Curriculum

OVERVIEW
(Exact course selections subject to change)

Summer 2023 (July 10 – August 12)

New York

GENERAL

• 9 credits
• Four 2-Credit Courses
  • Concepts, Culture & Communication
  • Creative Coding
  • Exploratory Making
  • Interface Lab
• One 1-Credit Course
  • Conversations New York
• Establish core fundamentals in programming, electronics, data, interaction design, user experience and media production
• Emphasis placed on conceptual frameworks to facilitate critical engagement and practice-based research

 

COURSES

• IMALR-GT 101 Concepts, Culture & Communication (2 credits): An introduction to the concepts, questions, and terminology that encompass interactive media arts as it relates to creative expression and critical engagement. This course serves to establish a theoretical and cultural foundation to cultivate a common vocabulary for discussion, analysis and critique, inform creative practice, and foster a community of makers capable of thoughtful reflection, awareness and discourse.

• IMALR-GT 102 Creative Coding (2 credits): A hands-on introduction to programming and software engineering for creative applications. This course will introduce and explore fundamental coding concepts, such as logic sequencing, data structures, data flow and event-driven interactions in the context of screen-based projects. Iterative assignments will facilitate the development of a final creative code-driven experience.

• IMALR-GT 104 Interface Lab (2 credits): This production course will survey alternative interfaces with an emphasis towards embodied interactions. Students will consider how humans express themselves physically and how those physical expressions are converted, interpreted, and processed by our computers. Using aspects of physical computing and physical interaction design, students will take a hands-on approach to designing interactive hardware and software interfaces.  Areas covered include microcontrollers (Arduino), tangible interfaces, sensors, and computer vision.

• IMALR-GT 105 Conversations New York (1 credit): A class where the entire program will gather to engage in dialogue with local leaders drawn from across the fields of emerging media. Each week, special guests representing a variety of backgrounds and interests including artistic, commercial, non-profit, civic and academic, will address a theme or topic related to the socio-technical landscape of New York City. Students will be expected to engage in reading and writing assignments, class discussions, interactive exercises, site visits and collaborative presentations.

• IMALR-GT 106 Exploratory Making (1 credit): In this class, students will deploy exploratory making as a strategy for developing and better understanding their own creative practices. Through engagement with unfamiliar digital media tools and materials, students will develop a tactile understanding of the relationship between form and content; learn to design and critique their own artistic processes and practice; and work through uncomfortable (yet common) moments in the process of making. Over the 5-week session, students will have the opportunity to move from ideation to prototyping across new media and receive robust critique to guide future iterations of research and making.

PRIOR COURSES

• IMALR-GT 103 Design for Communication (2 credits): This course will provide students with practical skills and theoretical frameworks for making and assessing communication through design. Design principles, tools, and techniques will be covered in class, coupled with hands-on experience making and critiquing visual work. An emphasis will be placed on leveraging communication applications for interactive and narrative-driven new media

FEATURES

• Based in Brooklyn within NYU’s brand new “Media, Technology & Arts” building, which is the new home of ITP and other related programs
• Full access to ITP’s communal makerspace offers an ideal environment for learning and exploration
• Local dialogue series, artist talks, industry visits, workshops and communal programming
• Connect with the extensive NY-based ITP community

 

 

 

 

Fall 2023 (September 5 – December 22)

Online

GENERAL

• 7 credits
• Two faculty-led courses involving self-directed learning and collaborative project work
• One 4-Credit Course
  • Connections Lab
• One 3-Credit Course
  • Critical Experiences
• Emphasis on creating connected applications, critical making and user experience
• Continued development of technical skills and practice-based research

 

COURSES

• IMALR-GT 201 Connections Lab (4 credits): From intelligent chat-bots and gif-sharing apps to social media platforms and virtual reality hubs, our world is infused with mediated networked systems for communication. In this course, students will collaborate (at a distance) to design and develop their own creative connected web applications. By working in teams to produce online experiences that bring people together in playful yet meaningful ways, students will gain valuable insight into the inner-workings and implications of our connected world.

