package the body. The course will include group discussions of influential works in the development of real-time embodied interaction, including those by Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, Susan Kozel, Myron Krueger, and Laurie Anderson. Students will work in groups with computer vision and real-time motion data to build interactive experiences that explore digital forms and their spatial impacts.

Emphasizing accessibility and experimentation, this course will focus on using low-fidelity and inexpensive tools that are easy to get up and running with, making them ideal for rapid prototyping and creative exploration. ICM-level programming experience is required.

Game Design and the Psychology of Choice +

Melissa Parker | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.3028 | Wed 6:00pm to 8:30pm in 370 Jay St, Room 408 Meetings:14
Last updated: March 24, 2025

As game and interaction designers we create systems and choices that can either prey upon our psychological foibles or help us avoid decision pitfalls. It is our responsibility to understand how we decide, to consider the ethics of the systems we create and to practice designing systems in a purposeful manner.

Game Design & The Psychology of Choice will provide interaction and game designers with an understanding of the factors that influence behavior and decision-making by looking at the intertwining of cognitive psychology and economics through the development of behavioral economics. These disciplines study behavior on the individual and group level, often revealing some of the why behind the rules of thumb and folk wisdom that game designers come to intuitively. But understanding the why—why we fall into decision traps; why certain tradeoffs tax our brain more than others; why we are overconfident about our abilities; why certain decisions make us uncomfortable—allows us to more purposefully apply our design craft, both in and out of games. Finally, as a class, we will take what we learn about how we think and create series of game experiences based around key cognitive science concepts.

Assignments may include:
•Mod a cognitive science experiment into a game or experience
•Analyze and present a game through the lens of cognitive science and behavioral economics
•Create game or experience based around a particular insight from cognitive science or behavioral economics

On Becoming: Finding Your Artist Voice +

Tanika Williams | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.3023 | Fri 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 412 Meetings:7-First Half
Last updated: March 24, 2025

On Becoming is a two-part professional development course. Finding Your Artist Voice (part one) filters your fears and apprehensions so you can declare your creative process and practice courageously. The seven-week system will help you proclaim your artistic identity, theoretical underpinnings, and trajectory with clarity, precision, and commanding written language. Students will build personalized masterplans and workflows to facilitate measurable professional growth while learning to catalog and archive their work. Students will develop a working artist biography, artist statement, and fully documented work samples. For the final project, students will be supported in selecting and submitting a post-graduate fellowship, residency, grant, or open call!

Performing Online +

Molly Soda | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.3022 | Mon 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 410 Meetings:7-First Half
Last updated: March 24, 2025

This course explores the ways that we perform on and for the Internet. We’ll take a look at how artists have used social media, live-streaming, and multi-user online spaces as a site for performance. Students will conduct their own interventions with the web as a virtual stage.

Note: Performance is a broad and amorphous term! You are encouraged to take this course even if you do not consider yourself a performer or someone who wants to be in front of a camera.

Immersive Music & Haptics: Creating Music for the Skin (Topics in ITP) +

Daniel Belquer | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.2380 | Sat 12:10pm to 6:25pm in 370 Jay Street Room 450> Sun 12:10pm to 6:25pm in 370 Jay Street Room 450 Meetings:S-Special
Last updated: March 24, 2025

This is a demo single day workshop to introduce you to a part of the future of music: how to create an immersive, emotional and engaging experience using the multi-awarded Music:Not Impossible haptic devices. MUSIC:NOT IMPOSSIBLE (M:NI) Music:Not Impossible started 10 years ago to create a better live music experience for the deaf and hard of hearing. We passed this threshold a while ago and we are now creating experiences worldwide for all to experience music regardless of hearing level. We have won Time’s Magazine Best Inventions of 2023, the Edison Awards two times and many other important awards and acknowledgements. We also have been praised by the likes of Pharrell Williams, Lady Gaga and Jon Batiste. THE INSTRUCTOR Daniel Belquer is a composer, inventor and intermedia artist that has been teaching and creating artworks blending music, theater and interactive technology for decades. He is one of the co-founders of Music:Not Impossible, and has been developing the project since its inception.

