ITP Graduate Courses 2020-2021
ITPG-GT 1000 Creative Computing
What can computation add to human communication? Creating computer applications, instead of just using them, will give you a deeper understanding of the essential possibilities of computation. Conversely excitement about your computational project ideas will best propel your acquisition of skills necessary to realize those ideas. This six week course is divided in two parts. The first portion starts with the expressive capabilities of the human body & how we move through the world. The Physical Computing skills will allow you to go past the limitations of the mouse, keyboard & monitor interfac... more description for ITPG-GT 1000 »
ITPG-GT 2000 Appl Interact Telecom System
This introductory class is designed to allow students to engage in a critical dialogue with leaders drawn from the artistic, non-profit and commercial sectors of the new media field, and to learn the value of collaborative projects by undertaking group presentations in response to issues raised by the guest speakers. Interactive media projects and approaches to the design of new media applications are presented weekly; students are thus exposed to both commercial as well as mission-driven applications by the actual designers and creators of these innovative and experimental projects. By way of... more description for ITPG-GT 2000 »
ITPG-GT 2001 CL: Video and Sound
This course explores the fundamentals of storytelling through animation. Students will create short animated pieces over the course of seven weeks. The first part of the course is devoted to the stop motion using Dragon Stop Motion. The second part of the course is devoted to digital collage animation using After Effects. The third portion of the course will experiment with 3d characters and game engines. Drawing skills are not necessary for this class. Basic video and sound skills are required and students should take Comm. Lab: Video and Sound as a requisite for this course
ITPG-GT 2004 Communications Lab
An introductory course designed to provide students with hands-on experience using various technologies including social software and web development, digital imaging, audio, video and animation. The forms and uses of new communications technologies are explored in a laboratory context of experimentation and discussion. The technologies are examined as tools that can be employed in a variety of situations and experiences. Principles of interpersonal communications, media theory, and human factors are introduced. Weekly assignments, team and independent projects, and project reports are require... more description for ITPG-GT 2004 »
ITPG-GT 2011 Learning Machines: Theory to Practice
Over the last decade, machine learning has undergone a philosophical Renaissance through the innovation of a set of computational models and algorithms often referred to as Deep Learning. These ideas have led to concrete advancements in long-standing applied domains such as classification and time-series prediction. But the real excitement over Deep Learning lies in its yet untapped potential. This course will introduce some of the core technical concepts within Deep Learning and explore how these emerging capabilities will transform the next generation of computing interfaces such as search e... more description for ITPG-GT 2011 »
ITPG-GT 2012 Design for Change
This 12- week course will examine the psychology of behaviour and apply that insight as a framework to affect change. The first half of the semester will focus on researching and discussing human behavior and looking at case studies of how behavioral theories have been applied to motivate change. In the second half of the semester students, working in pairs, will identify a societal issue that they are passionate about and develop a project that attempts, at scale, to move the needle on the issue in a positive way. This class is for students with passion for an issue and enthusiasm to apply ... more description for ITPG-GT 2012 »
ITPG-GT 2013 Designing Healthcare
What does it mean to design for individual patients or healthcare systems? What are common problems patients encounter as they traverse the healthcare system and what unique solutions and creative inspirations can we propose? In Designing Healthcare students will experience 4 patient case scenarios that intimately illustrate patient disease onset, initial interaction with the healthcare system, hospital stay, surgical encounters and post operative or post treatment course. Each patient case presentation will be followed by discussion of observations and identification of inspirations, problems... more description for ITPG-GT 2013 »
ITPG-GT 2016 Lighting without the Board
This course builds upon ITP’s expertise of lighting LED’s to explore how we can make artistic choices for both how to light an event, our own work, or even make lighting based sculptures. Traditionally this work was limited to those with access to large DMX boards; however, we will look at how to use the DMX protocol to power large scale lighting rigs with either code or open source software that emulates the traditional board approach. We will also explore the artistic side of lighting to enable you to make more creative choices about angle, color, and which instruments to use.
ITPG-GT 2017 Actual Fact: Visualizing Hiphop Lyrics As Cultural Indicator
While the last decade can be characterized by collecting and publishing information, this decade has been focused on engaging with, editing and understanding the current torrent of available information. But in order to tell a story, data needs memory – allowing it to then be anchored with first hand experience. Working collaboratively—students will create projects that pair data visualization with critical scholarship, investigating the relationships between Hiphop data and society. Actual Fact responds to global changes in science, technology, society, history and culture by transforming in... more description for ITPG-GT 2017 »
ITPG-GT 2018 Alt Docs: Inventing New Formats for Non-fiction Storytelling
How does the ability to capture and publish transmedia pieces lend itself to documentary storytelling and journalism? How are traditional genres enriched by the addition of new-media techniques, including 360 film, photogrammetry, depth sensing and spatialized audio? And how can the use of these techniques help to evolve the definition of nonfiction storytelling? This is a production class in which the projects will be content-driven. The subject and the story should drive the students’ choice in media formats used to present the material. The interplay between different mediums should add to... more description for ITPG-GT 2018 »
ITPG-GT 2019 Automatic Music
Recent developments in machine learning are providing new tools and perspectives for creative people. By the end of this course you will have practical skills for using machine learning tools in the context of sound. We will start with some basic signal processing and music theory, which will help us discuss sound as a material. Then we will move on to manipulating and generating sounds and scores with code, with an emphasis on reusing existing audio archives. In the last few weeks we will work from rule-based composition, to Markov chains, then recurrent neural networks. Throughout the course... more description for ITPG-GT 2019 »
ITPG-GT 2020 Emotions in Motion
I was giving the demo to someone a little while ago, and I finished the demo and I said what do you think? They said 'You had me at scrolling.'". (Steve Jobs) Motion design has become an incredibly important component in UX/UI design over the last few years. When used as more than just a subtle design detail, animation can provide cues, guide the eye, and soften the sometimes-hard edges of digital interactions. It can improve the user experience. Following Disney's 12 Principles of Animation, motion has the power of adding surprise and delight to functional interactions. Google's new "Mater... more description for ITPG-GT 2020 »
ITPG-GT 2022 Immersive Listening: Designing Sound for VR
Until recently 3D sound was a novelty reserved for special uses and reaching a limited audience, no medium in popular culture has been as inherently dependent upon spatial audio as virtual reality. The widespread and standardized implementation of surround sound in film brought cinema to a new level of immersion, but is limited to theatrical exhibition and home theater systems. Today a considerable amount of content is consumed on mobile devices and laptops which excludes the cinematic experience of spatial sound. With the current rise of cinematic VR and the blurring line between gaming and e... more description for ITPG-GT 2022 »
