In-Person – Forum for ITP Class Listings

Web Art as Site +

Theo Ellin Ballew | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2094 | Tues 12:20pm to 2:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 410 Meetings:14
4 Point, art,, css, e-literature, e-poetry, Elective, github, Graduate, html, hypertext, In-Person, internet, jquery, net.art, readings, Spring 2026, unity, web art, webart, web_design

Last updated: October 31, 2025

WEB ART AS SITE addresses the history and practice of art made for and inseparable from the web, while teaching basic coding for the web. We explore key examples of web art from the early days of the internet through today, asking questions about this idiosyncratic artistic medium like: How do different forms of interaction characterize the viewer and/or the artist? What happens to our reading practice when text is animated or animates? How is an internet-native work encountered, and how does the path we take to reach it affect our reading? Who is able to see a work of web art, and what does access/privilege look like in this landscape? How are differently-abled people considered in a web artwork? What feels difficult or aggressive in web art, and when is that useful? How do artists obscure or reveal the duration of a work, and how does that affect our reading? What are the many different forms of instruction or guidance online? As we ask these questions, we exploit the internet pedagogically, collaborating online, playing with anonymity, and breaking the internet spaces we know.

Students learn web coding through specialized online tutorials; most of class time is reserved for discussion (of web art and supplementary readings) and critique. Throughout the semester, students will produce two major works of web art. Students need only a standard laptop, and will not be expected to purchase any software or text (cost of materials: $0).

The New Arcade +

Mark Kleback | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2063 | Thur 6:00pm to 8:30pm in 370 Jay St, Room 407 Meetings:14
4 Point, CNC fabrication, creative, design, Elective, fun,, fusion360, game, game design, Graduate, In-Person, pcomp, Spring 2026, unity

Last updated: October 31, 2025

With platforms like Steam and Itch.io making independent games more accessible to the public, we’re starting to see a movement toward physical installations of indie games as well. The New Arcade pays tribute to arcade cabinet designs of the 80’s and 90’s, but infuses them with new interfaces and digitally fabricated components.

In this class, students will learn how to use the Unity game engine to design a simple arcade game. They’ll learn about aspects that separate an arcade game from other types of games, and interface their game with different kinds of hardware using microcontrollers.

In the second half of the class, students will use Fusion360 to construct a new arcade experience using digital fabrication tools like laser cutters, and CNC machines. The class will culminate in a physical installation that showcases their game in a public gallery.

Prerequisites: Physical Computing

About Mark Kleback: wonderville.nyc

The Nature of Code +

Daniel Shiffman | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2480 | Wed 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 407 Meetings:14
4 Point, ai, algorithm, algorithms, automata, cellular, cellularautomata, code, codesimulation, coding, codingtrain, creative, creativecode, creative_coding, danshiffman, ecosystems, Elective, engines, forces, fractals, generative, generative art, geneticalgorithms, Graduate, In-Person, java, javascript, learning, machine, machinelearning, math, naturalsystems, nature, natureofcode, of, organisms, oscillation, p5, p5.js, p5js, particlesystems, physics, physicsbasics, physicsengine, physicssimulation, processing, programming, randomwalk, shiffman, simulation, Spring 2026, survey, system, systems, trig, vectors

Last updated: October 31, 2025

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 class focuses on the programming strategies and techniques behind computer simulations of natural systems. We explore topics ranging from basic mathematics and physics concepts to more advanced simulations of complex systems. Subjects covered include physics simulation, trigonometry, self-organization, genetic algorithms, and neural networks. Examples are demonstrated in JavaScript using p5.js.

natureofcode.com/

The Code of Music +

Luisa Pereira | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2653 | Tues 12:20pm to 2:50pm in 370 Jay Street, Room 426 Meetings:14
4 Point, algorithms, and, art,, audio, awesome, build, code, coding, composition, creativecoding, creative_coding, demystified, design, Elective, experience, generative, Graduate, helpful, In-Person, installation, interaction, interaction_design, interactive, interdisciplinary, javascript, markov, music, musictheory, p5, p5.js, p5js, production, projects, sound, Spring 2026, tech, theory, tone.js, tonejs, user, visual, web, webaudio

Last updated: October 31, 2025

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.

Prerequisites: Introduction to Computational Media (ICM) or equivalent programming experience is required.