• IMALR-GT 202 Critical Experiences (3 credits): This course will combine “critical making” and “user experience” to direct personalized practice-based research. Students will engage in a variety of applied research exercises, readings, and ethnographic activities that will encourage thinking and prototyping across a range of media and materials. Specific subject matter will depend on individual student interests, allowing for more personalized areas of focus.

 

FEATURES

• Build upon the foundation set during the New York session
• Leverage a suite of online tools and platforms that combine synchronous and asynchronous learning experiences
• Sustain connectivity amongst the students through distributed collaboration and real-time conversations
• Facilitate individualized growth and maintain flexibility to continue life at home

 

 

 

 

Winter 2024 (January 8 – January 26)

Berlin

GENERAL

• 3 credits
• One 2-Credit Elective Course (students choose one)
  • Civic Ecologies
  • Radical Networks
  • Virtual Worlds
• One 1-Credit Course
  • Conversations Berlin

 

COURSES

• IMALR-GT 301 Civic Ecologies (2 credits): Modern urban life is attached to a vast array of interconnected, material relations. Under the demands of global urbanisation trends, cities increasingly dominate how critical components of global ecological systems flow and operate. Understanding these civic ecologies therefore graduates from an infrastructural curiosity, to a planetary priority. Using visits to energy, water, food, transport and communication system sites within the city of Berlin, this class will undertake a comparative study of global cities. We will research, represent, and create projects in response to the possibilities and limits of thriving environments for humans and others in globalised urban centres.

• IMALR-GT 302 Radical Networks (2 credits): This course will critically engage with the communication and networking technologies we readily use for ourselves and our communities. Questions around the control of data, software, hardware and infrastructure will be tied to larger themes of access, power, resilience and sustainability. An ethos of artistry and digital activism will be infused throughout the course as students experiment with peer-to-peer networks, DIY methodologies and technologies of resistance.

• IMALR-GT 303 Virtual Worlds (2 credits):The world can be thought of as a work of carefully assembled, organized and presented pieces of fiction that intimately intersect with our own beliefs and experiences. This course will embrace this notion and push forward this suspension of disbelief by architecting and constructing unique virtual histories in the Unity game engine. How can we pick, lay out and program texts, images, films, objects, spaces and procedures to persuade a virtual visitor of the coherence of our world? How can we combine mythical and physical components in a 3D digital medium to turn imaginative spaces into believable places? Drawing on fictional texts, museography, environmental storytelling and procedural rhetoric, this class will explore how we can build untold accounts, alternate realities and possible future worlds.

• IMALR-GT 304 Conversations Berlin (1 credit): A class where the entire program will gather to engage in dialogue with local leaders drawn from across the fields of emerging media. Each week, special guests representing a variety of backgrounds and interests including artistic, commercial, non-profit, civic and academic, will address a theme or topic related to the socio-technical landscape of Berlin. Students will be expected to engage in reading and writing assignments, class discussions, interactive exercises, site visits and collaborative presentations.

 

FEATURES

• Connect with the local community of emerging media artists, designers and thinkers
• An enriching space to draw connections amongst the aesthetic, social, political, and ethical implications of interactive media
• Set initial foundation for individual thesis projects
• Develop topical and thematic directions for collaborative Spring course work

 

 

 

 

Spring 2024 (January 29 – May 21)

Online

GENERAL

• 7 credits
• Three faculty-led courses involving self-directed learning and collaborative project work
• One 3-Credit Course
  • Thesis
• Two 2-Credit Courses (students choose one for Weeks 1 – 7 and one for Weeks 8 – 14)
  • 50 Days of Making (Weeks 1 – 7)
  • Share Lab Studio (Weeks 1 – 7)
  • Recode (Weeks 8 – 14)
  • Live! (Weeks 8 – 14)
  • Time (Weeks 8 – 14)
• Emphasis towards personal thesis project development, technical skill building and creative practice.