ITPG-GT 2023 Intro to PCB Fab
This is 7-week skill building course for students to learn how to grow from a breadboard to a custom surface mount board, without leaving the floor. Prototyping circuitry is getting easier and cheaper, and the tools and processes available at ITP allow students to cheaply make their circuits any shape and aesthetic they want, while increasing robustness and reproducibility. Students will learn a new tool or process each week, and using using those new skills to build a final project. They will learn such as how to work with surface mount parts, etch a board design, read a schematic, design a c... more description for ITPG-GT 2023 »
ITPG-GT 2024 Surveillance Society: Making Sense of the Data Trails We Leave Behind
Data are created and collected all around us, trails left from interactions in social media, accessible through streams, feeds, APIs, and data-stores. These data are used to power a growing number of services, modeled not only off our own interactions but also interactions of our friends and larger network of connections. Even if well intended, the growing range of uses of systems that algorithmically ingest our data means there are a growing number of unintended consequences and inherent biases. In order to untangle some of these issues, we’ll dive into the literature, while running our own d... more description for ITPG-GT 2024 »
ITPG-GT 2025 Materials and Making Things by Hand
You've built a foam prototype. Your project idea is now out in the open sitting on a table where you and your teammates can look at it. It's not quite what you thought it would be when you made your first rough sketch, there?s even something a little goofy about it, but then there's also that interesting curve that you hadn't envisioned. Your teammates have also noticed some things that you hadn't thought of. You see where you can reshape the foam to make the prototype both look and work better. You've made your first step; you've moved your project forward. Removing barriers to creative probl... more description for ITPG-GT 2025 »
ITPG-GT 2026 Future of Farming
The goal of this course is to teach students about product design, development, and commercialization through the specific lens of food production. Today, most of the world would be unfed were it not for a few technology breakthroughs from the mid-20th Century. But global agricultural output is peaking. The one remaining unused resource is land: at this point, growing more food is mostly a matter of destroying more forestland, irrigating the resulting arid wasteland with water sourced from rapidly depleting aquifers, and contaminating both the land and water with chemical fertilizers and pest... more description for ITPG-GT 2026 »
ITPG-GT 2027 Reengineering Design for Alternative Solutions
Reengineering current technologies to solve new or different problems is a design process that humans have adapted for centuries. This course explores socially-driven alternative uses of existing technologies, and carves out the space for engaging discussions about the future of responsible engineering and critical design. “We cannot solve the problems we have today by thinking in the same way that we did when we created them.” -Albert Einstein
ITPG-GT 2028 Making Data Tangible
Data is ubiquitous. Yet, it's often invisible. In this course, we will explore ways to create physical data visualizations using contemporary design and digital fabrication tools. Students will learn how to collect data, find interesting patterns, design creative digital models and build tangible pieces using laser cutters, 3D printers and woodworking tools. We will visualize everything from street performers in Washington Square to Instagram influencer trends. Topics related to creative coding, Arduino, artificial intelligence, projection mapping and traditional art-making techniques will als... more description for ITPG-GT 2028 »
ITPG-GT 2029 Knitting: Beyond the Scarf
Knitting, a relatively modern (only eleven to twelve hundred years old) technique for making stretchy fabrics, got its beginnings in the Middle East, and spread via trade routes into Europe, and then on into the rest of the world. Knitted items were initially a rare luxury, and then sailors and peasants learned to knit and make things for themselves, and the art took a turn into the realm of a common handicraft. Later, in the 1500s, machines were created that could knit, but it was still cheaper for people to make their own clothes. With the introduction of synthetic fibers, along widespread c... more description for ITPG-GT 2029 »
ITPG-GT 2030 Textile Interfaces
Want to make an interface that can be squished, stretched, stroked, or smooshed? This course will introduce the use of electronic textiles as sensors. Focus will be placed on physical interaction design - working with the affordances of these materials to create interfaces designed to invite or demand diverse types of physical interaction. This course does not require knowledge or love of sewing - a variety of construction methods will be introduced. It will rely on a physical computing approach, with Arduino being used to read sensor values. Working with a breadth of conductive and resistive ... more description for ITPG-GT 2030 »
ITPG-GT 2031 How to Find Out What You Want / Need to Know
"Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.” - Zora Neale Hurston “Necessity is the mother of invention, and research is her midwife.” - Anonymous Research is both fun and serious. It involves playful, structured exploration of the unknown, as well as critical appraisal of existing thoughts, beliefs, and systems. It is essential for the conception and development of new ideas, new connections, new processes, and new products, as well as informed decision-making and active engagement in civic life. Doing research is more difficult than a Google search, but it’s ... more description for ITPG-GT 2031 »
ITPG-GT 2032 Performing Reality
Time-based art, performance - and theater most specifically - should be perfect manipulators of experience. Many creators of time-based art look for the “universal” in content and overlook what we all have in common in form: brains. What happens in the minds of all truly happens (what happens in the lobby also 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 ... more description for ITPG-GT 2032 »
ITPG-GT 2033 Prediction as Planning: Wayfinding for Future Thinkers
In an age of pressing and complex problems like climate change, extreme inequality, and surveillance capitalism, “problem solving” is a central feature of innovation, design, and planning. But can these wicked problems actually be “solved”? And why does the cutting edge of problem solving look so limited? Machine learning. Predictive analytics. Algorithmic decision-making...Is planning for the future being outsourced to machines? In this class, we’ll take back control of the future by learning how it has historically been predicted, planned, and produced in board meetings, think tanks, writers... more description for ITPG-GT 2033 »
ITPG-GT 2034 Spatial Justice: Design + Tech for Equity
Designers are at the forefront of shaping space and have the power to reinforce or destabilize inequitable power relationships with space. With that context, how can we design for human equity? What does it look like to co-create spaces/projects under the pressure of gentrifying forces? How might technology and design be anchors for safe and equitable spaces/projects of the future? This course will explore these questions and the multiple facets that complicate and enrich design processes within communities. We will learn about models of community design center practices, civic vs. communit... more description for ITPG-GT 2034 »
ITPG-GT 2035 World in a Box: From the Aquarium to the Terrarium and Beyond
This open studio class is for students wishing to explore the design and construction of living systems: both terrestrial and aquatic. The labs and lectures are designed to lend clarity to the individual’s pursuit, as they create their chosen ‘World in a Box.’ For those endeavoring to create ‘smart’ systems; instructor developed infrastructure will be made available to support and accelerate project velocity. Our toolkit for exploration and expression will include Raspberry Pi, building and deploying applications on Google Cloud Platform (authored in python), designing systems in Fusion 360, ... more description for ITPG-GT 2035 »