Multisensory Design +

Lauren Race | ITPG-GT.2375 | Thur 6:00pm to 8:30pm in No Room Required (Brooklyn) Meetings:7-First Half
Last updated: March 24, 2025

Our users have senses that they use to perceive information in different ways. Some perceive best through sight, some through hearing, others through touch. Designers often prioritize visual information, excluding those who benefit from other sensory modalities. In this class, we’ll take a multisensory approach to design that makes interfaces more accessible to disabled and nondisabled users. Students will learn how to design for the senses (think tactile controls combined with atmospheric sounds and olfactory or taste experiences), while gaining an understanding of the assumptions we make about our users’ sensory preferences. Students should come with prior experience with physical computing and fabrication techniques and can expect to learn technical processes for the user research, usability testing, and iterative design of multisensory interfaces. Over the course of 14 weeks, students will design an interface for the 5 senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell), culminating in one final project that includes at least 3 sensory modalities.

MoCap for the Archive +

Ami Mehta | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.3021 | Wed 6:00pm to 8:30pm in 370 Jay St, Room 411 Meetings:7-First Half
Last updated: March 24, 2025

How can motion capture (MoCap) be used to archive, preserve, and share intangible heritage forms, such as performing arts, rituals, and other social practices and traditions? This course approaches motion capture through the lens of ethnography — drawing on techniques of observation, participation, and qualitative design research. This class will offer an overview of different motion capture technologies, such as 2D-3D pose estimation and depth mapping, with a practical focus on learning the OptiTrack system at ITP. We will start by covering the basics of OptiTrack and build up to other workflows and techniques used across animation, game design, and virtual production (e.g. OptiTrack to Unreal Engine or Unity).

Prerequisite: CL: Hypercinema (ITPG-GT 2004)

Computational Text from A to Z +

This course is a survey of programming strategies and techniques for the procedural analysis and generation of text-based data. Topics include analyzing text based on its statistical properties, automated text production using probabilistic methods, and text visualization. Students will learn server-side and client-side JavaScript programming and build single-page web applications as well as bots for social media networks. Additionally, this course will critically investigate and explore open-source and commercial machine learning models for text and image generation. The course includes weekly homework coding exercises and an open-ended final project.

Creative Image Generation (Topics in ITP) +

Yuguang Zhang | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.2378 | Fri 3:20pm to 5:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 407 Meetings:14
Last updated: March 24, 2025

Recent years have seen unprecedented advancements in text-to-image / text-to-video AI models, sparking widespread attention, discussion, and mainstream adoption of these innovative co-creative tools. This has led to a mix of reactions, ranging from excitement and curiosity to concern, anger, and even offense. Alongside this, the growth of open-source models is democratizing access to these AI tools, extending their use beyond experts, tech giants, and professional technologists.

In this 14-week course, we will go over the landscape of text-to-image / text-to-video AIs and dive deep into some of the most well known ones (such as Stable Diffusion, Flux, CogVideoX, Hunyuan, etc.), to see what potential they have in terms of exploring new modes of content creation and helping us re-examine our language pattern. This will be a practice + technique course comprised of three modules: Text-to-Image AIs and Tools, Model Customization, and Text-to-Video AIs. In each module, there will be a hybrid of practice + technique sessions that focus on different topics such as building good prompting practices, image synthesizing, using Python to train models for customized visuals, building workflows with ComfyUI, and creating animations from text. We’ll also discuss how such tools could intervene in the workflows of artists and technologists, what they can provide for researchers, and what are the caveats and things we should look out for when we’re creating with these AIs.

Pre-requisites: Introduction to Computational Media (ICM) or the equivalent.