 

COURSES 

• IMALR-GT 401 Thesis (3 credits): This course is designed to help students conceptualize, define and implement their thesis project. A series of practical assignments, readings and structured activities complemented by presentations and feedback sessions will facilitate the development of individual projects. The course will also aim to provide space for technical skill building necessary to realize the project. Note, Thesis is designed as a sequence of two classes with this first class focused on creating the project and a second class offered in the Summer session focused on delivering and documenting the final project.

• IMALR-GT 404 50 Days of Making, Weeks 1 – 7 (2 credits): Iteration and its impact on the creative process is the theme of this class. Inspired by ITP’s “100 Days of Making”, this course will involve 50 days of required, iterative, daily practice. Students will identify a theme, idea or topic they would like to explore for the entire 7 weeks of the class and commit to making or producing a variation on that idea as well as posting social evidence of their work every day for 50 consecutive days. Project direction can focus on building, writing, drawing, programming, photographing, designing, composing or any form of creative expression. Class time will be spent discussing students’ progress and reflecting on the creative journey.

• IMALR-GT 405 Share Lab Studio, Weeks 1 – 7 (2 credits): This 7-week class will be an exercise in collective, collaborative creation. During the first 3 weeks, the class will work together to cultivate, shape and agree upon a collective aspirational vision that can be represented through a creative experience. In the remaining weeks, students will work in smaller teams to produce unique parts of the creative experience that will come together as a unified whole and represent the overarching collective vision of the class. Aspects of speculative design, world-building and community building will be infused into class sessions, discussions, assignments and project work. The class will culminate with a public sharing of the work along with a discussion on the process of creating as a distributed collective.

• IMALR-GT 406 Recode, Weeks 8 – 14 (2 credits): Recode will provide us with an opportunity to revisit and review coding fundamentals, repair and refactor old coding projects, remix and reimagine existing projects, and ultimately reboot and recreate an algorithmically-driven project through code. The class is designed to accommodate a range of skill levels and is suitable for students wanting to gain greater comfort with code and computation as well as those interested in diving deeper into code-driven pathways or projects. For the final deliverable, students will be tasked with reproducing a creative work from the past in code with their own stylistic flair. Examples and exercises will be provided in JavaScript using the p5.js (https://p5js.org/) library. However, students are welcome to consult the instructor about working with another programming library, framework, or language with which they have interest or prior experience.

• IMALR-GT 407 Live!, Weeks 8 – 14 (2 credits): This course will focus on designing, developing and delivering multimedia live performances via a virtual platform. The class will emphasize the use of emerging technologies that allow for the unfolding of real-time interactions, dynamic visuals and compelling narratives. We will look at various examples of both online and offline performative experiences, explore how we can apply the technologies we have learned to design performative systems, and discuss methods we can use to make our own performances come to life. Students will propose performative project ideas at the outset of the class and then develop their projects in the following weeks with support from the instructor, residents, and invited guests. The class will culminate in a live-streamed event featuring solo and/or group performances by the students.

• IMALR-GT 408 Time , Weeks 8 – 14 (2 credits): Time is both fundamental and mysterious. From the 2000-year-old Antikythera Mechanism to modern atomic clocks, humans have long sought to understand temporal patterns in nature, and build mechanisms to measure, reflect and predict those patterns. The Low Res “Time” course will follow in that long tradition, reflecting on the nature of time through a seven-week project to build a novel clock (literal or metaphorical, physical or virtual). We will extend our physical computing skills by taking a closer look at microcontrollers, including internal timing hardware and functions, useful libraries, relevant sensors, and specialized electronic and electromechanical peripherals. We will look at clocks and watches as rich sources of inspiration for industrial and information design. Each student’s resulting project will be a functional representation of their personal relationship to time.