About Luisa Hors: www.luisapereira.net/

Synthetic Architectures +

Jonathan Turner | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2177 | Wed 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 410 Meetings:14
3d, 4 Point, architecture, art,, challenging, design, Elective, engine, experience, fun,, futurism, game development, Graduate, imagination, immersive, In-Person, installation art, interaction, interactive, interactive media, maya, modeling, performance art, philosophy, psychology, reality, social, space, speculativedesign, Spring 2026, technical, theory, thoughtful, ue4, unreal, unrealengine, video art, virtual, virtualreality, vr, world-building, worldbuilding, xr

Last updated: October 31, 2025

For better or worse humanity is heading down the virtual rabbit hole. We’re trading an increasingly hostile natural environment for a socially networked and commercially driven artificial one. Whether it’s the bedrooms of YouTube streaming stars, the augmented Pokestops of Pokemon Go, the breakout rooms of a Zoom meeting, or even the “airspace” of Airbnb; we are witnessing a dramatic transformation of what occupying space means. The socially distanced measures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic have only accelerated this societal embrace of the virtual.

So where are these dramatic spatial paradigm shifts occurring? Who owns and occupies these spaces? Who are the architects and what historical and ethical foundations are they working from? What world do they want to build for humanity and where does the creative individual fit into it? Will it be a walled garden, a role-playing adventure or a tool for creating more worlds?

The course will ask students to embrace the role of virtual architect, not in the traditional brick-and-mortar sense of constructing shelter, but in terms of the engagement with the raw concept of space. However this virtual space must be considered and evaluated as a “site,” that is activated and occupied by real people and all the limitations of physical space that they bring with them from the real world. This is the foundation of synthetic architecture; simulated space met with biological perception.

This conceptual architecture is free from the confines of physics but host to a whole new set of questions: How do we embrace the human factors of a dimensionless environment? How do we make or encourage meaningful interactions within the limits of current technology? New models of interaction must inform and shape the architecture of virtual space – what does that look like? How can architecture and aesthetics inform the creation of virtual environments and immersive narratives? How do we acutely consider the psychological and social impacts of the worlds we design and what is the metaphorical ground plane to make sense of this virtual world, unbound by physics?

About Jonathan Turner: http://www.jonathanwilliamturner.com/about/

Reading and Writing Electronic Text +

Allison Parrish | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2778 | Fri 12:20pm to 2:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 407 Meetings:14
4 Point, ai, allison, analysis, computer, computergeneratedtext, connection, creative, critical, culture, data, Elective, english, excellent, fun,, generative, generativetext, Graduate, In-Person, interactive, language, machinelearning, markovchains, nlp, No Tags, performance, poem, poems, poetry, programming, python, random, reading, research, Spring 2026, text, textanalysis, thinking, writing

Last updated: October 31, 2025

This course introduces the Python programming language as a tool for reading and writing digital text. This course is specifically geared to serve as a general-purpose introduction to programming in Python, but will be of special interest to students interested in language and computer-generated text. Among the topics we’ll discuss are: the history and aesthetics of computer-generated writing in literature and the arts; computational linguistics; ethics and authorship in the context of computer-mediated language; poetic structure and sound symbolism; performance and publishing. Programming topics covered include: data structures (lists, sets, dictionaries); strategies for making code reusable (functions and modules); natural language processing; grammar-based text generation; predictive models of text (Markov chains and neural networks); and working with structured data and text corpora. Weekly programming exercises and readings culminate in a final project. Prerequisites: Introduction to Computational Media or equivalent programming experience.

Prerequisite: ICM

Playful Experiences +

Gregory Trefry | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2467 | Thur 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 408 Meetings:14
4 Point, behavior, biggames, collaborative, creative, design, Elective, engaging, Experience Design, experiencedesign, fun,, game, game design, gamedesign, games, game_design, gaming, Graduate, handson, immersive, In-Person, interaction, interactions, joy, passion, physical play, play, playful, relaxing, social play, space, Spring 2026, theory, time

Last updated: October 31, 2025

Forget the screen. People want to be part of the action. They don’t want to watch detectives and control superhero avatars. They want to solve the mystery and be the hero. They want to experience it. We see this craving for playful experience in everything from immersive theater to escape rooms to the Tough Mudder to gamified vacation packages. Designing live experiences for large audiences that demand agency offers a distinct set of challenges, from how much choice you give each participant to how many people you can through the experience. We’ll look at examples from pervasive games to amusement parks to immersive theater, examining both the design choices and technology that make the experiences possible. Along the way we’ll create large, playful experiences that put the participant at the center of the action.

