50 Days of Making is a 1.0 unit course that offers students the opportunity to pursue a creative passion and develop or refine a skill over a 50-day period. Students choose a topic of interest and produce an expression of that topic every day for 50 days. For examples of past projects from the 100-days version of the class see here: https://itp.nyu.edu/classes/100days/. Class time is spent discussing student progress and reflecting on students’ creative journey. Note that this class is a heavy lift for 1.0 unit, so only committed students should consider registering for it. Failure to complete the 50-day challenge may result in an incomplete grade for the course.
ITPG-GT.2337.1 () | Instructor: Paula Ceballos Delgado | Thur 6:30pm to 8:45pm / Thur 6:30pm to 8:45pm / Thur 6:30pm to 8:45pm / Thur 6:30pm to 8:45pm | Meeting Pattern: S-Special | Start Date
In this precarious and critical time, it is important to expand and evolve our ecosystem of thought away from the current hierarchies that prioritize the established frameworks of the Anthropocene. There is vast potential in combining emerging technologies and artistic expression to re-envision possible futures and ways of knowing/learning. This 1 point class will introduce concepts of speculative design, design fiction, tactical media, and adversarial design through a post-dualistic non-eurocentric approach to designing futures. Format: This class will take shape as hands-on co-design workshops where students will learn about resilience as futurism and ideate, design, and develop artifacts for/from the future. Format: This class will take shape as hands-on co-design workshops where students will learn about resilience as futurism and ideate, design, and develop artifacts for/from the future.
ITPG-GT.2374.1 () | Instructor: Pedro Galvao Cesar de Oliveira | Syllabus | Sat 12:30pm to 5:00pm / Sat 12:30pm to 5:00pm | Meeting Pattern: S-Special | Start Date
This 1-pt course examines the evolving paradigm of “Blockchain Aesthetics” using an interdisciplinary Art History and Science and Technology Studies (STS) perspective. Students will learn and discuss the dominant methods, concepts, and strategies of applied blockchain technology in contemporary digital art, and together attempt to analyze and theorize the potential affordances and harms of this new artistic medium as it intervenes in established visual art institutions and communities (e.g., from museums and galleries to auction houses, social media and the decentralized web). The class will also look backwards in history to situate “Blockchain Aesthetics,” and the wide artistic realm of “Crypto Art,” in a broad cultural and technological history beyond NFTs, highlighting how ideas around cryptography, contracts, reproducibility, decentralization, scarcity and financialization developed in modern and contemporary art. Approaching the blockchain as a novel artistic tool and a technology of power, this course considers recent aesthetic evaluations of Crypto Art against its sociopolitical, infrastructural, and ecological impact, centering its contested potential for—and negation of—equity.
ITPG-GT.2360.1 () | Instructor: Charles Eppley | Syllabus | Sat 12:30pm to 5:00pm / Sun 12:30pm to 5:00pm | Meeting Pattern: S-Special | Start Date
From the crass rattle of early pager motors to the sophisticated clicks and purrs of the iPhone Taptic engine, the ability to buzz has increasingly worked its way into our devices. This course focuses on physical prototyping and interaction design for non-visual feedback. Specifically, it will explore how haptic feedback can be utilized and integrated into handhelds, wearables, objects, and environments – anything that we touch or that touches us. Traditional tools such as eccentric rotating mass (ERM) motors, linear resonance actuators (LRAs), and haptic motor drivers will be introduced as well as less conventional methods such as gentle poking, prodding, warming, cooling, squeezing, and tickling. Through hands-on experimentation and a review of research to date, students will emerge from this course well-positioned to incorporate haptic feedback into their future projects. Note: This course is designed for students who have previous experience with physical computing and Arduino.
ITPG-GT.2457.1 () | Instructor: Kate Hartman | Sat 12:30pm to 5:30pm / Sun 12:30pm to 4:30pm | Meeting Pattern: S-Special | Start Date
Are you energized by the possibility of creating equitable products, services and content? Are you interested in being a more intentional designer? Are you committed to racial equity? As designers, you are trained to solve problems, but the pull of quickly doing/solving/redesigning can actually cause more harm. There are countless examples of racially biased practices that have resulted in biased algorithms in tech, so how might we interrogate existing design practices while revisioning what’s possible around technology and what equitable tech could look like? In this multimedia and interactive Intro to Design for Diversity (D4D), students will be provided with critical thinking skills to begin to explore the complexities of designing for equity. This foundational course will support you in reframing how you are approaching these complex equity dilemmas by examining “who we are” as designers, interrogating root causes of inequity and shifting how we are relating to – and centering – the communities most impacted by structural racism. Through a combo of lectures, storytelling, exercises, group work, case studies and weekly assignments, you’ll engage with tools and practices to interrogate your thinking and design practices and processes at the personal, team, institutional and systemic levels, and explore possibilities to design for equity using key relational and strategic tools from our equity framework, D4D.
ITPG-GT.2062.1 () | Instructor: Jahan Mantin | Syllabus | Wed 3:20pm to 5:35pm / Wed 3:20pm to 5:35pm / Wed 3:20pm to 5:35pm / Wed 3:20pm to 5:35pm | Meeting Pattern: S-Special | Start Date
Investing in Futures is a two day speculative worlding workshop in which you and your classmates will co-imagine worlds (some absurd, impossible, likely, or improbable) and inhabit them through conversation, craft, and play. Day 1: You’ll use a constraint based design process to co-imagine a world you want to live in. You’ll be introduced to concepts of world-building, speculative design, and systems thinking to develop this world. Depending on class’ interest, there may also be a brief introduction to Unity3d as a tool for depicting your shared worlds - though note the workshop is tool-agnostic and you may use a medium or technology of your choosing. Then, over the course of a week you’ll create artifacts and a story around your co-imagined world (physical, digital, or performance-based). Day 2: you’ll use the artifacts you created to share back the story of your world. As a class, we’ll discuss the themes and ideas your world embodied! This class can be especially fruitful for students looking for a creative way to see their thesis research through a totally new lens! You might also consider taking this class if they are interested in: Designing interactive pedagogical tools and workshops, Having lively conversations with your peers about systems and our roles within them, Constraint-based design as a way of generative creativity, How imagination and play can produce change, A break from our world.