Understanding Networks +

Tom Igoe | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.2808 | Tues 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 412 Meetings:14
Last updated: March 24, 2025

Interactive technologies seldom stand alone. They exist in networks, and they facilitate networked connections between people. Designing technologies for communications requires an understanding of networks. This course is a foundation in how networks work. Through weekly readings and class discussions and a series of short hands-on projects, students gain an understanding of network topologies, how the elements of a network are connected and addressed, what protocols hold them together, and what dynamics arise in networked environments. This class is intended to supplement the many network-centric classes at ITP. It is broad survey, both of contemporary thinking about networks, and of current technologies and methods used in creating them.

Prerequisites: Students should have an understanding of basic programming. This class can be taken at the same time as, or after, Intro to Computational Media or an equivalent intro to programming. Some, though not all, production work in the class requires basic programming. There is a significant reading component to this class as well.

Learning Objectives

In this class, you will learn about how communications networks are structured, and you will learn how to examine those structures using software tools. By the end of this class, you should have a working knowledge of the following concepts:

* The basics of network theory, some history of the internet and the organizations and stakeholders involved in its creation and maintenance
* The Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) model and standard internet protocols such as Internet Protocol (IP), Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) , Universal Datagram Protocol (UDP), and Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP). 
* Network addressing, private and public IP addresses
* What hosts, servers, and clients are and a few ways in which they communicate
* What a command line interface  (CLI) is and how to use the tools available in one
* The basics of internet security
* How telecommunications networks are similar to other infrastructural networks, like power and transportation, and how they are different.

Alter Egos: Assuming New Identities Through Costume and Performance +

Ali Santana | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.3024 | Mon 12:20pm to 2:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 407 Meetings:14
Last updated: March 24, 2025

Throughout history, musicians have channeled their creativity into outrageous fashion statements and invented personas: think MF DOOM, Sun Ra, Ghostface Killah, Daft Punk, Leikeli47 and Rammellzee. By embracing their alter egos in extreme and outlandish ways, artists have found their authentic creative voices. This course will introduce participants to the art of masquerade using their resourcefulness to create costumes from found materials, and performance as an exploration in creative expression using new media and technology. Students will be introduced to ideas surrounding abstract storytelling, experimental audio + video production, and A/V performance using a combination of technical and hands-on approaches.

This course requires CL: Hypercinema or equivalent experience.

Prerequisite: CL: Hypercinema (ITPG-GT 2004)

Experiential Comics: Interactive Comic Books for the Fourth Industrial Revolution +

Tony Patrick | ITPG-GT.2072 | Thur 12:20pm to 2:50pm in Online Meetings:7-Second Half
Last updated: March 24, 2025

Juxtaposed to traditional comics, Experiential Comics combines emergent tech, unconventional comic book art/structure, and game engines to offer users a more immersive, continuous storyworld experience. Challenging the status quo of classic and contemporary digital comics, students will explore new technologies/world-building techniques better suited to craft innovative comic book narratives and formats –worthy of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Students will ingest a brief history of classic and digital comics formats, collaborate with comic book artists to design engrossing characters, engage in world-building sessions, play with Unity/Unreal engines to generate avatars/ virtual environments, work with actors in motion capture/volumetric capture studios, learn the latest iteration of the Experiential Comics format, and share their unique expressions of Experiential Comics in a final presentation.

Throughout a 7-week period, the course will be divided into 7 themes 1) The Disconnection of Digital Comics 2) Classic and Unconventional Comics Continuity 3) Marvel vs DC vs Insert Your Universe Here 4) Fourth Industrial Revolution Technologies 5) Capture & Creation 6) Infinite Engagement and Unlocking Immersive Format 7) Experiential Comics Presentations. Each weekly class will be divided into two halves 1) Exploration of Theme/Discussion 2) Process, Practices, & Play.

This course requires CL: Hypercinema or equivalent experience.