ITPG-GT 2036 Electronics for Inventors
Today we no longer solely connect to the digital world through computers. The result of this push to connect the digital and the analog world is the increase 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 understanding of electronics components such as resistors, capacitors, ... more description for ITPG-GT 2036 »
ITPG-GT 2037 Experiments in Augmented Reality
Is augmented reality technology about to enter the mainstream? AR platforms have finally become widely accessible to artists, designers, and technologists thanks to recent advances in mobile performance and a new collection of powerful computer vision techniques. As such, the medium offers rich possibilities for experimentation and a chance to rethink how we experience the intersection of the physical and digital. In this course, students will acquire an understanding of basic concepts and techniques necessary to prototype and build simple AR experiences - with a consideration of not just vi... more description for ITPG-GT 2037 »
ITPG-GT 2038 Light as a Medium of Art: Ways of Seeing Now
This class presents the diverse trends of light art. This includes film and animation systems, light systems, and visual information systems; their context, meaning, and manipulation. We will look at the historical relationship of technological discoveries on artistic methodologies and ways communicating information and ideas. The core of this course lies in ways of seeing; breaking down the physics of light and human perception, to the cultural, conceptual, political, and art historical context of these visual systems. The production work will include light manipulating materials and syst... more description for ITPG-GT 2038 »
ITPG-GT 2039 Seeing Machines
A programming course where we'll explore various techniques and solutions for tracking and sensing people or objects in space. Students will get familiar with the terminology and algorithms behind many sensing topics such as computer vision, depth cameras, positional tracking, and coordinate mapping. As these subjects are explored, we will also dig into communication, and how this information can be transmitted from one tool to another, for example using OSC, Spout/Syphon, MIDI, DMX/ArtNet. The goal being to use the right tool for the job and not limit ourselves to a particular piece of softwa... more description for ITPG-GT 2039 »
ITPG-GT 2040 Time
Time is at once fundamental and mysterious. From the 2000-year-old Antikythera Mechanism to modern cesium-fountain clocks, humans have long sought to understand temporal patterns in nature, and build mechanisms to measure, reflect and predict those patterns. We're at a unique moment, one in which we've developed the ability to perceive relativistic effects on time at the smallest scales, while struggling to think and plan across generations. In this course, we'll reflect on the deep mysteries of time while also gaining hands-on skills applicable to temporal media and technologies. Topics will ... more description for ITPG-GT 2040 »
ITPG-GT 2041 Population Infinite:The Future of Identity
Course description (optional): We are currently living in a society that operates under the principle that one body equals one agent, one vantage point, one identity. But emerging technologies may create a future in which the notion of a single personal identity becomes outdated. That future includes: machine learning techniques that make emulating the style and behavior of other people fast and easy; widely available AR/VR headsets that get people to identify with however many faces and bodies they choose, instead of just those they were born with; cryptocurrencies enabling the use of pseudon... more description for ITPG-GT 2041 »
ITPG-GT 2042 Joy and Games
Course description (optional): What does it mean to feel joy while playing a game? How is it distinct from fun, and what can it bring to the table--both to our design practices, and the world at large? In this class, we’ll be exploring how to create mechanics and interactions that invoke a visceral, rather than purely intellectual, sense of delight. From Roger Callois’ definition of ilinx to Bernie DeKoven’s transcendent collaboration and beyond, we’ll dive deep into finding new and weird ways to make games, toys, and interactives that spark joy and facilitate connection--among both individual... more description for ITPG-GT 2042 »
ITPG-GT 2043 Listening Machines
This course will provide students with an introduction to the area of machine listening. Machine listening is the general field studying algorithms and systems for audio understanding by machine. It deals exclusively with general audio as opposed to speech recognition. The most basic goal of all machine listening systems is to reliably recognize and react to very specific sounds. Over the course of the semester, we will create our own unique machine listening systems that provide us with new and interesting ways to interact with our projects. We will use live coding and real-time data visuali... more description for ITPG-GT 2043 »
ITPG-GT 2044 Masquerade
Masks have been used around the world since antiquity for ceremonial and practical purposes, as devices for protection, disguise, entertainment and bodily transformation, made to be worn or displayed. Sociologist Erving Goffman wrote about the everyday life as a masked theatrical performance. The performative aspect of our lives today is ever so present in our use of social media, where we present a curated version ourselves for the immediate visual consumption of others. In our “Selfies”, we can assume a multitude of identities and characters. Recent tools and platforms have evolved socia... more description for ITPG-GT 2044 »
ITPG-GT 2045 Reality Captured
This class focuses on the exciting creative possibilities of emerging ambisonic, photogrammetric, volumetric, and depth capture technologies including their respective applications within XR. Instead of creating scenes, objects, and characters on a computer, more compelling and resonant opportunities for experiential storytelling can now be produced by recording real environments, things, and people. Students will be asked to stretch their imaginations, embrace the distinct technical and aesthetic affordances of each capture technology, and then weave them together into experiential montages. ... more description for ITPG-GT 2045 »
ITPG-GT 2046 Research Methods in Art and Design
This course is intended for students planning to conduct qualitative research in a variety of different operational settings. Its topics include- case studies, data, documentary evidence, participant observation, surveys, and supportive technologies. The primary goal of this course is to assist students in preparing their thesis proposals/ projects. Description: A survey of creative and qualitative research methods applicable to the design, media and visual arts in practice. Purpose: To assist current graduate students in comprehensive research processes and practices and, additionally, to i... more description for ITPG-GT 2046 »
ITPG-GT 2047 Designing Club Culture
How can light, sound and design transform the human experience within a given space? How can psycho-geography be manipulated through audio-visual techniques? In what ways have and will technology allow spaces for sonic entertainment to be more immersive and experimental? Through an exploration of audio-visual techniques (i.e. VJing, MIDI-ing devices, sound synthesis, projection mapping, experiments with spatial sonic composition) along with discussions on how counterculture movements have used music and design as a vehicle for political dissent and community building, students will be invited ... more description for ITPG-GT 2047 »
ITPG-GT 2048 Intro to Comp Media: Media
The 17th century philosopher Spinoza described "wonder" as a state of suspension in the mind, a paralysis resulting from a confrontation with something wholly new, disconnected from past experience such that judgements of whether it is good or bad are not possible. At this moment in time, we are caught in such a state of suspension with digital technologies. Creating computer applications instead of simply using them will provide you with a deeper understanding for the essential possibilities, limitations and unknowns of computation. The first half of Introduction to Computational Media focus... more description for ITPG-GT 2048 »