ITPG-GT.2359.1 () | Instructor: Sarah Rothberg | Syllabus | Sun 12:30pm to 5:00pm / Sun 12:30pm to 5:00pm | Meeting Pattern: S-Special | Start Date
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.
ITPG-GT.2379.1 () | Instructor: John Henry Thompson / Shindy Johnson | Mon 12:10pm to 3:10pm / Mon 12:10pm to 3:10pm / Mon 12:10pm to 3:10pm | Meeting Pattern: S-Special | Start Date
100 Days of Making is a 2pt course that offers students the opportunity to pursue a creative passion or interest and develop or refine a skill over a 100-day period. Students choose a topic of interest and produce an expression of that topic every day for 100 days. For examples of past projects see here: https://itp.nyu.edu/classes/100days/. The course meets every other week over the course of the 14-week semester. Class time is spent discussing student progress and reflecting on students’ creative journey. Students are encouraged but not required to start their project on or near January 1. There will be a meeting for enrolled students to discuss project ideas prior to the winter break. About Christina Dacanay: www.cdacanay.com About JJ Esquizo: http://www.juanjose.xyz/ & Instagram: @juanjose_xyz
ITPG-GT.2793.1 () | Instructor: Katherine Dillon | Thur 3:20pm to 5:50pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-All Semester | Start Date
ITPG-GT.2793.2 () | Instructor: Raaziq Brown | Wed 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-All Semester | Start Date
In this course, students will explore and engage with Afrocentric design practices and countercultural theories when considering pedagogy, technology, community building, and speculative design. Through guided research, design exercises, conversations around readings and other media, students will be exposed to an omni-specialized and comprehensive methodological approach that cultivates radically imaginative futures. This course will introduce students to the philosophies and forms of Afrotectopia, a pioneering social institution developed out of ITP, and equip students with the skills to build thoughtful communities and spaces for creativity in and outside of the classroom. The course will culminate with students materializing their research into artifacts of the future (whether tangible like a physically computed object, intangible like a soundscape or short film, or experiential like a workshop or theatrical event) that realizes a new future and healthy societal order.
ITPG-GT.2326.1 () | Instructor: Ari Melenciano | Thur 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-Second Half | Start Date
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.
ITPG-GT.2481.1 () | Instructor: Aaron Parsekian | Tues 09:00am to 11:30am | Meeting Pattern: 7-Second Half | Start Date
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 multispecies 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.
ITPG-GT.2361.1 () | Instructor: Leslie E Ruckman / Gal Nissim | Syllabus | Tues 3:20pm to 5:50pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-Second Half | Start Date
While the automation of religion may sound like science fiction, the foundation of this course is examples of physical religious robots already built and spanning most major religions. Their existence raises complex questions about spiritual assistive devices, religious jobs as work, technology as “miracles,” idolatry, transhumanism, sacrilegious robots vs secular robots, the role of rites for robots, and whether a robot can be a member of a religion. Religious robots confront us with the boundaries of personhood, and can provide insights of what that means for technology, spirituality, and society. The course will combine reading, writing, discussion, research and speculative design.
ITPG-GT.2092.1 () | Instructor: Kari Love | Thur 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-Second Half | Start Date
How do you process data from connected devices? This class examines how to build systems to collect, process, store, and visualize data from connected devices. The class will review and discuss real world Internet of Things (IoT) systems using case studies and actual projects. We will build systems using Arduino hardware and open source software. We will discuss how IoT systems are built on commercial cloud infrastructure. Students will learn about IoT devices and the data pipelines for processing data. They will build an Arduino based device to send and receive data over WiFi using standard protocols like MQTT. Students will write code to move data from MQTT into a database. Students will learn how to query the database and present data as tabular data and graphs. To gain an understanding of an entire IoT system from device to application, we will start at a high level and then drill into each of the pieces -- we will: - Discuss sensor hardware and wireless options (WiFi, Cellular, LoRaWAN, LTE-M, etc) for moving data to the server - Discuss transport options MQTT, CoAP, AMQP, HTTPS, etc. - Examine SQL, NoSQL, and Time Series Databases - Look at tools and techniques for querying and visualizing data. - Collect and store sensor data using Amazon Web Services (AWS) Prerequisite: - Introduction to Physical Computing - Introduction to Computational Media (suggested) The class will be a mix of lecture, discussion, and building IoT systems. Real world examples and case studies will be used to demonstrate how IoT can be built.
ITPG-GT.2473.1 () | Instructor: Don Coleman | Wed 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-First Half | Start Date
You can’t fight for justice if you can’t see the injustice. In today’s digital world, injustice lurks in the invisible choices made by algorithms. In order to understand who these algorithms might discriminate against, as well as who they might favor, it is necessary to precisely measure their impacts in the real world, not just in simulations. In this class, you will learn about some fundamental investigative data journalism techniques, by looking into case studies and doing weekly exercises. You will learn the basics about research and reporting strategies that can help you gather evidence and collect data. You will also learn about how to clean dirty data, visualize it, and use it for analysis. These skills are essential to data journalism. We will discuss a range of stories that have relied on them investigating apps that power the gig economy, data brokers that track our online habits and AI-enabled products such as facial recognition software or tenant screening software; to name just a few subjects. Familiarity with research and reporting techniques, and/or experience with scripting languages such as Python or JavaScript will be useful, but are not a requirement.