About Greg Trefry: www.giganticmechanic.com/our-team/#trefry

Playful Communication of Serious Research +

Brett Peterson | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2974 | Mon 6:00pm to 8:30pm in 370 Jay St, Room 410 Meetings:14
4 Point, architecture, collaboration, design, Elective, Exhibit design, exhibitdesign, exhibition, exhibitiondesign, Experience Design, experiential, fun,, Graduate, great, groupproject, immersive, In-Person, information, installation, installations, interaction, interactive, interactivity, interdisciplinary, museum, museums, production, project-based, projectdevelopment, prototyping, public, research, Spring 2026, teamwork, technology, theory, ui, ux

Last updated: October 31, 2025

Exhibition design is the art of marrying experience and information. The best does so seamlessly; the very best surprise and delight you along the way. In this class, you will explore the craft of interactive exhibition design through practice. Working in small groups, you will select an NYU researcher whose work is of interest to you and create an interactive experience that presents this research to a broader, public audience. In the process, you will learn to interrogate content and form, audience and environment, medium and message to create a meaningful and playful exhibit experience.

Machine Learning for the Web +

Yining Shi | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2465 | Fri 6:00pm to 8:30pm in 370 Jay St, Room 407 Meetings:14
4 Point, ai, AI generation, coding, deep, Elective, fun,, gan, Graduate, In-Person, intelligence, javascript, learning, machine, Machine Learning, machinelearning, ml5, posenet, Spring 2026, tensorflow

Last updated: October 31, 2025

Libraries like TensorFlow.js and ml5.js unlocked new opportunities for interactive machine learning projects in the browser. The goal of this class is to learn and understand common machine learning techniques and apply them to generate creative outputs in the browser.

This class will start with running pre-trained models and re-training models in the browser using high-level APIs from ml5.js, as well as explore the Layer APIs from TensorFlow.js to create models from scratch using custom data. This class will also cover preparing the dataset for training models.

At the completion of this course, students will have a better understanding of common and popular machine learning models, how do they work, how to train these models, and their use case to creative projects. The output of the class will be examples of interactive ML web applications.

The topics that will be covered are Image/Sound/Doodle Classification, Face/Pose Recognition, Image Style Transfer, pix2pix Image Transformation, and Image Synthesis. The techniques and neural networks we will use and build include Transfer Learning, Convolutional Neural Network, Generative Adversarial Network, Reinforcement Learning, and more.

Prospective students are expected to have taken an ICM (Introduction to Computational Media) course, or have equivalent programming experience with JavaScript, HTML, CSS.

About Yining Shi: http://1023.io

Live Web +

Shawn Van Every | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2734 | Mon 12:20pm to 2:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 407 Meetings:14
4 Point, asynchronous, backend, client, coding, development, Elective, engaging, full-stack, fun,, Graduate, hard, In-Person, internet, javascript, live, liveweb, media, node, nodejs, online, participatory, peerjs, programming, realtime, rewarding, server, simplepeer, socket, socket.io, sockets, Spring 2026, terminal, web, webdev, webdevelopment, webrtc

Last updated: October 31, 2025

The web has become an amazing platform for live communication. Streaming media, audio and video conferencing, text chat and other real-time data transmission give us the ability to create a wide array of platforms that enable live cooperative and collaborative performance, real-time games, and novel real-time communications experiences.

In this course, we focus on the types of content and interaction that can be supported through these technologies as well as explore new concepts around live participation. We utilize browser based technologies such as WebSockets and WebRTC in combination with JavaScript and Node to build client/server based applications. Experience with HTML and JavaScript are helpful but not required.

Light and Interactivity +

Tom Igoe | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2133 | Tues 3:20pm to 5:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 410 Meetings:14
4 Point, design, Elective, Graduate, In-Person, programming, Spring 2026

Last updated: October 31, 2025

We use light in all aspects of our lives, yet we seldom notice it. That is by design: lighting in everyday life, well-designed, doesn’t call attention to itself. Instead it places focus on the subjects and activities which it supports.

Solid state lighting technologies and digital control technologies have made major changes in the lighting industry. They support a wide range of color rendering and control than earlier lighting technologies, an ability to change light over a wider range of time, and they can communicate with all kinds of digital systems and devices.

On the design side, this class takes a “post-pixelist” approach: rather than making images with light, we’ll use it to illuminate people and the spaces and activities in which they engage. We won’t focus on pixels or projections, but rather on casting light on the subject at hand. We’ll consider the intersection of lighting design and interaction design. We’ll analyze lighting and describe its effects, in order to design and use it more effectively.