ITPG-GT 2049 All Maps Lie
Introduction to Critical Mapping and Open Source Geospatial Web Analysis and Visualization is an introduction to critical perspectives in cartography and geospatial information systems and web technologies. This course will introduce students to the foundations of geographic data analysis and visualization, grounding practical studio based exercises and projects with critical readings and theory. Students taking this course will gain an appreciation for geographic thinking, learn to ask geographic questions, and apply basic methodologies to “make sense” of geographic data. The course will be... more description for ITPG-GT 2049 »
ITPG-GT 2050 Machine Learning for Physical Computing
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. ... more description for ITPG-GT 2050 »
ITPG-GT 2051 Material of Language
Language is more than just words and meanings: it's paper and ink, pixels and screens, fingertips on keyboards, voices speaking out loud. Language is, in a word, material. In this course, students will gain an understanding of how the material of language is represented digitally, and learn computational techniques for manipulating this material in order to create speculative technologies that challenge conventional reading and writing practices. Topics include asemic writing, concrete poetry, markup languages, keyboard layouts, interactive and generative typography, printing technologies and ... more description for ITPG-GT 2051 »
ITPG-GT 2052 Designing the Absurd
Inspired by the Japanese art of Chindōgu, this class will introduce a playful and whimsical approach to learn industrial design. In this 14-week studio format class, students will develop gadgets, inventions, and electronic devices that present absurd solutions to problems, while learning concepts and techniques of design ideation, prototyping, model making, CMF (color, material, and finishes), and manufacturing. This is a production heavy four-credit course, where students will learn about industrial design and tangible interactions.
ITPG-GT 2053 Data and Publics
In this course, we'll investigate two closely related ideas: public data and data publics. We'll learn how to access and represent data from an assortment of existing public data sources, how to liberate currently obfuscated data sets, and how to create our own useful/whimsical/critical APIs from scratch. We'll also investigate the act of putting data into public space - through sculpture, projections, performance, and participatory interventions. Particular attention will be paid to methods which bring data back to communities from which it was collected, and to tactics which build grassroots... more description for ITPG-GT 2053 »
ITPG-GT 2054 Introduction to Synthetic Media
Generative machine learning models open new possibilities for creating images, videos, and text. This class explores the idea of how artists, designers and creators can use machine learning in their own design process. The goal of this class is to learn and understand some common machine learning techniques and use them to generate creative outputs. Students will learn to use pre-trained models, and train their own models in the cloud using Runway. For each week, we will discuss the history, theory, datasets, application of the machine learning models, and build experiments based on the model.... more description for ITPG-GT 2054 »
ITPG-GT 2055 Intangible Interaction
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 that allow people to 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.... more description for ITPG-GT 2055 »
ITPG-GT 2056 Critical Communications
The ways in which we communicate has changed radically in the last 100 years. As the communication systems we use have increased in complexity, so has the effort it takes to understand how they work. Most of us use protocols like LTE, HTTP, TCP/IP, and BLE every day. We take them for granted, almost like we do the laws of nature. But there are more than the laws of physics, more than techniques of engineering, embedded in the design and implementation of our protocols of communication. To understand their role in our lives, we need to look into the societal and economic contexts in which they ... more description for ITPG-GT 2056 »
ITPG-GT 2057 Artist's Life
This class will introduce the basic skills and resources required to pursue a career as an artist. Students will learn the day to day tasks of working artists, such as writing critically about their own work, drafting grant proposals, and planning the business administration of their studios. They will also learn how to balance commercial and experimental projects, collaboration and community work, and teaching and studio practice. They will engage in the critical text about ethical dilemmas of working with art institutions, corporations and academia. By the end of class, students will write a... more description for ITPG-GT 2057 »
ITPG-GT 2058 Math for Artists
In this class students will learn math tools to boost their digital practice, fix common problems, and understand the math behind our human perception of the physical world. This course spans different branches of math including geometry, linear algebra, logarithmic thinking, and statistics as they relate to a programmer making digital art with our contemporary media ecosystem. The aim of this course isn't to become calculators, rather strengthen our intuition through historical and ethnomathematics perspectives and foster a new relationship to math. The prerequisites to this class are basic a... more description for ITPG-GT 2058 »
ITPG-GT 2059 Motion Design for User Feedback
Microinteractions are everywhere, you interact with them on a regular basis. Animated emojis, heart buttons that burst with love when you tap them or password fields that shake when you type in the wrong password - these are the tiny animations that produce delightful moments while providing users with valuable feedback. They can intuitively guide your users without having to explicitly write a set of descriptive rules. They are the soul and character of your interface, and if crafted well they can turn every interaction to a joyful moment while improving the user experience. Using Adobe Afte... more description for ITPG-GT 2059 »
ITPG-GT 2060 In and Out of Reality: Integrative Mixed-Reality (XR) Studio
There is a substantial gap between what AR/VR is capable of today and the future that enthusiasts envision. The hardware is progressing, yet there are lack of design tools and methodologies. Effective augmented and virtual reality games and experience require good storytelling, animation, production and solid graphics. Students will learn a myriad of processes including spatial interface design, volumetric capture, working with spatial audio, porting animations and game programming. This course presumes no prior knowledge and is intended to jump start a career in AR/VR development and interac... more description for ITPG-GT 2060 »
ITPG-GT 2061 Tangible Interaction & Device Design
Tangible interfaces are interfaces that you touch. You control them with your hands, feet, and other body parts. Their shape, feel, and arrangement provide feedback. This is where interaction design meets industrial design. In this class, you’ll design, program, and build devices with tangible controls in order to better understand how humans understand and control technical systems through our sense of touch. We’ll discuss physical interaction concepts such as expressive interfaces and utilitarian ones, real-time control vs. delayed control, and implicit vs. explicit interactions. You'll lea... more description for ITPG-GT 2061 »
ITPG-GT 2062 Intro to Design for Diversity: The Future of Design is Equitable Design
As demographics in consumer markets and the global labor forces shift rapidly, diverse, equitable and inclusive (DEI) designers are necessary in all facets of business, from product and service design, to organizational and business design. In this multimedia and interactive Intro to Design for Diversity™(D4D), students will be provided with critical thinking skills to begin viewing diversity, equity and inclusion as design processes necessary for the future wellbeing of humans. D4D is a design framework that marries design thinking with diversity, equity and inclusion best practices and frame... more description for ITPG-GT 2062 »