ITPG-GT.2370.1 () | Instructor: Surya Mattu | Syllabus | Thur 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-Second Half | Start Date
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 About Ahmad Arshad: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmadsarshad/
ITPG-GT.2577.1 () | Instructor: Ahmad Arshad | Tues 3:20pm to 5:50pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-First Half | Start Date
In this course, students will be introduced to 3D rendering and modeling techniques within the context of international architectural practices. Students will be exposed to scholarship and research surrounding form, structure, aesthetics, and philosophies to engage in a design practice rooted in both societal context and experimentalism. Throughout the course, students will engage in theories around psychogeography and other design-oriented psychologies while studying international design practices through readings, guest lectures, and class-wide conversations. By the end of the course, students will develop their skills in comfortability engaging in an electromedia practice that moves from ideation and research into digitally rendered 3D environments. The course will culminate with students creating WebVR environments with their 3D renderings. This course will be taught in Cinema4D.
ITPG-GT.2324.1 () | Instructor: Ari Melenciano | Thur 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-First Half | Start Date
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
ITPG-GT.2125.1 () | Instructor: Kari Love | Thur 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-First Half | Start Date
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
ITPG-GT.2362.1 () | Instructor: CHIKA | Syllabus | Wed 3:20pm to 5:50pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-First Half | Start Date
On October 8th, 2015, a team in Ecuador identified 431 species of birds - the world record for number counted in a single day. Earlier that year in Myanmar, a scientist counted one Jerdon's babbler, the first in nearly eight decades. In December of 2019, eBird announced that its database held over 737 million bird observations. This morning, in Brooklyn Bridge park, I counted 38 house sparrows, 4 black-and-white warblers and an ovenbird. This course will consider birding as a practice, and will dive deep into the processes by which observations become data. As a collective, we will investigate how crowd-sourced data is transforming ornithology, and will explore ways to tell stories about the natural world through visualization and more radical forms of data representation.
ITPG-GT.2085.1 () | Instructor: Jer Thorp | Mon 12:10pm to 2:40pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-Second Half | Start Date
Have you noticed that touchless devices and systems have become more prevalent these days? For example, automatic toilets, faucets, hand sanitizer dispensers, thermometers, and even paper towel dispensers have sensors that allow them to detect when they are needed. Have you seen interfaces where people can type with different body postures? How about musical instruments that you can play by waving your hands in the air? This course will focus on researching and designing intangible interactions. Intangible interactions are those that we engage in without involving direct physical contact. 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. 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 documented 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? Technical topics that will be discussed in the class include: non touch-based sensors including optical sensors; proximity sensing; optimizing sensor readings on Arduino; extending capability of sensors with light pipes and lenses; body tracking with cameras ; signals; environmental sensing. Tags: intangible, interaction, artistic, poetic, physical, sensors, physicalcomputing, hci, research, art, environment, playful, fun
ITPG-GT.2055.1 () | Instructor: Yeseul Song | Tues 09:00am to 11:30am | Meeting Pattern: 7-First Half | Start Date
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.
ITPG-GT.2637.1 () | Instructor: Ben Light | Thur 12:10pm to 2:40pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-First Half | Start Date
With Machine Learning models are getting smaller, and microcontrollers are getting more computing power, Machine Learning is moving towards edge devices. This class explores the idea of how machine learning algorithms can be used on microcontrollers along with sensor data to build Physical Computing projects. In this class, we will learn about TensorFlow Lite, a library that allows you to run machine learning algorithms on microcontrollers. We will talk about common machine learning algorithms and techniques and apply them to build hands-on interactive projects that enrich our daily lives. Students will learn to use pre-trained models, and re-train the models with sensor data. We are going to talk about Image Classification, Transfer Learning, Gesture and Speech Detection. For each topic, we will first discuss its history, theory, datasets, and applications, and then build simple experiments based on the topic. Prospective students are expected to have taken Introduction to Physical Computing and Introduction to Computational Media course, or have equivalent programming experience with Arduino and JavaScript.
ITPG-GT.2050.1 () | Instructor: Yining Shi | Thur 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-Second Half | Start Date
Computers and Networks can more directly convey our experience of being in the world than traditional media. Class discussion will center around a psychological examination of that experience. Students will work on creating media to better depict our experience and networks to communicate it. The techniques in the class include three.js for creating environments, machine learning for generating imagery, webrtc for transmitting sound and video and cloud database services for storing it. This class picks up where Introduction to Computational Media leaves off.
ITPG-GT.2865.1 () | Instructor: Dan O\'Sullivan | Syllabus | Tues 3:20pm to 5:50pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-Second Half | Start Date
Transformative technologies (a.k.a. Transtech) are the wave of the future, yet many challenges remain before their use can become as effective and widespread as that of personal computers and cell phones today. This course will introduce students to this exciting field, starting with the examination of the potential for optimizing experience through mindfulness and meditation, the understanding of basic issues in obtaining and interpreting physiological signals, toward the aim of generating ideas for wearable transtech projects. Students will examine the ideas behind efforts to optimize human experience; practice different meditation techniques to experience the variety of cognitive and affective strategies they use and the varied effects they generate; explore the basic issues in obtaining and interpreting physiological data, and the use of brain stimulation methods such as TMS, dTCS, etc., and use this info to come up with ideas for wearable transtech devices. The class will be mix of lectures, exercises and demos.
ITPG-GT.2145.1 () | Instructor: Zoran Josipovic | Thur 12:10pm to 2:40pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-Second Half | Start Date
Cooking programs with an image based language is a fundamental skill in the production and design of modern digital processes. Visual programming is not only an alternative way to code, but a solution to approach generative and interactive Real-Time media. This class reviews the past, present and future of visual programming languages used to procedurally generate and manipulate media such as Max/MSP(Nato.0+55+3d), Isadora, Touch designer, Cables.gl, and Unreal Engine among others. The core of this course is the study of Unreal Engine’s Blueprint Visual Scripting as a way to produce prototypes that can be used in performance; however, the use of other visual programing environments such as Touch-designer, Max/MSP and Isadora will be encouraged as tools for prototyping and producing media in the Performance Arts. Prerequisites: Knowledge of a visual Programing Language such as Max/MSP, PureData, Blueprints and Touch-designer. Also knowing how to program in any Language is a desired skill.