On the technical side, you’ll learn the basics of the physics of light, its transmission and perception. We’ll talk about how the materials which we cast light on or through affect how we perceive it. We’ll talk about sources of light, both current and historical. We’ll work with computerized control systems for lighting, and we’ll design a few lighting fixtures for different purposes. You’ll get practice planning and building electronic and microcontroller-driven circuits for lighting, and you’ll learn digital communications protocols used in the lighting industry.

Assignments will cover lighting observation and description; sensing and measurement of light; design of new lighting fixtures; and control of existing fixtures and lighting systems.

This class will be production-intensive throughout the course of the spring semester. Second-year students should consider that the assignments in this class must be done in addition to their thesis work, regardless of the topic of their thesis.

Intangible Interaction +

Yeseul Song | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2055 | Tues 12:20pm to 2:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 411 Meetings:14
4 Point, arduino, art, artist, artistic, coding, crafting, Elective, engineering, environment, fabrication,, fun,, Graduate, hci, ideation, In-Person, inspiration, installation, intangible, interaction, interactiondesign, interactive, kinect, love, opencall, performance, physical, physicalcomputing, playful, poetic, projectionmapping, proposal, research, sensor, sensors, Spring 2026, tangible

Last updated: October 31, 2025

This course will focus on researching, designing, and defining Intangible Interactions together, and unveiling artistic potential in it. Intangible interactions are those that we engage in without involving direct physical contact. Some examples would be automatic toilets, shopping carts that stop rolling outside the shop, contactless thermometers, gesture-based interactions, theremin, artwork activated by your presence, and mid-air haptic experiences. Intangible interfaces don’t have a tangible form that explicitly instructs us how to interact with them, and these interactions utilize other forms of feedback than those we feel through touch. Hence, Intangible Interactions tend to be more nuanced rather than direct, and the system is intricately designed to read your intentions using sensors. While technologies used for intangible interaction–such as computer vision and sensors are now more available and accessible, knowledge around the design and implementation of effective intangible interactions is a much less explored subject.

We will explore practical, artistic, and whimsical applications of intangible interaction and look at the ways it can enhance human-computer interactions in our everyday lives. For example, it can allow new ways to interact with educational exhibits, artifacts, and artworks. We will explore intangibility as a poetic medium that can open up possibilities for creating work that challenges human senses and perception. We will discuss what are cultural and social implications that we need to consider in designing intangible interactions—what does it mean for an interaction to be “intuitive” and what are some of the assumptions that are embedded into designs that we need to challenge? You will also be introduced to working with sound frequencies that are outside the hearable spectrum to create mid-air haptic feedback.

Technical topics that will be discussed in the class include: non touch-based sensors including optical sensors; proximity sensing; presence detection; optimizing sensor readings on Arduino; extending capability of sensors with light pipes and lenses; body tracking with cameras; signals outside visible spectrums; environmental sensing; mid-air haptic.

Assignments will include relatively small-scale production assignments, labs, thinking, ideating, and reading. For the final project, you will be prompted to conceptualize a project that is larger than a classroom scope. You will respond to a call-for-projects with a proposal along with a solid prototype for the project so you have fully fleshed materials to apply to resources such as grants and other opportunities in the near future. I want you to think big and equip yourself with practical and essential skills to build a sustainable art or design practice! A proposal writing workshop and structured peer reviews will be provided to support this process.

Tags: intangible, interaction, artistic, poetic, physical, sensors, physicalcomputing, haptic, hci, research, art, design, environment, playful, fun, proposalwriting

Future Mapper +

CHIKA | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2362 | Tues 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 407 Meetings:14
4 Point, artist development, artist residency, audio visual, Elective, field trip, Graduate, guest speaker, In-Person, interactive installation, led mapping, madmapper, modul8, projection mapping, real-time video, Spring 2026, vjing

Last updated: October 31, 2025

As you know, projection mapping and Light Art are becoming popular again because of large-scale pop-up installations worldwide: ARTECHOUSE, SuperReal, Meow Wolf, and TeamLab.
Technology has advanced over the years, but how people enjoy light art have not changed so much.

How do your ideas and artwork fit into these site-specific installations? This class is for anyone interested in creating a site-specific installation using mapping technologies to create new experiences for the public audience.

This class guides students through conceptual and technical processes of project and artist development. It consists of three parts: Project & Artist Development, Projection Mapping, and LED Mapping.

We will research and discuss the history of visual artwork, public engagement, and technical exercises using real international contests and festival sites. The student will learn the latest Projection and LED Mapping techniques using Madmapper.

And we will also focus on advanced techniques like multi-projector projection, projector calculation, Interactive Mapping, and software & hardware to culminate in a final project.