ITPG-GT 2063 The New Arcade
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, LED lighting, 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 micro... more description for ITPG-GT 2063 »
ITPG-GT 2064 The Revolution Will Be Digitized
What is the relationship between American musician and poet, Gill Scott-Heron and cybernetics? Heron's "The Revolution Will Not be Televised" was created in hopes to wake-up 1970's America from complicity in societal oppression to then realize the revolution begins in your mind and something created through active participation, not passive media consumption. While, iterated forms of cybernetics also challenge the notion that "technology [or society] is self-correcting", through fostering design thinking and systems theory through a meta-scale analysis of computational practices, essentially p... more description for ITPG-GT 2064 »
ITPG-GT 2065 Pro Capture
This advanced experiential production course will introduce students to the latest techniques in 360 video recording and manual stitching, camera-paired Depthkit Cinema volumetric capture, DSLR photogrammetry/retopology, and a quick look at emerging virtual production systems using Blackmagic cameras in Unreal. Alongside an intense technical focus, the course will also deconstruct other experiential works that utilize similar experimental production designs to introduce the expectations demanded by professional productions. The course ultimately hopes to show viable paths for students to engag... more description for ITPG-GT 2065 »
ITPG-GT 2066 Auto Fiction | Auto Fictions
Auto Fictions is a studio class focusing on the creation of immersive, multi-path and interactive experiences based on personal narrative. Documentary art has included the art of installation for decades, but new technologies have given artists affordable tools that allow them to rapidly prototype and then refine immersive media experiences. Auto Fictions is an interdepartmental course that may include students from Film, ITP and Theater disciplines. Students will create production teams. Each team will make a project and each student will help the other create their work through intensive co... more description for ITPG-GT 2066 »
ITPG-GT 2068 Hand Held: Creative Tools for Phones
From image macro bricolage to cell-phone novels, beat-maker apps, and TikTok trends; the phone is not just the primary site of media consumption, but also for emerging forms of art production. It's time to take these tools seriously, and to understand what the mobile touchscreen offers to creatives. This course is a dialog between collaboratively researching the existing landscape of mobile creative tools and building our own. Students will document and discuss a wide range of tools, analyzing their designs and sharing through making. We will compare these tools to their "mouse and keyboard" c... more description for ITPG-GT 2068 »
ITPG-GT 2070 The Body, Everywhere and Here
Today’s internet, made up of mostly text documents and two-dimensional images and videos, is the result of historical limitations in bandwidth, graphics processing and input devices. These limitations have made the internet a place where the mind goes, but the body cannot follow. Recent advances in motion capture devices, graphics processing, machine learning, bandwidth and browsers, however, are paving the way for the body to find its place online. This course will explore embodied interactions in the browser and across networks. Specifically, we’ll explore TensorFlow.js models like PoseNet a... more description for ITPG-GT 2070 »
ITPG-GT 2071 Visual Journalism
When it comes to climate change, election, or coronavirus spread, telling a story through words can be limited. We need visuals like maps, data visualization, or photography to understand complex and hard to grasp information. Visual journalism is a way of telling stories through visuals. Due to the development of computation and technology, there has been a big improvement in visual journalism. Large amounts of data can be rendered on a screen. Readers can experience a story through AR or VR. Games can be used to deliver complicated investigative stories. The goal of this class is to learn ho... more description for ITPG-GT 2071 »
ITPG-GT 2072 Experiential Comics: Interactive Comic Books for the Fourth
Juxtaposed to traditional comics, Experiential Comics combines emergent tech, unconventional comic book art/structure, and game engines to offer users a more immersive, continuous storyworld experience. Challenging the status quo of classic and contemporary digital comics, students will explore new technologies/world-building techniques better suited to craft innovative comic book narratives and formats --worthy of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Students will ingest a brief history of classic and digital comics formats, collaborate with comic book artists to design engrossing characters, ... more description for ITPG-GT 2072 »
ITPG-GT 2073 Data: Dig It
In this class students learn how to use data. If you can learn to live with uncertainty, you can make something beautiful and true. Students will learn about data as another form of evidence. We will collect our own datasets to learn about challenges and opportunities. We will explore sources of uncertainty, and how imagination and empathy can help uncover ways that data can lead to insight or alternatively, lead one astray. We cover basic stats principles to show how even properly collected data may lead you astray; we cover design principles, we introduce technical tools for visualizing data... more description for ITPG-GT 2073 »
ITPG-GT 2074 Cybernetics of Sex: Technology, Feminisms, & the Choreography
What can cybernetics, the study of how we shape and are shaped by systems, teach us about the sexual and social reproduction of gender and sexism? How does sex become gender and what are the politics surrounding who gets reproduced? We will explore how social regulatory systems are encoded into technological platforms and disentangle how they produce social pressure and govern behavior through somatic exercises, discussion, and project making. In this class, we will not shy away from difficult conversations and work closely together to cultivate a space of openness and mutual support. Discussi... more description for ITPG-GT 2074 »
ITPG-GT 2075 Imagination and Distributed Learning
When technology advances, teaching styles regress. Every new wave of technology touted as a boon to education -- radio, TV, DVDs, the internet -- has tended to revive the idea that the ideal class structure is the lecture, where faculty broadcast information to disconnected student recipients. Yet we've known for decades that lectures are poor ways to create learning experiences, and that actively involving students--with the class, the teacher, each other--is far more effective. The thesis of Imagination and Distributed Learning is that the range of possible experiences available online is ... more description for ITPG-GT 2075 »
ITPG-GT 2076 Out of Order: Storytelling + Technology
This course is about how to tell stories with your projects. Like a classic linear story, we’ll start at the beginning with the question of how good stories are told. We’ll learn about classical storytelling techniques and conventions from a variety of cultures, genres, and media. Next, we'll explore what various tech and media can and can't do in the context of story. We’ll end the semester throwing linearity out the window to create narrative work that engages with the tropes and conventions of non-linear storytelling. Chaos may ensue, as the defining feature of non-linear storytelling is th... more description for ITPG-GT 2076 »
ITPG-GT 2077 Practice Research for Research Practice
In this course, students will be exposed to different qualitative research methodologies and disciplinary approaches to those methods (in terms of technique, ethical standards, approaches to citation, etc.). Students will practice using research methods to study subjects of their choosing and produce reflections, sketches, or prototypes based on weekly research findings. By practicing the act of "doing research" students will think about ways to incorporating research into their practice and better understand and articulate how research is already part of their practice.