ITPG-GT.2367.1 () | Instructor: Victor Morales | Syllabus | Thur 09:00am to 11:30am | Meeting Pattern: 7-First Half | Start Date
This two-point workshop covers the basics of paper engineering techniques (including folds, layers, dials and pull-tabs) to make movable designs that can be incorporated into your work. Weekly assignments and a final project.
ITPG-GT.2187.1 () | Instructor: Sam Ida | Fri 09:00am to 11:30am | Meeting Pattern: 7-Second Half | Start Date
Whether it’s through photo realistic scans found in current-gen video games or the cartoonish and low-fi aesthetic of Bitmoji there is no limit to ways in which the body and the self are represented in digital spaces. This class will look at how avatars have been historically used in the realm of art, commerce, and entertainment and utilize existing avatar creation tools to develop projects that examine identity, body politics, and contemporary performance. In class, we will cover the basics of Unreal Engine, virtual production tools, and skeletal meshes although students will be encouraged to use existing skill sets and creative thinking to complete some of the smaller week-by-week assignments. The class will culminate with a short performance, small installation or single/multi-channel video piece using one or more of the techniques covered in class. This can be a solo project or a group project. In this class students will: – Explore how avatars can be utilized in your creative practice – Gain an introductory understanding of Unreal Engine, virtual production tools, and how skeletal meshes function in game engines. – Learn how to recontextualize digital spaces for the purposes of art, installation, and performance. – Broaden your thinking of what performance can be, both in a physical setting and digital setting. – Think critically about how physical bodies inhabit digital spaces and how the hardware and software we use reinforces the acceptance and value of certain kinds of bodies.
ITPG-GT.2153.1 () | Instructor: Matt Romein | Mon 12:10pm to 2:40pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-First Half | Start Date
You affect others’ experience. Just by existing. If anyone has ever interacted with anything that you have ever made - you are a curator of experience. Curation means to care for. And all experience is time-based. From theaters to art installations to mobile apps to VR to games to thought experiments to fMRI procedures to elevators. You are an experience-designer. This is a class for experience-designers. If the world were clear, art would not exist. Time-based art and “theater” more specifically is a perfect manipulator of experience. Many creators of time-based art look for the “universal.” What happens in the minds of all truly happens. How can we use art to make our brains experience the same things? What behind-the-scenes work can we employ to manipulate experience? Film scoring works on us in ways we don’t perceive in the moment. Can we pay closer attention to this when making work? Sometimes what we have for lunch affects our experience of art more than the hours of labor that went into the most miniscule of decisions when making that art. Show don’t tell. How does the play take place in the room in front of us? How can public performance not be awkward? How do we experience a performance rather than watch it. Goals: Identify the reality / micro realities of your surroundings. Use what you identify to aid in curation of emotion with or without narrative (i.e. “art”) Format: Workshop / Laboratory / Post-mort. Students will be expected to make. Rapid prototyping and releasing early and often will become mantras for breathing life into performance ideas. How do we show not tell? How do we use science as a blueprint for staging? How do literal experiments become curated experiences for others? We will research. We will make. We will critique what we make. We will make again.
ITPG-GT.2032.1 () | Instructor: Andrew Schneider | Mon 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-First Half | Start Date
Over the past 3 years, we have seen many aspects of our lives thrust online. Increasingly, we are working, learning, socializing with family and friends, attending live performances and more through 2D grids of video feeds on platforms such as Zoom and Google Meet. These communication tools have become essential for remote communities to connect, yet fail to replicate many of the most engaging, messy and human aspects of our in-person experience. What happens when we break out of this grid and explore new forms of real-time social interactions online using webcam video and audio? Recent explorations in this realm have shown the promise of spatial metaphors in creating engaging real-time social interactions online. In this course, students will create their own series of experimental social spaces that explore these questions: how does the shape and nature of our environment affect the way we communicate? What unique forms of real-time expression and sharing might be possible online (and only online)? How might we design experiences for the unique social dynamics we want to support? Students will be exposed to principles of spatial design as well as a series of open source Javascript tools for arranging live webcam video and audio in 2D and 3D space in the browser. They will use WebGL (through the three.js library) to build 2D and 3D environments, and will be exposed to WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communications) and Node.js to add interactivity to those environments.
ITPG-GT.2327.1 () | Instructor: Aidan Nelson | Thur 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-First Half | Start Date
The central focus of this fabrication class is ‘replasticing.’ Replasticing: the act of remaking/reforming single use plastic into new objects. In addition to learning about plastic’s properties, various forms and history, students will also learn how to fabricate and 3D Print PLA Plastic, DIY recycle and use extruders and injection molds to recast “waste” plastic in their class projects. Students will then take a close look at the waste stream in NYC and Brooklyn, and research the end-of-life cycle for plastics. The class will culminate in a collaborative project contributing to and creating new solutions for the Tandon Makerspace in managing their excess of PLA 3D print waste. Solutions can be anything from designing recycled plastic objects and tools, to systems for community engagement and efficient processing of the PLA scraps in the Makerspace. By creating opportunities for communities to have access to DIY recycling, we will re-imagine waste; re-configure design practices; and re-value plastic’s potential in a circular economy.
ITPG-GT.2366.1 () | Instructor: Blair Simmons / Molly Ritmiller | Syllabus | Mon 12:10pm to 2:40pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-Second Half | Start Date
We build computers based on an illusory view of ourselves and miss out on connecting with good parts. This class looks at how we can reach the rest of you, the unconscious, the implicit, the context beyond the text. The readings and discussions in this class draw on modern research such as neuroscience, behavioral economics, social psychology, embodied cognition, and evolutionary psychology. The production assignments look for opportunities in biosensing, data analysis and experiential media to interact with a fuller spectrum of your experience. ICM and PComp are prerequisites.
