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    Auto Fictions

    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.


    Hedonomic VR Design: Principles and Practices

    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.


    Fabricating Mechanical Automatons (Batteries Not Included)

    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.


    The Medium of Memory

    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

    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)


    Textile Interfaces

    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)


    Experiential Comics: Interactive Comic Books for the Fourth Industrial Revolution

    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.


    Understanding Networks

    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.


    Prototyping Electronic Devices

    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)


    Experiments on the Embodied Web

    Today’s internet, made up of mostly text documents and two-dimensional images and videos, is the result of historical limitations in bandwidth, graphics processing and input devices. These limitations have made the internet a place where the mind goes, but the body cannot follow. Recent advances in motion capture devices, graphics processing, machine learning, bandwidth and browsers, however, are paving the way for the body to find its place online. Experiments on the Embodied Web will explore the new realm of embodied interactions in the browser across networks. The course will include discussion of influential works in the development of online embodied interaction, including the works of Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, Susan Kozel, and Laurie Anderson. Together we’ll explore pose detection across webRTC peer connections in p5.js and Three.js. Experience with Node, HTML and JavaScript is helpful but not required. ICM level programming experience is required.

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