Future of Media and Technology +

Art Kleiner | Juliette Powell | ITPG-GT.2297 | Mon 12:20pm to 2:50pm in 370 Jay Street Room 450 Meetings:14
Last updated: March 24, 2025

This course covers the next several years of evolution in technology, culture, and other trends. It uses scenario planning, a technique for considering complex interrelationships that can’t be predicted, distinguishing predetermined elements from critical uncertainties, and exploring the underlying patterns that influence events. Students will conduct original research on significant trends, use those trends to develop compelling, sophisticated, plausible stories about possible futures, and present the futures – and the strategies they suggest – to a public audience. The course will take place at a pivotal moment of historical uncertainty: recovering from a global pandemic, with AI and other digital technologies crossing a threshold, and dramatic political and economic tensions. All of these, and more, affect media development – and are deeply affected by them. The goal of the course is to enable you to make more robust decisions now in the face of uncertainty — applicable to planning for technological change, starting a business, plotting a career or making major life decisions. This class has developed a longstanding following at ITP because it helps us make sense of complex issues without oversimplifying them. In a climate of candid, respectful discussion and debate, the class explores theories about system dynamics, long-wave organizational and societal change, and economic and technological development.

Addendum from former student:

As I wake up to the serious news of Ukraine, I am reminded of the prediction that I and my classmates Jerllin Cheng and Susanne Forchheimer made while taking a class at NYU-ITP called “Future of New Media,” taught by the great Art Kleiner , which is easily one of the most important classes I’ve ever taken in my life. In this class, Art taught us the craft of prediction in order to make tech art/products that speak to the near future.
It was 2014, and using his strategic workflow, he asked our class to predict what would 2020 be like. Although no one predicted a pandemic, some did predict things likes smart homes etc. But our group was bold enough to predict a “Cyber Cold War,” given Russia’s annexation of Crimea and other developments in China going on during the time of the class. Our presentation went into interesting detail that speculated the end of an open internet, and a further lockdown of borders and increase in video chats for that reason (which did happen in 2020 but for the pandemic), but let’s hope that is not the case now!
Certainly no fear-mongering happening here- just wanted to share that we made a pretty good prediction and that Art Kleiner’s method is incredible (buy his books). Our hearts are with Ukraine and the world.

Designing for Digital Fabrication +

Daniel Rozin | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.2890 | Wed 12:10pm to 2:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 408 Meetings:14
Last updated: March 24, 2025

The ability to digitally fabricate parts and whole pieces directly from our computers or design files used to be an exotic and expensive option not really suitable for student or designer projects, but changes in this field in the past 5 years have brought these capabilities much closer to our means, especially as ITP students. ITP and NYU now offer us access to laser cutting, CNC routing, and 3D stereolithography. In this class, we will learn how to design for and operate these machines. Emphasis will be put on designing functional parts that can fit into a larger project or support other components as well as being successful on a conceptual and aesthetic level. In this class, we will discover methods to design projects on CAD applications for total control of the result, and we will develop algorithmic ways to create designs from software (Processing) to take advantage of the ability to make parts and projects that are unique, customizable, dependent on external data or random. The class will include 3 assignments to create projects using the three machines (laser, router, 3D) and the opportunity to work on a final project.

Fabricating Mechanical Automatons (Batteries Not Included) +

Josh Corn | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.3034 | Thur 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 408 Meetings:14
Last updated: March 24, 2025

How do we make things move, produce sounds, or maybe even emit light without batteries? Through this course, each student will design their own purely mechanical automaton. We will learn how to use simple materials and tools to hand prototype mechanisms in their early stages. CAD software will be used to refine the designs and then a series of traditional and digital fabrication tools (various wood shop tools, laser cutter, CNC, 3D printers, etc.) will be used to produce the final pieces. We will learn how to work iteratively in the shop through weekly exercises, and a midterm and final project.

Design Research +

This course will focus on a range of human-centered design research and innovation workshop methodologies including Design Thinking, LEGO Serious Play, Lean UX, Google Ventures Sprints, Gamestorming, Futurecasting, and Service Design. Students will look for design opportunities within the unprecedented challenges that we are currently facing as global citizens. Students will define a problem space based on the drivers that they’re most interested in exploring and will have the option to work alone or form small design research teams. They will learn how to conduct primary and secondary research, creating deliverables such as personas, journey maps, concept canvasses, and prototypes. Students will be required to apply design research approaches and workshop methodologies, develop and test a rapid prototype and then share their work in a final presentation.