ITPG-GT.2975.1 () | Instructor: Dan O\'Sullivan | Syllabus | Tues 3:20pm to 5:50pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-First Half | Start Date
Buildings produce a large percentage of the carbon emissions threatening the planet and multi-family residential buildings make up a significant portion of it. With Covid-19 changing the way we live and work, and the increasing amount of data available from buildings, a key to fighting the climate crisis will be turning this data into action. In this course, learn how to analyze interval data and explore visualizing data to motivate tenants and building operators to change their behavior to reduce energy usage at the optimal times. This will involve analyzing the data streams coming from installed sensors and building equipment, understanding how usage varies over time, and transforming raw data into visual interfaces that mobilize us all in the fight to save the planet. This course will teach basics of how time series data can be stored, how to query time series data, and how to understand energy usage from a data set. With these new skills students will design a project using time series data and their JavaScript skills to visualize this data.
ITPG-GT.2351.1 () | Instructor: Jamil Ellis | Fri 12:10pm to 2:40pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-First Half | Start Date
Listening is not something we do through hearing alone. Engaging with multiple perspectives, from Deaf studies and critiques of ableist hearing ideologies, to the possibilities and pitfalls presented through machine listening and imaginative sonic speculation, we will playfully deconstruct and question what it means to listen at all. Each week, readings will be assigned and students are asked to respond to prompts in the form of light-weight exercises that will orient most of our in-class discussion. Time will be spent discussing readings, presenting, and providing critique for each other’s projects in order to help draw connections between theory and practice. Through in-class presentations, we will encounter works by Christine Sun Kim, George Lewis, Pauline Oliveros and read from Jennifer Lynn Stoever, Tina Campt, and François Bonnet. The class has no technical prerequisites, and students are welcome to respond with works using tools and techniques from other classes (audio/video presentation, programming and physical computing, installation and fabrication, etc.). Through this work, we will unpack how the way in which we attend to the physical world and its inhabitants through our listening has real consequences. In much the same way our interpretation of the world is informed and influenced by factors outside of ourselves, our capacity to listen is conditioned through societal, political, economic, historical, and racial dimensions. We will disentangle listening from hearing and consider listening as a practice that begins not with how we hear sounds but how it allows us to (or prevents us from) interfacing and relating to our exteriors (and interiors). By the end of the class we will attempt to converge and coalesce our own ideas and perspective of what it means to listen. About Johann Diedrick: http://www.johanndiedrick.com
ITPG-GT.2328.1 () | Instructor: Johann Diedrick | Fri 12:10pm to 2:40pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-Second Half | Start Date
This course focuses on the Design, User Testing, and Production of the final Thesis project. Students will meet with the Thesis Advisor bi-weekly, often in small study groups or 1:1 meetings. Prerequisite: Thesis Part 1: Research and Development.
ITPG-GT.2099.7 () | Instructor: Stefani Bardin | Tues 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-All Semester | Start Date
ITPG-GT.2099.2 () | Instructor: Steve Downs | Tues 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-All Semester | Start Date
ITPG-GT.2099.5 () | Instructor: Luisa Pereira | Tues 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-All Semester | Start Date
ITPG-GT.2099.3 () | Instructor: Sharon De La Cruz | Tues 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-All Semester | Start Date
ITPG-GT.2099.4 () | Instructor: Juliette Powell | Tues 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-All Semester | Start Date
ITPG-GT.2099.6 () | Instructor: Sarah Rothberg | Tues 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-All Semester | Start Date
ITPG-GT.2099.1 () | Instructor: Adaora Udoji | Tues 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-All Semester | Start Date
Everyone wants to be a YouTuber, but building a business as a digital creator is about more than just being an online celebrity. In this course, students will learn how to build a YouTube channel, from titles and thumbnails to video production to sponsor relationships to analytics and collaborations. We will examine what it takes to build a sustainable business around online video, learning from real-world examples and applying them to the students\' own YouTube channels.
ITPG-GT.2363.1 () | Instructor: Dave Wiskus | Syllabus | Fri 12:10pm to 2:40pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-First Half | Start Date
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: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wMWVnDdzgz2bbsCNp7jRAiCe1job4glq61o67sWAP00/edit?usp=sharing
ITPG-GT.2368.1 () | Instructor: Maya Pruitt | Syllabus | Wed 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-Second Half | Start Date
When we see the shape of an uppercase serif letterform, we may subconsciously be reminded of the Roman Empire. What we may not consciously realize is that this association has its roots in the technology used to make these letters, thousands of years ago. Serifs are a wedge-shaped artifact that occurs when a chisel hits stone—the tool used by the Roman Empire to carve their letterforms into monuments called capitals (now a word synonymous with “uppercase” due to this same history.) Though some debate exists among historians, it is widely believed that “capital” letters get their geometric shape from the constraints of the tool of the chisel itself. To understand how the wide stylistic variety of letterforms arrived in our font library (and to understand where our own hazy associations with letterforms originate), one must look to the technology which produced them. From the exigencies of the sign painter’s brush to the psychedelic warping of 1960s Phototype to the 8-bit pixel-based typefaces found in 80s video games, letterforms contain the technological history of the world in microcosm. The subtle choices in each typeface’s form bear the imprint of their moment’s philosophical, technological, and visual conditions, capturing an era’s zeitgeist with a miraculous economy of expression. The letters that we use today are more than 2,000 years old—persisting longer than any other artifacts in common use—but have undergone dramatic fluctuations alongside tech’s major physical transitions from stone to paper to metal to celluloid to digital information. Parallel to this technological history, letters shifted context from cuneiform to letterpress to Linotype to phototype to digital screens in a continual reinterpretation of the the fundamental question “what is a letter?” In the 1970s, technologists and computer scientists found themselves grappling with this same fundamental question as they carried letterforms over into the digital realm: What are letters? Are they fixed visual information? Or are they an idea—a set of executable, gestural instructions? Are letters best understood as reconfigurations of a set of modular parts— building-block components rather than the choreographed gestures of calligraphy? Are they the organic product of the human hand or the output of a system? Early digital technologies wagered “is this what computers are for?” with typefaces in tow—choosing which aspects of the old analog world to reconstruct—in deciding what attributes to port-over. The world we live in today has been impacted by how technologists answered these questions. Questions which, just as easily, could have been answered differently. This course will begin from a place of reflection on our own lived associations with typographic morphology. We will then explore the possible technological origins of those associations while reflecting upon how [what seemed like] tiny digitization decisions delivered us the typographic reality we inhabit today. Students will be asked to look to history for “reasons” for typographic form (which is fun!) But we will also practice looking to history for alternate futures—to examine the “dead ends” that might have otherwise been and daydream about where these paths lead. Typographic technological history offers a manageable jumping-off point for such a thought experiment. This thought experiment scales up to larger problem-solving (and conceptualization) skills related to understanding the implications and effects of tech.