PRIOR COURSES

• IMALR-GT 402 Designing Change (2 credits): This 7-week course, both seminar and production studio, will focus on design as a vehicle for change. As designers we have the opportunity to create products and experiences that can change perceptions, break patterns and introduce new methods and behaviors in ways that can have meaningful impact at both an individual and societal scale. This course combines the practical skills of UX design with the conceptual skills of behavioural psychology to provide a framework for designing products focused on initiating change.

• IMALR-GT 403 Local Data – Collection, Creation & Contextualization (2 credits): This 7-week course will approach data collection as a local, situated and contextually-bound process, and ask what it means to examine large-scale social issues from a close, specific perspective. Starting from the observation that data is never collected omnisciently or neutrally, students will explore questions of power, context, and knowledge production through reading, discussion, and practical exercises in data collection and representation using both computational (primarily web-based and JavaScript) and analog methods. Students will be asked to work in teams to produce creative work that addresses an issue of common interest. This will require them to engage in collaborative problem solving and collective inquiry, and to take care to emphasize reflexivity and an awareness of their own participation in their creative processes. Potential areas of focus, such as the environment, education or social justice, will be relevant at a global scope but accessible at a local scale. As such, students will be required to identify and leverage salient points of contact at their respective locations as well as integrate local insights and fieldwork into their projects.
  

FEATURES

• Explore opportunities for asynchronous distributed collaboration to address topics of local and global significance
• Balance personalized thesis project guidance with structured group exercises, presentations, feedback and support
• Prepare for the in-person Summer session in Shanghai

 

 

 

 

Summer 2024 (May 28 – July 3)

Shanghai

GENERAL

• 6 credits
• One 3-Credit Course
  • Thesis Studio
• Two 1-Credit Elective Courses (students choose 2)
  • Augmenting Shanghai
  • Exhibition Next!
  • Made in China
  • Make Art with AI
  • Tech Futures – AI
• One 1-Credit Course
  • Conversations Shanghai
• Primary focus on completing and sharing individual thesis projects
• Secondary electives to complement thesis work and provide opportunities to explore additional topics

 

COURSES

• IMALR-GT 501 Thesis Studio (3 credits): Students will use this class as a vehicle to complete, share and reflect upon their final thesis project. Production support, critique sessions, a final thesis presentation and exhibition will be incorporated into the class curriculum. Students will also be expected to complete a fully articulated thesis project statement and other relevant documentation.

• IMALR-GT 503 Conversations Shanghai (1 credit):  A class where the entire program will gather to engage in dialogue with local leaders drawn from across the fields of emerging media. Each week, special guests representing a variety of backgrounds and interests including artistic, commercial, non-profit, civic and academic, will address a theme or topic related to the socio-technical landscape of Shanghai.

• IMALR-GT 506 Tech Futures (1 credit): This class will be an exercise in scenario development. Working in teams, students will select a current developing technology or technical initiative (e.g. autonomous vehicles, planetary internet access), then flesh out two versions of what happens to this technology by the year 2030. An emphasis this year will be placed upon emerging AI tools. Students will develop one story of widespread adoption and unpredictable uses, and another story of failure, with only limited adoption. Historical examples from the 20th century will be leveraged in the process of describing potential future pathways. The class will culminate with each team presenting their scenarios.

• IMALR-GT 508 Make Art with AI (1 credit): An introductory course for students with no prior machine learning knowledge to explore and utilize different experimental machine learning methods such as image classification, pose estimation, body segmentation, pitch detection and k-nearest neighbors algorithm (KNN). Working with a variety of pre-trained models and techniques, students will use javascript and the p5 library to code artistic, innovative and interactive projects for the web. Both practical and creative applications may be investigated as students will be encouraged to design their own experiences and solutions.