The class will also invite guest speakers to discuss the nuts and bolts of their art and business.

About Chika Iijima: www.mappathon.com, www.imagima.com

Exploring Concepts From Soft Robotics +

Kari Love | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2125 | Fri 12:20pm to 2:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 411 Meetings:14
4 Point, awesome, Elective, fabrication,, Graduate, In-Person, inflatables, pcomp, physical computing, pneumatics, robotics, silicone casting, soft, soft robotics, softrobotics, Spring 2026

Last updated: October 31, 2025

Because the full potential of the emerging field of soft systems is unrealized, there are countless opportunities for curious innovators to discover or develop novel soft systems. Soft robotic skills and techniques also open up a world of possibilities for large scale or surprising artwork. This course teaches hands-on fabrication techniques for constructing simple pneumatic actuators from cast silicone and heat-sealed mylar, and challenges participants to design and build their own. Lectures and discussion center on concepts from soft innovation history, the current state-of-the-art, and sister disciplines of bio-inspired and hybrid (soft/hard) robotics. Consideration of both brand new soft materials, from a class visit to Material ConneXion library, and everyday overlooked soft mechanisms, found in average retail stores, will require participants to look at softness through a new lens. Final projects will be the development of an original soft/flexible/hybrid research or artistic concept presented with context, material swatches with justifications for choices, and physical or modeled proof-of-concept.

About Kari Love: http://www.karimakes.com

Energy +

Jeffrey Feddersen | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2466 | Mon 3:20pm to 5:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 413 Meetings:14
4 Point, battery, capacitor, Elective, energy, energy production, energy storage, Graduate, In-Person, kinetic energy, physical computing, solar power, Spring 2026

Last updated: October 31, 2025

From the most ephemeral thought to the rise and fall of civilizations, every aspect of your life, and indeed the universe, involves energy. Energy has been called the “universal currency” by prolific science author Vaclav Smil, but also “a very subtle concept… very, very difficult to get right” by Noble physicist Richard Feynman. It is precisely this combination of importance and subtlety that motivates the Energy class. Maybe you fear the existential threat of anthropogenic climate change, or maybe you just want your physical computing projects to work better. Either way, the class will help you understand energy quantitatively and intuitively, and incorporate that knowledge in your projects (and perhaps your life).

How? Building on skills introduced in Creative Computing, we will generate and measure electricity 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 art 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

Instructor Jeffrey Feddersen Website: www.fddrsn.net/

Electronics for Inventors +

Pedro Galvao Cesar de Oliveira | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2036 | Thur 2:50pm to 5:50pm in 370 Jay Street Room 450 Meetings:S-Special
4 Point, analog circuits, circuitry, circuits, digital circuits, Elective, electronics, engineering, Graduate, hardware, In-Person, physical_computing, skills, Spring 2026, tangible

Last updated: October 31, 2025

Today we are no longer solely connected to the digital world through computers. The result of this push to connect the digital and the analog world is the increasing necessity for low cost, low power, and self-contained electronics.

This course is an applications-driven intro to electronics for inventors. Through a hands-on approach, students will learn basic concepts about analog circuits, Boolean logic, digital devices interfaces, and low-cost code-free electronics.

Topics will include basic principles of electricity, as well as an understanding of electronics components such as resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors, audio amplifiers, and timers. Students will also learn what it takes to build an arduino-like microcontroller.

This class will use as a backbone the book “Practical Electronics for Inventors – 4th Edition” by Paul Scherz and Simon Monk.

Format: Lectures + In-class LABs + Readings

Connected Devices and Networked Interaction +

Tom Igoe | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2565 | Tues 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay Street Room 450 Meetings:14
4 Point, arduino, bluetooth, communication, cybersecurity, Elective, express, Graduate, hardware, http, https, In-Person, internet, iot, linux, mkr1000, mqtt, network, networking, networks, node, pcomp, pi, projects, protocol, raspberry, raspberrypi, security, server, servers, Spring 2026, tom, tomigoe, web, wifi, wireless

Last updated: October 31, 2025

The World Wide Web no longer stops at the edge of your screen. When it comes to products, if it powers up, it talks to another device. This class provides an overview of methods for connecting the physical world to web-based applications. We’ll consider what the emerging interaction patterns are, if any, and we’ll develop some of our own as needed. This class can be seen as a narrower and more interaction design-based complement to Understanding Networks. The latter class provides a broader overview of the dynamics of communications networks, while this class focuses specifically on the challenges of connecting embedded devices to web-based services. Neither class is a prerequisite for the other, however. This class will introduce network connection techniques for devices using networked microcontrollers and processors running an embedded operating system.