ITPG-GT 2078 Creative Computing
This course combines two powerful areas of technology that will enable you to leap from being just a user of technology to becoming a creator with it: Physical Computing and Programming. The course begins with Physical Computing, which allows you to break free from both the limitations of mouse, keyboard & monitor interfaces and stationary locations at home or the office. We begin by exploring the expressive capabilities of the human body and how we experience our physical environment. The platform for the class is a microcontroller (Arduino brand), a very small inexpensive single-chip comput... more description for ITPG-GT 2078 »
ITPG-GT 2079 Virtual Production
The class will teach how to architect and lead a virtual production by creating a dialogue between the Producer, Director, and Cinematographer in filmmaking with the Technical Producer and Director in creative technology. The class will cover an overview of all of the technical skills required to produce a remote virtual production through the lens of a project manager making administrative and creative decisions. This class will culminate in a real-time 3D project exploring motion capture and virtual production that will adapt a pre-existing cinematic work with the class themes in mind.
ITPG-GT 2082 Reimagining Zoom
Zoom has become one of the primary modes of gathering, communicating, and interacting with many of the people in our lives. This simple but robust tool has replaced the complexity found in typical day to day modes of engagement with tiny portals locked in a grid. Everyone is burnt out, everyone is tired of it, and everyone dreads the next Zoom meeting in their calendar. This class is all about bringing a sense of joy, fun, and experimentation to a platform that has lost much of its novelty. Over 7 weeks we will engage in a series of prompts and experiments to reimagine what kind of experience... more description for ITPG-GT 2082 »
ITPG-GT 2083 First Person Something
In this experimental seven week seminar/studio, we’ll explore media meant to be experienced from a first person point of view (ie, training simulations, found footage horror, first person shooters, Go Pro videos, VR). This class will include a gentle introduction / brush-up of creative applications of Unity3d (culminating in the ability to create a simple 3d FPS style experience, subverting the “first person shooter”), as well as an introduction to a variety of techniques for crafting first person experiences. Ultimately, the final project you develop will use the medium/technology of your ch... more description for ITPG-GT 2083 »
ITPG-GT 2084 Connect!
This online asynchronous course introduces the fundamentals of building "full stack" web applications. It 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. The course will consist of a series of online videos... more description for ITPG-GT 2084 »
ITPG-GT 2085 How to Count Birds
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... more description for ITPG-GT 2085 »
ITPG-GT 2086 CAD for Virtual and Reality
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 2087 Ok Robot Reboot
Society has always dreamed about humans coexisting with automatons, robots and talking machines that fit into every facet of daily life. As a consequence of computation and the internet leaving the flat screen, alternative forms of human-machine relationships are increasingly becoming more ubiquitous. Designing for these new machines brings novel challenges and requires a different approach. From HAL 9000 to early automatons, this class presents an overview of the history, methods, technologies, and design challenges involved in building and living with Robots and Social Devices. This 4.0-po... more description for ITPG-GT 2087 »
ITPG-GT 2088 Blessed/Blursed/Cursed
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... more description for ITPG-GT 2088 »
ITPG-GT 2089 Bluetooth LE & Low Power Wireless Interactions
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) provides low power wireless connections between devices, including but not limited to mobile phones, smart home devices, and wearables. Following the standardized protocols, it’s easy and efficient to develop low-energy wireless interactions using Bluetooth LE. This 7-week class introduces fundamental information about Bluetooth LE and provides hands-on practices for students to learn and understand BLE. This class is a good fit for students who are interested in designing and developing IoT devices, wearables, or who would like to learn more about physical computing... more description for ITPG-GT 2089 »
ITPG-GT 2090 Sensing the City
For most of its brief history, the domain of “smart cities” has belonged to large corporate vendors who promise and offer ubiquitous, citywide intelligence that utilizes their proprietary systems. More recently, an increasing number of startups have developed solutions which can make the technology somewhat more accessible. Unfortunately for municipalities, working with product vendors can be a heavy lift and the commitments involve lengthy procurement and contracting processes. In the past five years or so, the access to connected technology has increased and the hobbyist or “maker” movement... more description for ITPG-GT 2090 »
ITPG-GT 2091 It's Shader Time
A course where we will follow the computer rendering pipeline, and understand how shapes and images end up on our screens. The course will cover different steps of the process, but will focus primarily on shaders and how they can be used to program the graphics card and render out visuals. Topics will include meshing techniques and topology, the ins and outs of the different shading steps, and how graphics cards can be used for non-graphics computing. The course will primarily use web technologies (either p5.js or three.js) making it easy to view and share each other's work.