ITPG-GT.2365.1 () | Instructor: Kelli Anderson | Syllabus | Fri 09:00am to 11:30am | Meeting Pattern: 7-First Half | Start Date
Computational simulation and videogame engines offer thinkers and makers a new way to reflect on the question “If I can make a world, what would it be like?” In Worldmaking with Unity, students will be exposed to various theories and approaches of worldmaking, and realize their own creative visions by constructing an original, conceptual, and playfully simulated world with indie game development engine Unity. This seven-week seminar/studio course will include a gentle introduction to computer programming, 3D modeling, character and scene design, and rendering techniques with Unity, as well as related production tools such as Blender. Projects may address system, agency, narrative, generative design, critical computing, and more. Student projects created in Unity can be compatible with augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). This course is designed as an intro-level game design and development course. There is no prerequisite. More advanced production techniques such as shader language and AI might be introduced as optional topics only. More information at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UppRjSyFlMpGPNLMowqKmP7wwq29s5Oexnpvrj4Gubs/edit?usp=sharing About Zhenzhen Qi: https://www.zzyw.org/
ITPG-GT.2369.1 () | Instructor: Zhenzhen Qi | Syllabus | Wed 12:10pm to 2:40pm | Meeting Pattern: 7-Second Half | Start Date
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. https://techpolicy.press Reading List: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xoq92YRHNIVJV-74gwilZKVy-6yDTgAkfBDAll-oDO8/edit
ITPG-GT.2184.1 () | Instructor: Justin Hendrix | Mon 7:00pm to 8:30pm / Thur 2:00pm to 4:50pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
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.
ITPG-GT.2066.1 () | Instructor: Kevin Cunningham / Carol Dysinger | Wed 12:10pm to 2:40pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
This course will explore the history and meaning of the ubiquitous concept of “cursed” media, and provide students with a survey of digital art tools for the creation of their own cursed animation, video, photography, music, and web art. Many people were first introduced to the concept of cursed media when it exploded into mainstream internet discourse in 2016 with the @cursedimages Twitter account, which posted found photos bound by their unsettling effect on the viewer. Cursed media predates this account, however, stretching back to medieval notions of cursed objects. We will demonstrate how throughout time, cursed media has functioned like a slip of the tongue that provides a window into the cultural unconscious, where we encounter uncensored thoughts and feelings about race, gender, class, and what it means to be human. From Amazon Muzak generators to Artbreeder’s GAN tools for image creation, from machine learning text generators to robots who work at Walmart, cursed media and tools for its creation bring into view the ways that that culture reacts to tension between the increasingly precarious position of human beings in the capitalist 21st century and the threat of human erasure by the powerful forces of nature. Students will be introduced to digital art tools for creating music, manipulating photography and video, working with 3d animation, and building web art. Students will attempt to create their own cursed media, and in the process will gain a deeper understanding of the unconscious biases and ethical implications of contemporary digital creation tools. About Cassie Tarakajian: https://cassietarakajian.com About Adam Rokhsar: http://www.adamrokhsar.com/
ITPG-GT.2088.1 () | Instructor: Cassie Tarakajian / Adam Rokhsar | Thur 3:20pm to 5:50pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
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: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily/
ITPG-GT.2470.1 () | Instructor: Emily Conrad | Mon 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
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.
ITPG-GT.2086.1 () | Instructor: Ben Light | Tues 12:10pm to 2:40pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
Rules of play shape competitive games from checkers to football. But how do rules of interaction, both stated and unstated, shape everyday life? What happens when there are no established conventions and the rules are being made up as we go along? And last but not least, can we invent and facilitate new social norms through unconventional uses of technology? In this course, we will design, code and test strategies for playful, serious, and bizarre group interactions drawing inspiration from daily life. We will interrogate both what it means to play and how individual identities and group behaviors emerge. What motivates participation? What hinders it? When does participation become oppressive? What's the difference between self-consciousness and self-awareness? Who has power? Who doesn't? Are leaders necessary? What’s the difference between taking turns and engaging in conversation? What happens when the slowest person sets the pace? What happens when there are no explicit rules? And how do we set the stage for breaking social conventions? Class time will be a mix of technical material, play-testing, improvisation and movement work adapted from acting and dance training. All projects will be done in groups of 2-4. We will work with both mobile sensors and traditional keyboard/mouse interaction with p5.js, socket.io and node.js to enable real-time interaction. Our challenge is to design technology-enabled interactions that encourage participants to be even more present in the physical world with each other.