Prerequisites: Intro to Physical Computing and Intro to Computational Media, or equivalent experience with the topics covered in those classes.

Learning Objectives: Students will gain an understanding of the basics of network programming for devices with limited computing power. They will learn about current protocols for communication between devices and networked servers, and about the rudiments of security for that communication.

Reading: There will be an article or two to read each week, to foster discussion about the design of connected things.

Assignments: There will be several one-week software and hardware assignments to get familiar with different technologies and communications protocols, and one hardware and software final application project.

CAD for Virtual and Reality +

Siman Li | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2086 | Mon 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 408 Meetings:14
3D Modeling, 4 Point, cad, Elective, Fusion, Graduate, In-Person, Rendering, Spring 2026, virtual

Last updated: October 31, 2025

The goal of this class is to gain an understanding and proficiency with Computer Aided Design (CAD). We will become familiar with CAD software, mechanical design, and simulation. The class will cover common CAD modeling techniques. We will use our designs to get physical parts made as well as use them in virtual projects. We will create parts both real and impossible.

Cabinets of Wonder +

Emily Conrad | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2470 | Wed 6:00pm to 8:30pm in 370 Jay St, Room 407 Meetings:14
4 Point, design, Elective, exhibitdesign, exhibition, experience, Experience Design, Graduate, In-Person, museum, museum and exhibit design, museums, Spring 2026

Last updated: October 31, 2025

If you were inventing a museum today, what would it look like? Who would be there? What would its main purpose be? What would the audience experience? The first museums were called Cabinets of Wonder. Usually, a viewer with a guide, often the collector, would open doors and drawers to see what was inside–amazing things from different parts of the world, different times. They were windows on the world to places the visitors would probably never be able to go; to see things they would never otherwise be able to see. And now there’s television, movies, the internet, and travel. Why do people go to museums now? Will they in the future? Today, most museums seek to educate and to include more and more diverse visitors than they used to. How do people learn in public spaces? How do we know that they do? How can they make use of the new interactive technologies to support the experience and not lose what’s special about them? The class is an exploration, observation, theory, and design class for you to imagine the future of museums and exhibits. Museum and exhibit visits are your primary assignments for the first half of the course—usually accompanied by a reading. You will also make some record of your visit (including a sketchbook, a diorama, reviews). There will be guest speakers from Museums and exhibit design firms, and several field trips. In the second half of the course, you begin to imagine how you might reinvent a museum and develop a full-scale presentation of your own Cabinet of Wonder.

About Emily Conrad: www.linkedin.com/in/emily/

Auto Fictions +

Kevin Cunningham | Carol Dysinger | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2066 | Mon 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay Street Room 450 Meetings:14
4 Point, Elective, Graduate, In-Person, No Tags, Spring 2026

Last updated: October 31, 2025

Auto Fictions is a studio class focusing on the creation of immersive, multi-path and interactive experiences based on personal narrative. Documentary art has included the art of installation for decades, but new technologies have given artists affordable tools that allow them to rapidly prototype and then refine immersive media experiences. The course centers on the creation of live experiences within a surround video mapped space that incorporates immersive audio and can include interactive elements. Autofictions is an interdepartmental course that may include students from Film, ITP and Theater disciplines. Students will create interdisciplinary production teams. Each team will make an original project and students will help each other create their work through intensive collaboration.

Technology, Media and Democracy: Addressing Challenges to an Informed Electorate +

Justin Hendrix | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2184 | Mon 7:00pm to 12:00am in Online; 370 Jay Street Room 450 Meetings:14
Elective, Graduate, In-Person, journalism, Spring 2026

Last updated: October 31, 2025

Across New York City’s universities, the Technology, Media and Democracy program will bring together journalism, design, and technical disciplines to understand the various threats to democracy, and attempt to address these challenges using technical and computational methods and techniques. Students have the opportunity to work with peers in other programs in journalism, engineering, media studies, design & technology at Columbia, Cornell Tech, CUNY and The New School to build ideas that advance an information ecosystem that nurtures democratic societies. The free press, journalism and the media are some of the most critical elements of our democracy, but have been increasingly under attack by political and market forces, and a social media landscape that has altered the way people interact and share information. These challenges include: dwindling resources and support for deep investigative journalism; legal, technical and even physical assaults of media organizations and journalists; challenges to credibility and reliability of information; and shifting business models and economics that threaten both local and national news organizations and coverage. This course will include various elements that will help frame the problem and build/prototype solutions that address a variety of issues.