• IMALR-GT 512 Augmenting Shanghai (1 credit): As an emerging technology, Augmented Reality offers designers new possibilities to create immersive experiences that blend digital and physical worlds. Through this course, students will learn how to create 3D models and animations with Gravity Sketch, an immersive 3D creation tool, and Unity, a widely used game engine for AR application development. They will explore how to mount these 3D animations to real places on the NYU Shanghai campus, and design interactive experiences that augment physical space. In addition to learning the technical aspects of AR design, students will also learn the design perspective of dualistic space, a new design field for future human life. Dualistic space explores the relationship between physical and virtual spaces, and how they can interact and coexist to create new experiences and possibilities.

• IMALR-GT 513 Exhibition Next! (1 credit): This course is an exploration and observation of the field of museum studies and exhibition design. What is an exhibition in a museum today and how should it be experienced? What is its role in society? How does it engage the audience of tomorrow? Class discussions will include topics and themes such as curatorial practices, public space, content and form, audience and environment, meaningful interfaces and interactive experiences. The class will also explore how emerging technologies can be applied to museum and exhibition design to enhance a visitors’ experience. Working in teams, students will focus on one theme, conduct research, collect material/artifacts, curate them, and display them using curatorial methods. Along the way will be visits to local museums and exhibitions as well as meetings with museum insiders to support and direct the work. Also, if possible, students will engage in an instructor-led design challenge in collaboration with a local museum or institution.

• IMALR-GT 514 Made in China (1 credit): In this production course, students will work in small teams to ideate and prototype a wearable or portable consumer electronics product that helps address an unmet or pressing need. They will then take these prototypes to Shenzhen, China’s Silicon Valley of Hardware, to understand how they might be manufactured. In the course of their work, students will work alongside professionals and others to learn how to rapidly prototype both “works like” and “looks like” versions of their projects. The class will culminate with a 2-day trip to Shenzhen, where students will meet and present their prototypes to product designers and others within China’s manufacturing ecosystem and gain further insights into how these types of products can be produced.

PRIOR COURSES

• IMALR-GT 504 Worlding (1 credit): This course will combine “world-building, “design-fiction” and “speculative design”. Students will be tasked to work as a collective to conjure an alternative world with fictional stories, imaginative works and original artifacts that serve to inspire design discussions and have the capacity to influence our collective futures. 

• IMALR-GT 505 Future Selves (1 credit): We all face aging as a part of life, but we often do not consider it as something we need to act upon until we have aged. The aim of this class is to look at how we might create solutions for our “future selves” in anticipation of the inevitability of change that occurs during our lives. The emphasis of the class will incorporate an understanding of our future selves, an idea to solve an anticipated problem, and a presentation of how you intend to solve the problem in a form of a product instruction manual for your concept. Production work will focus on instructional design and the creation of a speculative product manual.

• IMALR-GT 507 Trust (1 credit): A survey of blockchain, cryptocurrencies and decentralized applications. Class content will entail historical accounts of encryption and secrets, discussions of privacy in the digital age, case studies related to digital money and decentralized finance, as well as hands-on exercises to make sense of the current crypto-landscape. Underlying all of the course material will be questions involving truth, trade and communication.

• IMALR-GT 509 NIME (1 credit): In this “New Interfaces for Musical Expression” (NIME) class, the focus will be on electronics, musical instruments, and live performance. Students will engage in a series of hands-on workshops that involve the use of arduinos, sensors, and the visual programming language Max. The class will culminate with live in-class student performances. No prior experience is necessary. 

FEATURES

• Full access to IMA’s communal makerspace for production, prototyping and user-testing
• Advising and support from expert local and international faculty, staff and professionals
• Opportunities for immersion in both the commercial and cultural activities of Shanghai and surrounding areas
• Local dialogue series, artist talks, industry visits, workshops and communal programming
• Visit to Shenzhen – an epicenter of design, manufacturing and innovation (trip optional)
• Push forward “next steps” plans for the future