ITPG-GT.2176.1 () | Instructor: Mimi (Yue) Yin | Mon 3:20pm to 5:50pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
Beginning with the release of Crowther and Woods\' \"Colossal Cave Adventure\" in 1977, the potential and unique affordances of computation as a means of storytelling have become more and more apparent. Combining approaches from literary theory, anthropology, computational creativity and game design, this class considers how narrative structure can be represented as data and enacted through computation, and invites students to implement practical prototypes of their own interactive and procedurally-generated narratives using a variety of technologies. Topics include (but are not limited to) hypertext fiction, \"choose your own adventure\"-style branching narratives, text adventures, visual novels, story generation from grammars and agent-based simulations. Students will complete a series of bite-size weekly assignments to present for in-class critique. Each session will also feature lectures, class discussion, and technical tutorials. Prerequisites: Introduction to Computational Media or equivalent programming experience.
ITPG-GT.2198.1 () | Instructor: Allison Parrish | Mon 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
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.
ITPG-GT.2565.1 () | Instructor: Tom Igoe | Wed 09:00am to 11:30am | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
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
ITPG-GT.2036.1 () | Instructor: Pedro Galvao Cesar de Oliveira | Wed 3:20pm to 6:15pm | Meeting Pattern: 12 | Start Date
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: https://www.fddrsn.net/
ITPG-GT.2466.1 () | Instructor: Jeffrey Feddersen | Thur 12:10pm to 2:40pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
How do we design for immersive, cooperative, and playful experiences? Students in this course will look at immersive and experiential design through the lens of one type of experience: the Escape Room. We will explore different experiences, narrative structures, group dynamics, and game mechanics. Over 14 weeks students will explore how to design immersive and participatory experiences through cooperation, play, and problem solving. Though weekly assignments and exercises students will use a variety of methods to design cooperative narratives and experiences. Over the course of the semester we will explore different forms of digital and physical interaction. During the last few weeks of the semester students will collaborate to design, build, and operate an escape room experience. Prerequisites: Physical Computing and Introduction to Computational Media.
ITPG-GT.2491.1 () | Instructor: David Rios | Fri 09:00am to 11:30am | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
Fast Fun: Physical Controllers for Unity will guide students in the creation of game controllers for Unity applications. Leveraging simple circuits and easy communications protocols, students will create physical controllers to control their Unity creations. Strategies will be oriented towards quickly creating multiple, effective prototypes. An emphasis will be put on reusable, ecofriendly materials and methods that work in your bedroom as well as the shop or lab. This class will be part code workshop, Physical Computing review, and HCI/UX analysis. Discussions of readings will frame and give context to technical exercises.
ITPG-GT.2335.1 () | Instructor: Dominic Barrett | Mon 09:00am to 11:30am | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
Hardware is not hard, and new tools at ITP make it easier than ever to make custom circuit boards for your projects. Students will learn how to grow from a breadboard to their own surface mount PCB, all without leaving the floor. This class is about artists and designers taking control of their hardware, and exploring the potential of embedding their projects into the world around them. Students will learn Eagle CAD, micro-milling machines, drawing schematics, electronics theory, ordering parts, surface-mount components, solder paste, stenciling, reflow, pick-and-place, and more. Two projects will be assigned. The first is a class project, where each student will make their very first surface-mount PCB. The second project is the final, and we will be spending the rest of the semester focused on iterating through prototypes and final designs. Prerequisite: Physical Computing About Andy Sigler: andysigler.com
ITPG-GT.2767.1 () | Instructor: Andy Sigler | Mon 09:00am to 11:30am | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
Microbial ethics in an anticolonial space faring future is a hybrid theory and hands-on course that examines microbial informed ethics as a guide for our travels beyond earth. This class takes the biopolitical and the geopoetical as our frame of reference: \\\\\\The microbial\\\\\\ We are ancient bacteria, in the event of an injury where large amounts of mitochondrial cells are spilled into the bloodstream, the human body still recognizes it as foreign bacteria and triggers a systemic inflammatory response. We shouldn’t forget that symbiosis just means “together” + “living”, and there are many modes of living together. \\\\\\The geological\\\\\\ Our bodies are starmass, but our thingness isn’t just materially constituted, it is also historically coded. The thingification process of colonization transforms subjectivity into objecthood, ranked through animacy hierarchies to justify various forms of extraction and subjugation. In space, can we rewrite the possibilities of being and non-being? About Rae Hsu: www.hsurae.com
ITPG-GT.2373.1 () | Instructor: Rae Yuping Hsu | Syllabus | Wed 09:00am to 11:30am | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
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.
ITPG-GT.2133.1 () | Instructor: Tom Igoe | Wed 3:20pm to 5:50pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
This course teaches the ins and outs of using imagery in real-time within a performance context. The class will use Max/MSP/Jitter to study various ways of manipulating visual media (video, still imagery, live camera feeds) in integration with various interactive elements (sound, physical interfaces, sensors) in order to create dynamic and replicable performance systems. We will look at ways in which images are represented by a computer in order to increase our understanding of these systems and expand our visual/digital palette. We will then apply that understanding to variety of different performance formats and contexts while discussing strategies and techniques for creating compelling performances. Students will be assigned a short solo performance based on the ideas of video collage, remix, and expanded cinema as well as a group project based on concepts of object theater & experimental animation. Students will propose and perform a longer form performance as part of a final presentation in the form of a group show that will be arranged by the instructor. In depth in class workshops centered around Max + performance practice and critique. Th 12:10pm - 2:40pm (01/31 - 05/09)
ITPG-GT.2422.1 (5624) | Instructor: Matt Romein | Wed 12:10pm to 2:40pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
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.