techpolicy.press

Reading List: docs.google.com/document/d/1xoq92YRHNIVJV-74gwilZKVy-6yDTgAkfBDAll-oDO8/edit

Data Storytelling for Memory Making and Social Resilience (Topics in ITP ) +

John Henry Thompson | Shindy Johnson | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2379 | Thur 12:20pm to 2:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 410 Meetings:7-First Half
2 Point, data, Elective, Graduate, In-Person, Spring 2026, visualization

Last updated: October 31, 2025

This course will use the open source The COVID-19 Impact Project as an entry point to explore humanizing data on systemic inequity and injustice on a global and local scale.

In this course we will:

● Explore and invent creative uses of data for advocacy and change.
● Discover how data flows from public github repositories and tools needed to visualize the data.
● Review other data-centric open source projects for the public good and discuss the questions they are trying to answer or problems they are trying to solve.
● Examine and draw inspiration from historical and contemporary data visualizations developed by advocates for social justice and the public good.
● Use data visualization as a scaffold to explore ways to support community driven mourning and memorialization after mass death events.

Students can choose to participate as creatives, artists, javascript coders, p5js explorers, UI/UX designers, citizen journalists, data science explorers or social justice advocates.

Course Outline
● Open Source Projects for the Public Good
● Data: Sourcing, Humanizing and Creating Visual Narratives from Data
● Storytelling with and from Data
● Data storytelling as a scaffold to support grief, ritual and memorialization after mass death events

** Students wishing to pursue their final projects beyond the class will be provided with information about resources at NYU for supporting student projects that amplify underrepresented narratives.

** Students wishing to continue their participation in The COVID-19 Impact Project after the course ends should notify us as we are seeking grant funding to implement viable concepts.

Through the Lens: Modalities of AR +

Maya Pruitt | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2368 | Thur 6:00pm to 8:30pm in 370 Jay St, Room 412 Meetings:7-Second Half
2 Point, AR/VR/XR, Elective, Graduate, In-Person, Interaction Design, LensStudio, ml, Spring 2026, ux

Last updated: October 31, 2025

In this course, students will explore the fundamentals of augmented reality by dissecting the interaction between camera, computer, and user. Each week we will focus on a different AR modality: image, face, body, environment, and object, and consider their real-world applications. Through weekly explorations, we will examine the existing affordances of AR as well as their impact. This course will culminate in a final project, and our tool of choice will be Lens Studio. Course syllabus: docs.google.com/document/d/1wMWVnDdzgz2bbsCNp7jRAiCe1job4glq61o67sWAP00/edit?usp=sharing

Intro to Fabrication +

Phil Caridi | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2637 | Fri 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 411 Meetings:7-First Half
2 Point, awesome, basics, building, challenging, cnc, crafty, creative, design, diy, Elective, fab, fabrication, fabrication,, fun,, Graduate, handson, In-Person, interesting, intro, itp, lasercutter, lasers, learn, machines, make, maker, making, makingthings, materials, metal, motors, pcomp, physical, powertools, prototype, prototyping, rewarding, shop, Spring 2026, technical, techniques, the shop, tools, useful, wood, woodshop, woodworking

Last updated: October 31, 2025

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.

Dynamic Web Development +

Ahmad Arshad | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2577 | Fri 09:30am to 12:00pm in 370 Jay St, Room 410 Meetings:7-First Half
2 Point, ajax, amazing, api, awesome, back-end, backend, challenging, coding, css, databases, development, Elective, express, fast-paced, frontend, full-stack, fullstack, github, Graduate, greatinstructors, hard, html, In-Person, intense, internet, javascript, mongodb, node, node.js, nodejs, practical, productive, programming, rewarding, server, servers, serverside, serversideprogramming, Spring 2026, sql, time-consuming, useful, web, webdev, webdevelopment

Last updated: October 31, 2025

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

Big LEDs +

Aaron Parsekian | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2481 | Thur 6:00pm to 8:30pm in 370 Jay Street, Room 426 Meetings:7-Second Half
2 Point, advanced, architecture, color, Displays, dmx,, Elective, fabrication,, Graduate, In-Person, led, leds, lighting, madmapper, projection, Spring 2026, systems

Last updated: October 31, 2025

Light Emitting Diodes or LEDs are used creatively all around us. They have the ability to emit light at different colors and intensities instantly and from very tiny points. How can we make creative visual works out of these amazing devices? What construction methods can we use to make those works reliable?