ITPG-GT 2092 Considering Religious Robots
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 so... more description for ITPG-GT 2092 »
ITPG-GT 2093 Research Studio: Tangible Interaction
Tangible interaction is a difficult topic in 2020. In the early months of the year, there were various calls for a move to a “touchless future” in an effort to counter the fear of infection from touching shared things. Even though more recent research suggests that transmission via inanimate objects (fomite transmission) is a low risk, the perceived fear and its effect still persists. Given this environment, what is the future for tangible interaction? This class will investigate that question. In this studio, students will survey the current state of practice in tangible interaction design... more description for ITPG-GT 2093 »
ITPG-GT 2094 Web Art as Site
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. Web art is space/place/landscape/setting/site; it is not held or beheld, but filled and inhabited. So, while exploring the nascent canon of web art, we will also draw inspiration from a broader tradition of site-building or site-altering art practices, including installation, architecture, performance, and video games. Supplementary readings will consider the materiality of the internet and the way the internet reflects and inflects our society. Throughout, ... more description for ITPG-GT 2094 »
ITPG-GT 2095 Manufacturing Celebrity
"I want to be famous!" For a decade, this has been the most common response to the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Influencers, TV stars, D-listers - the media has exploded with celebrities who could not have existed even 20 years ago. But who actually gets to be famous? It's certainly not always the most attractive, charismatic, or talented. Why shouldn't it be us? This production-centric class will create celebrities. We will study the underlying principles, tactics, and technologies that go into generating the phenomenon of fame, and the deliberate strategies of PR and ... more description for ITPG-GT 2095 »
ITPG-GT 2096 3D 3 Ways
This studio class will explore the in-between space of video, painting, installation, and new technologies. What unconventional methods can be employed to create a 3D model? What innovative strategies can be used to integrate 3D animated video and installation in a single work? How can an artist resolve the fundamental differences and build the connections between 2D moving images and 3D objects and space? Over the course of the semester we will introduce the basic 3D skills in Maya, and apply these skills to build a cohesive body of artistic work with 3 different outputs: Animated video, inst... more description for ITPG-GT 2096 »
ITPG-GT 2097 Decolonial Critical and Curatorial Perspectives on Art and Technological Practices
This course provides critical and curatorial insight into global art practices and interactive technologies from a post colonial perspective. Designed to provide a critique of imperialism the course is underpinned by ideas pertaining to the rise of the Global South, decoupling, indigenous knowledge and ancient and contemporary innovation through contemporary art, emergent technologies, new media and exhibition practices. Students will also investigate the role of shifting digital landscapes and conservation of new media coupled with museum collecting practices, from both a deconstructive an... more description for ITPG-GT 2097 »
ITPG-GT 2098 Thesis Part 1: Research and Development
We are experimenting with a change to Thesis with this pilot class. The idea is to extend thesis over both semesters, each with a 2 point class that meets every other week. Part 1 focuses on research and concept development. Students will have the time to explore deeply into their areas of interest, narrow their focus and, finally, develop a concept and plan for their final thesis project. They will be structured assignments throughout on research methodologies and concept development techniques. They will end the semester with a paper and a plan for design and production.
ITPG-GT 2100 Internship
Internship can fulfill a Tier 2 (elective) requirement. An internship is done with an outside agency that provides a student with opportunities to work on projects that enable the student to develop and demonstrate his or her practical abilities, and which involve both new interactive technologies and their users. Internship requires a minimum of three hours per week per credit. The standard ITP lab fee is attached to this course.
ITPG-GT 2101 Internship in Technology and Social Justice
ITP has partnered with a series of non-profit organizations focusing on technology, social justice, youth, education, and people with disabilities. Interesting internship opportunities applying physical computing, web development, game development, sustainable energy, and more are the result of these partnerships. Collaborating organizations and complete opportunity descriptions will be available on Monday November 10th. Students work on specific applications with each organization by registering for two internshITP has partnered with a series of non-profit organizations focusing on technology... more description for ITPG-GT 2101 »
ITPG-GT 2102 Thesis
This course is designed to help students define and execute their final thesis project in a setting that is both collegial and critical. It is structured as a series of critique and presentation sessions in which various aspects of individual projects are discussed: the project concept, the elaboration, the presentation, the process and time-table, the resources needed to accomplish it, and the documentation. Critique sessions are e a combination of internal sessions (i.e., the class only) and reviews by external guest critics. Students are expected to complete a fully articulated thesis proje... more description for ITPG-GT 2102 »
ITPG-GT 2105 Design for the Real World: BeatRockers @ the Lavelle School
In this multidisciplinary course, students will work collaboratively to research, design, and develop a system of client-centered data-management, musical interfaces and interactive learning tools for the Beat Rocker beat boxing program at the Lavelle School for the Blind. The Beat Rocker Program incorporates a unique beat-boxing/speech therapy curriculum and children that are engaged in the program excel in both areas. Students in the class are expected to gain practical experience in user research/testing, human-centered design and the prototyping process. The class will be split into three ... more description for ITPG-GT 2105 »
ITPG-GT 2106 Art and Change in the Post-Natural Environment
We live in what has been called a “post-natural” world: humans have manipulated and changed much of the environment. This is of course amplified in cities. And cities are notoriously unequal, in terms of access to and the benefits from what constitutes “Nature.” Social and environmental justices are often inseparable concerns. Access to green spaces, connections between asthma and air pollution, inadequate or unhealthy food, alienation from food growing, and even simply an absence of any natural beauty are issues that have begun to be more zealously addressed. How can we use art and technolo... more description for ITPG-GT 2106 »
ITPG-GT 2107 Hacking Story Frameworks: For Social Impact/Social Issues
There is a new storytelling landscape evolving across journalism, film, media and art driven by emerging technologies, cultural trends, and a new breed of audience that are themselves content creators. This class explores how technology can be leveraged to tell stories in new ways for social issues by hacking narrative frameworks, pushing mediums forward, and engaging audiences in the storytelling experience by inviting them as collaborators or immersing them on a deeper level. We will explore how technology can be transformative in creating empathy and promoting understanding. We will work on... more description for ITPG-GT 2107 »
ITPG-GT 2108 Business 101.1
This course is all about getting the levers of business to turn in your favor. We cover the basics of B-School that are curated for the ITP mindset. This course is experiential - you'll work in teams to develop a concept from the generation of an idea to launch or market test. We'll bring the best thinking and methods from MBA school, Lean Startup, Design Thinking, Business Model Canvas, Social Impact Entrepreneurship, Leadership Development, and Agile Development. Key questions answered: How do you get support for your ideas to attract customers, investors, and partners? How do you stren... more description for ITPG-GT 2108 »