ITPG-GT.2734.1 () | Instructor: Shawn Van Every | Thur 12:10pm to 2:40pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) are the current state of the art machine learning technology to synthesize imagery. In Making Visual Art with GANs students will use popular deep learning models to create images, videos, and interactive experiences. The focus will be on hands-on experimentation with style transfer, CycleGAN/Pix2Pix, and StyleGAN2-ADA in RunwayML and Google Colab. The course will cover the theory behind deep learning and GANs, using pre-trained models, dataset creation, and training custom models. We’ll look at ways to generate images and videos using Python, p5.js, as well as reacting to sound and motion inputs. Coding in Python is not required for this course, but a general knowledge of programming basics is encouraged.
ITPG-GT.2336.1 () | Instructor: Derrick Schultz | Thur 09:00am to 11:30am | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
Where does healing reside in media-making? How do we approach creating artistic processes and tools that move towards minimizing harm, supporting collective care, and understanding what healing means for ourselves and with one another? This course examines artistic processes and frameworks that reconstruct, reclaim, and decolonize ‘healing.’ Together, we will 1) gather embodied data from our daily lives, 2) critically engage with disability, race, queerness, and diasporic experience through reading and discussion, and, 3) develop our own healing processes through experimentative tool-making, performance work, and/ or space-making.
ITPG-GT.2358.1 () | Instructor: Yo-Yo Lin | Syllabus | Fri 3:20pm to 5:50pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
One of the most transformative consumer products in history, the iPhone remains the standard bearer for great design and user experience. With the latest versions of iOS and iPhone, Apple puts depth sensing and augmented reality in our pockets. How do we take advantage of this incredible platform to produce our own compelling experiences? This course will be a hands-on workshop where we explore the world beyond generic apps and push the boundaries of what’s possible on iOS hardware. Each week, you’ll be asked to complete a programming exercise meant to foster your understanding of iOS application development. We\'ll leverage existing open source libraries to quickly build out your app with features such as real time communication and cloud storage. We aim to create distributed instruments for computed expression. Full-time access to an iOS device and a Mac laptop computer running the latest operating system and development tools are required. Prereq: Some programming experience (such as ICM) and willingness to learn Apple\'s Swift programming language. About John Henry Thompson: http://www.johnhenrythompson.com/
ITPG-GT.2372.1 () | Instructor: John Henry Thompson | Syllabus | Fri 3:20pm to 5:50pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
Performing the Internet is a course designed in response to the closure of performance venues around the world during the pandemic and the subsequent need for new and interesting forms of online performance. In this course students will study and craft performative interventions into online games and virtual worlds, build and perform on interactive websites, and create networked browser extensions to support new and innovative forms of online performance. Through readings, collaborative code exercises, and group performances students will explore the concept of 'liveness' and how to better share unique, participatory human experiences in the absence of shared physical space. Technologies covered will include HTML/CSS/Javascript for making interactive websites, Socket.io for real-time connectivity, browser extensions and OBS for livestreamed performance. Although the material for this course will focus on online interaction, this course will be taught in person.
ITPG-GT.2989.1 () | Instructor: Todd Anderson | Mon 3:20pm to 5:50pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
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.
ITPG-GT.2974.1 () | Instructor: Brett Peterson | Wed 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
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: https://www.giganticmechanic.com/our-team/#trefry
ITPG-GT.2467.1 () | Instructor: Gregory Trefry | Fri 09:00am to 11:30am | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
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.
ITPG-GT.2564.1 () | Instructor: Daniel Rozin | Tues 12:10pm to 2:40pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
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
ITPG-GT.2778.1 () | Instructor: Allison Parrish | Mon 12:10pm to 2:40pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
This course provides a fresh look at new and revised curatorial, artistic and technological frameworks that explore the decoupling of art and technology from capitalist, colonial and draconian systems. By employing 'reverse engineering' as a conceptual tool for repair and repatriations, students will collectively rethink social, cultural and political systems pertaining to monetary, ethical, racial, human, machine learning structures via an artist and curatorially driven lens. The course will include a combination of seminars, guest lectures/ presentations, case studies and site visits. The course follows a 'think tank' model where critical reflection, readings, curatorial and practical assignments will culminate in a collective class project, which may take the form of a group exhibition, public program/ publication. Fostering an environment for the cross circulation of critical ideas, the course provides a compact and timely overview of a fast shifting and changing local, global and virtual ecosystem via the art and technology of our time.
ITPG-GT.2097.1 () | Instructor: Sara Raza | Tues 09:00am to 11:30am | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
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/
ITPG-GT.2177.1 () | Instructor: Jonathan Turner | Fri 12:10pm to 2:40pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
This class provides foundational understanding of the scientific and social issues related to the design of resilient urban futures. It provides ways of understanding our shifting ecological landscapes and the need to engage in design that addresses the conditions of the time we are living in now = the Anthropocene = the epoch when human beings began to problematically impact global climate and ecosystems. Following the methodology of “The Temporary Expert,” students will combine traditional research and analysis with hands-on experimental project development. We will use the scientific method as an investigative and evaluative tool for these design interventions by learning to test and measure a variety of different kinds of data and then creating projects to evaluate, share and even perform this information. Students will learn to pinpoint and begin to understand the increasingly mercurial geological conditions of our planet supplemented by field trips to bio-labs, workshops with scientists and visits from artists working within the scientific world. Weekly work consists of readings, interviews, writing, daily artistic practice and systems thinking exercises. About Stefani Bardin: stefanibardin.com
ITPG-GT.2853.1 () | Instructor: Stefani Bardin | Tues 12:10pm to 2:40pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
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/
ITPG-GT.2653.1 (24602) | Instructor: Luisa Pereira | Thur 3:20pm to 5:50pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
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: https://wonderville.nyc
ITPG-GT.2063.1 () | Instructor: Mark Kleback | Thur 6:30pm to 9:00pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date
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).
ITPG-GT.2094.1 () | Instructor: Theo Ellin Ballew | Mon 3:20pm to 5:50pm | Meeting Pattern: 14 | Start Date