Big LEDs will cover the process of designing large LED systems. We will cover LED array hardware and how to map pixels from computer generated media onto them. We will go through every major part of the hardware – different styles of LED arrays, drivers and gateways, cables, data protocols, and how to safely power all of them. We will learn to use the pixel mapping softwares Enttec ELM and Madmapper. We will also cover the paperwork needed to furnish a professional LED installation, including drafting riser diagrams, plan, section, and elevation views, creating a bill of materials, and writing instructions for users and installers.

This year’s final project will be a site-specific LED sculpture installed in a public space at 375 Jay St. The installations will be able to display student chosen media that can be viewed for one minute. Students will work either in groups or alone and can choose from one of four installation options to present on:

– A prepared square section of 2.0mm pitch LED video tiles (approx 256px x 256px, 2’-6” x 2’-6”)
– A prepared low-resolution sculpture with diffused linear elements (approx 500px, 2’-6” x 5’-0” overall)
– A student conceptualized LED video tile project
– A student conceptualized low-resolution project

Because of this year’s pandemic, unprecedented changes have come to the professional world of LED installations. As a result, we will be using remote tools such as networked-based cameras, remote desktop applications, and virtual private network connections to watch and operate the final projects. We will spend class time setting these tools up together. The two prepared options for the final project will be installed and maintained by the instructor.

Biophilic Experiences – activating our sensory relationship to nature +

Leslie E Ruckman | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2361 | Fri 3:20pm to 5:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 407 Meetings:7-Second Half
2 Point, 5 senses, Elective, Experience Design, Graduate, In-Person, Interspecies artwork, Spring 2026

Last updated: October 31, 2025

As the scale of human impact on global climate and ecosystems deepens, we see the need to alter our trajectory, to be more inclusive of other species in our imagining of the future. This class sets out to investigate the relationships we humans have with nature and non-human animals, to dive deep into the meaning and utility of being in relationship, and ultimately to translate these ideas into tangible, multimedia experiences that expose a larger audience to a multi-species worldview.

This class sits at the intersection of art, science, and technology. It combines studio practice and research with example case studies and critical texts. Together, we will meet artists, designers and scientists who build multi species futures through urban ecology, biology, and public art. This class is for students who are eager to develop XD (experience design) and storytelling skills. The course follows a research-driven process that results in a design proposal and proof-of-concept that can be pitched to a public arts org.

Biophilic Experiences – activating our sensory relationship to nature +

Leslie E Ruckman | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2361 | Fri 3:20pm to 5:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 407 Meetings:7-Second Half
2 Point, 5 senses, Elective, Experience Design, Graduate, In-Person, Interspecies artwork, Spring 2026

Last updated: October 31, 2025

As the scale of human impact on global climate and ecosystems deepens, we see the need to alter our trajectory, to be more inclusive of other species in our imagining of the future. This class sets out to investigate the relationships we humans have with nature and non-human animals, to dive deep into the meaning and utility of being in relationship, and ultimately to translate these ideas into tangible, multimedia experiences that expose a larger audience to a multi-species worldview.

This class sits at the intersection of art, science, and technology. It combines studio practice and research with example case studies and critical texts. Together, we will meet artists, designers and scientists who build multi species futures through urban ecology, biology, and public art. This class is for students who are eager to develop XD (experience design) and storytelling skills. The course follows a research-driven process that results in a design proposal and proof-of-concept that can be pitched to a public arts org.

Biophilic Experiences – activating our sensory relationship to nature +

Leslie E Ruckman | Syllabus | ITPG-GT 2361 | Fri 3:20pm to 5:50pm in 370 Jay St, Room 407 Meetings:7-Second Half
2 Point, 5 senses, Elective, Experience Design, Graduate, In-Person, Interspecies artwork, Spring 2026

Last updated: October 30, 2025

As the scale of human impact on global climate and ecosystems deepens, we see the need to alter our trajectory, to be more inclusive of other species in our imagining of the future. This class sets out to investigate the relationships we humans have with nature and non-human animals, to dive deep into the meaning and utility of being in relationship, and ultimately to translate these ideas into tangible, multimedia experiences that expose a larger audience to a multi-species worldview.

This class sits at the intersection of art, science, and technology. It combines studio practice and research with example case studies and critical texts. Together, we will meet artists, designers and scientists who build multi species futures through urban ecology, biology, and public art. This class is for students who are eager to develop XD (experience design) and storytelling skills. The course follows a research-driven process that results in a design proposal and proof-of-concept that can be pitched to a public arts org.