Textile Interfaces +

Kate Hartman | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.2030 | Sat 11:00am to 5:15pm in > Sun 11:00am to 5:15pm in Meetings:S-Special
Last updated: March 24, 2025

Want to make an interface that can be squished, stretched, stroked, or smooshed? This course will introduce the use of electronic textiles as sensors. Focus will be placed on physical interaction design – working with the affordances of these materials to create interfaces designed to invite or demand diverse types of physical interaction. This course does not require knowledge or love of sewing – a variety of construction methods will be introduced. It will rely on a physical computing approach, with Arduino being used to read sensor values. Working with a breadth of conductive and resistive materials, students will learn to design and create bespoke alternative interfaces that can live in our clothing, furniture, and built environments.

Prerequisite: Intro to Phys. Comp. (ITPG-GT 2301)

Bioprinters & Biofabrication for Artists (Topics in ITP) +

Matt Griffin | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.2379 | Fri 12:20pm to 2:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 411 Meetings:7-Second Half
Last updated: March 24, 2025

Biofabrication has existed as a concept for many decades to refer to technologies for fabricating living tissue constructs in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The collective ambition across thousands of scientists, hospitals, and labs remains the creation of entire solid human organs to address the urgent demand for transplantable living organs that the donor system is unable to meet. Within this research are also approaches to organ-on-a-chip/microphysiological systems that are already transforming the trajectory of how we develop medicines, evaluate cosmetics and materials without animal testing, and finally gain more systemic understanding of pivotal under-researched areas such as human reproductive health and the behavior of nimble systemic cancers.

But this phrase has now also been co-opted by industrial design and product development as the label for the customer and designer driven movement to get beyond traditional manufacturing methods towards sustainable and nature-inspired approaches that lean on living organisms and biological materials as the means to create new materials and products. Everything from fibers and textiles, “vegan leather,” and carbon-capturing construction materials, to fully compostable packing peanuts and highly optimized hypoallergenic skin contact materials that outperform conventional animal-grown hairs and synthetic fibers.

This course gleefully embraces both of these definitions at the same time!

This Topics in ITP 2-credit course starts with the students modifying off-the-shelf low-costs 3D printers into a syringe-extruder bioprinting platform suited to FRESH bioprinting, a unique form of embedded fabrication that is well suited to a range of compelling biomaterials and biofabrication targets within the scope of what materials are safe for students to handle and process in the ITP Materials Kitchen. By building these extruders, modifying these printers, and learning to process a wide range of unique biomaterials, students will have mastered the skills needed to build, tune, and operate this equipment in future collaborations with local area science labs and startups. As a bonus, this course works directly with the inventors of the open source FRESH bioprinting process to evaluate and test unreleased new innovations in bioprinter extruder designs, and the students will join the instructor to participate as affiliates in the collaborative FRESH scientific community, including sharing back improvements in machine modification, slicing, and machine operation with other scientists and physicians working with FRESH.

On the biofabrication side, the “analog materials” that we use with the FRESH bioprinters that mimic the natural extracellular matrix (ECM) of biological systems are not only a means of testing and exploring the type of embedded fabrication used in “direct writing” delivery of living cells, these materials are also the key materials used in the industrial design research into sustainable design via biofabrication: collagen, gelatin, alginate, hyaluronic acid, fibrin, chitosan, PEG, and several others. Drawing on a wide range of safe biomaterial exploration introduced by molecular gastronomy and sustainable materials research, students will learn protocols and modifications of materials that may prove useful to them elsewhere in their art and design practices.

It might be something of a lucky coincidence that both the biological research and new materials research overlap with so many of their materials exploration, but this course will make a claim that these parallel efforts share commonalities. This course aims to introduce students to this pioneering technology with attention to how creative technologists might also repurpose these approaches for working with their own target materials and objectives, intervening with these technologies. The creative problem solving that scientists, engineers, clinicians, and biomaterials experts go through to find their route to sustaining living cells and tissues parallels how artists, designers, engineers, and architects look to harvest new properties and capabilities out of their materials. Just as the bioprinting platforms we construct in this course are flexible to multiple goals and materials processes, we will encourage our thinking to also look to learn unexpected properties and potentials from the materials and protocols we encounter.

Intro to Fabrication +

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 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.

Shared Minds +

Dan O'Sullivan | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.3033 | Wed 12:20pm to 2:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 407 Meetings:14
Last updated: March 24, 2025

This class asks students to think about thinking. Based on first person introspection, meditation and readings in psychology, students will examine the experience of their minds. Then we look at how computation works as a medium to capture and share that experience. Class time is evenly divided between conceptual discussions around the psychology of media, looking at student work, and learning coding skills for the following week. The goal is for students to improve web based social media.

On the technical side, the class gently picks up from any introductory javascript coding class moving away from the P5 to create 2D interfaces with vanilla javascript in an environment of Visual Studio Code, Github and Copilot. Using APIs, we explore the hyper dimensional space of popular machine learning models. Using Firebase databases we then introduce the ability to make media social by sharing our creations across time and with other people. We then pop the hood a bit using google colab notebooks to go beyond the functionality of the ML API’s. Finally the class looks to expose the vast connections from these hyperdimensional models back into 2D or 3D (three.js library) interfaces to reach your body using UMAP dimensions reduction and embodied interfaces like VR, ML5 or P5LiveMedia. The class uses web technologies in the hope of improving the web media ecosystem and so game engines will not work for this class. Each week students are expected to produce a quick sketch playing with the tech and imagine its application as a tool of improved communication.

In tandem with this technical journey each week there are conceptual readings and prompts asking students about how the technology aligns with the way they think. In a short blog post students are asked to take a critical look for the shortcomings of existing computational media and for ways we can make better media for connecting people with a better understanding of the mind. At the end of the semester students work on a final project using some or all of the concepts and technologies from the class.

Socially Engaged Art and Digital Practice +

Artificial intelligence, basic communication, data processing, image manipulation, and even financial systems have transformed our social and political worlds and our artistic practice. This course will examine the material, ethical, and esthetic implications of a digital and networked world through the lens of socially engaged art, where art and creative work intersect directly with people and civic life. This includes discussion of how digital and networked tools both increase and complicate physical, economic, and cultural accessibility, and the ethical and social implications of the newest technologies. We will focus especially on the impact that new technologies have on the environment.

We will concentrate on creating projects that examine and critique the inner workings of digital practice through socially engaged work. Students will be asked to propose several projects as thought experiments, and fully realize one online/digital socially engaged project. We will review and discuss the different definitions of “socially engaged art” and address the ethics of developing new technologies, including discussions about “best practices,” and investigate how we approach the physical and digital social spaces around us.

We will look at artists like Stephanie Dinkins, Kyle McDonald, Ari Melenciano, and the group Forensic Architecture. We will have some meetings and activities in public spaces, field trips to organizations such as Eyebeam and Genspace, and guest lecturers.

Please feel free to reach out to me directly if you have questions about taking the course, or the course content.

Project Development Studio +

Pedro Galvao Cesar de Oliveira | ITPG-GT.2564 | Tues 3:20pm to 5:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 409 Meetings:14
Last updated: March 24, 2025

This is an environment for students to work on their existing project ideas that may fall outside the topic areas of existing classes. It is basically like an independent study with more structure and the opportunity for peer learning. This particular studio is appropriate for projects in the area of interactive art, programing, physical computing and digital fabrication. There are required weekly meetings to share project development and exchange critique. Students must devise and then complete their own weekly assignments updating the class wiki regularly. They also must present to the class every few weeks. When topics of general interest emerge, a member of the class or the instructor takes class time to cover them in depth. The rest of the meeting time is spent in breakout sessions with students working individually or in groups of students working on related projects.

Prototyping Electronic Devices +

Deqing Sun | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.2845 | Fri 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 410 Meetings:14
Last updated: March 24, 2025

The most difficult part of prototyping is not the building process, but the process of deciding how to build. If we choose proper technology for prototypes, we can improve their robustness and simplicity.

This course will cover available and affordable technologies for ITP students to build prototypes. The course will start with soldering, wiring and LED basics. Then students will design an Arduino compatible board in Eagle, get it fabricated, assembled. And then using the debugger to dig deeper to understand how a microcontroller works.

The class will also cover multitasking, signal processing, communication, document writing and advanced skills beyond the Intro to Physical Computing class.

Each session will have lectures followed by in-class practices with guidance. The 14-week long assignment is called Do It Once – Do It Again. Bringing an idea or ongoing projects is highly encouraged.

This course requires Physical Computing or equivalent experience.

Prerequisite: Intro to Phys. Comp. (ITPG-GT 2301)

The Code of Music +

This course explores music through the lenses of computation and interactivity.

The first part of the semester consists of a structured exploration of rhythm, melody, timbre, and harmony, from the perspectives of code, design, and music theory. For each musical element, we will hold listening sessions, represent and manipulate the element in code, and create an interactive study around it.

During the second half of the semester we will cover algorithmic composition techniques such as Markov Chains, Neural Networks and L-systems. As students work toward their final projects, assignments will take a more self-directed approach. Professional practitioners will come in to share their work in the field and give students feedback on their projects.

In-class coding and assignments will be done in P5.js + Tone.js, but students will be free to use other languages and frameworks for their final projects. ICM or equivalent programming experience is required.

This class is a good fit for students who are interested in:

– Creating interactive music pieces and digital instruments
– Deepening their understanding of how music works
– Continuing to develop coding skills acquired in ICM

Prerequisites: Introduction to Computational Media (ICM) or equivalent programming experience is required.
About Luisa Hors: https://www.luisapereira.net/

Dynamic Web Development +

Dynamic Web Development introduces the fundamentals of building “full stack” web applications. This course will focus on modern, client- and server- side web technologies and provide practical methods for approaching web development for creative and functional applications. The core technologies used in this course are HTML5, JavaScript, Node.js with the Express framework, and MongoDB database. Students will learn to design, develop, and deploy web applications and gain the necessary skills to extend and explore web development independently.

Prerequisite: ICM

Bioprinting & Biofabrication for Artists & Designers (Topics in ITP) +

Matt Griffin | Syllabus | ITPG-GT.2379 | Fri 3:20pm to 5:50pm in Meetings:7-First Half
Last updated: March 21, 2025

Biofabrication has existed as a concept for a very long time to refer to technologies for fabricating living tissue constructs, with the aim of creating entire solid organs. But only within the past fifteen years have scientists and engineers created machine platforms suited to repeatable results that bring them closer to their goals, bringing into existence 3D bioprinters with a wide array of strategies and materials. Some of this development was made possible by scientists modifying, manipulating, or reverse engineering open-source 3D printers and RepRaps to create the equipment they needed. (Technology that many at ITP may already have familiarity with.) The initial machine-assisted fabrication stage is often only the starting point for much longer research studies in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, involving the translations of form, chemistry, cell-types, and biomaterials and other interventions that make it possible for scientists to collaborate with cells and living systems to produce living matter. Sometimes (often!) the fabricated structures contain no cells themselves: they are a biomaterial scaffold, or similar forms that are more about making the conditions right for the next stage of the experiment. 

And this leads to a compelling opportunity for artists and designers. The creative problem solving that scientists, engineers, clinicians, and biomaterials experts go through to find their route to living cells and tissues parallels how artists, designers, engineers, and architects produce their work. While not every student at ITP intends to become a bioengineer, many are interested in biological systems, biomaterials and bioplastics, mycelium forming, and bio-inspired design. This course draws on a selection of open-source bioprinting & biofabrication processes (that are closely tied with 3D printing technology) to introduce students to this pioneering technology with attention to how artists and designers might also repurpose these approaches for working with their own target materials and objectives, intervening with these technologies.