ITPG-GT 2114 Hacking Contemporary Political Rhetoric
Election 2016 highlights the need for continued scrutiny of the news media’s role in American politics. The course will take a hands-on approach to American presidential politics and media literacy in general, exploring how citizens can use web video to deconstruct, remix, and re-engineer messages created for primetime. As part of this class, students will co-design and facilitate an open online event for members of the extended NYU community to learn about, collaboratively document, and make sense of the 2016 American presidential election in its culmination and aftermath. We’ll design new... more description for ITPG-GT 2114 »
ITPG-GT 2115 Blockchain Fiction
"Blockchain is the new Internet" - something bigger is going on here, than just another form of digital payment like Bitcoin. The blockchain enthusiasts promise applications from smart contracts, to autonomous organizations, to anarchistic systems of government. This course introduces fundamental concepts and functionalities of the blockchain and its applications, and offers a way to playfully explore its multiple dimensions. The goal of the course is not only to improve skills in this utopian however very real technology, but also to creatively apply it, to come up with design fiction and pus... more description for ITPG-GT 2115 »
ITPG-GT 2120 Electronic Rituals, Oracles and Fortune-Telling
According to anthropologists Filip de Boeck and René Devisch, divination "constitutes a space in which cognitive structures are transformed and new relations are generated in and between the human body, the social body and the cosmos." In this class, students will learn the history of divination, engage in the practice of divination, and speculate on what forms divination might take in a world where the human body, the social body, and even the cosmos(!) are digitally mediated. Starting with an understanding of ritual and folk culture, we will track the history of fortune-telling from the cas... more description for ITPG-GT 2120 »
ITPG-GT 2122 Magic Windows and Mixed-Up Realities
Magic windows that allow us to peek into different realities without leaving our physical space, lenses that reveal hidden layers of objects or navigating new universes within the same room. More than ever, mobile devices are getting a human-scale understanding of space and motion allowing us to create more intimate interactions with our surrounding spaces, leveraging them as a canvas to experience other realities. We now have the potential to give life to inanimate objects, tell stories through space, customizing private views of public spaces and recognize places we've never been. We'll que... more description for ITPG-GT 2122 »
ITPG-GT 2125 Exploring Concepts From Soft Robotics
The dirty, open secret of soft robotics is that no one has monetized it yet. Precisely because the full potential of emerging field of soft systems, particularly soft actuators, is unrealized, there are countless opportunities for curious innovators to discover or develop novel soft systems. 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 sis... more description for ITPG-GT 2125 »
ITPG-GT 2126 Tangible Interaction Workshop
Tangible interfaces are interfaces that you touch. You control them with your hands, feet, and other body parts. Their shape, feel, and arrangement provide feedback. In this seven-week class, you'll build devices with tangible controls in order to better understand how we learn about and manipulate the world through our sense of touch. We'll discuss physical interaction concepts such as expressive interfaces and utilitarian ones, real-time control vs. delayed control, and implicit vs. explicit interactions. We'll discuss programming and electronic techniques to sense state change, thresholds,... more description for ITPG-GT 2126 »
ITPG-GT 2131 BioDesigning the Future of Food
We've been tinkering with the living systems that generate our foodstuffs for millennia. But climate change is radically and rapidly shifting these food landscapes, and the impacts include the extinction of many of the foods we love: chocolate, wine, beer, coffee and more importantly starvation for those in the world who are already food insecure. In this class, we'll explore biotechnologies and bioengineering along with microbes and mushrooms to design and create pathways for the restoration of some of the damage we've wrought on our food system. We'll also use art and design and systems th... more description for ITPG-GT 2131 »
ITPG-GT 2133 Light and Interactivity
We use light in all aspects of our lives, yet we seldom notice it. Most of the time, that’s no accident. Lighting in everyday life, well-designed, doesn’t call attention to itself. Instead it draws focus to the subjects and activities which it supports. In this class, you’ll learn how lighting is used for utilitarian, expressive, and informational purposes. We’ll consider the intersection of lighting design and interaction design, paying attention to how people interact with light. We’ll practice both analyzing lighting and describing its effects, in order to use it more effectively. On the t... more description for ITPG-GT 2133 »
ITPG-GT 2141 Teaching as Art
Do you want to teach or run workshops? This class explores pedagogy, syllabus and curriculum design for artists and creative technologists. A good teacher is also a great student themselves. They transform their curiosity into knowledge and share their learning process with others. One can learn to become a better teacher by staying fearless about ‘not knowing' and unlearning to embrace radically open ideas and connecting various expertise and knowledge. Teaching can be a form of artistic and creative practice in collaboration with a diverse community. Teachers can invent new forms of learning... more description for ITPG-GT 2141 »
ITPG-GT 2143 Digital Self-Defense- Security for Everyone
“Why would the government care about me? — do I really have to worry about surveillance? Facebook and Google already know everything about me….I can’t really do anything, right?” We’ll answer these questions and more in this course. Students will walk away with some fundamental digital security skills, and the ability to learn new skills and think through security risks. This class is essential knowledge for every student at ITP, since your work inherently requires use of technology, including cutting-edge technology that could present new safety, security, and privacy risks. It’s especially ... more description for ITPG-GT 2143 »
ITPG-GT 2145 Mindfulness and Transformative Technologies
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... more description for ITPG-GT 2145 »
ITPG-GT 2147 Automating Video
In this experimental video class students will learn to use Python and command line tools to explore the possibilities of automating the film-making process. We will cover techniques for capturing, analyzing, editing and manipulating video with code. We’ll treat video as a textual as well as visual medium, repurposing found footage to generate new compositions and narratives, and experiment with home-made camera rigs that can be controlled remotely and algorithmically.
ITPG-GT 2151 Faking the News
“Lies. Hoaxes. Conspiracies. Rumors. Propaganda. Fake news is an age-old phenomenon—but the internet is making targeted misinformation cheap and scalable. That is affecting politics, public opinion, and the everyday experience of the internet. In this 6-week class, we will explore the cutting edge of “fake news” by engaging in ethical research and fabrication. Participants will manufacture and observe a controlled “fake news” event. We will experiment with command-line tools for doctoring video, neural nets and deepfakes to fabricate reality, Twitter bots, behavioral psychology, and the dark ... more description for ITPG-GT 2151 »
ITPG-GT 2153 Performative Avatars
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, photogrammetry, 3D scanning, and model rigging although students will be encouraged... more description for ITPG-GT 2153 »
ITPG-GT 2156 Socially Engaged Art and Digital Practice
Digital tools of all kinds are deeply embedded in how our society operates. Innovations in basic communication, data processing, and image manipulation and have transformed our social worlds and our artistic practice. This course will explore how digital tools are and can be used in socially engaged art practice, where art and creative work intersect directly with people and civic life, looking at artists like Stephanie Dinkins, Meredith Lackey, and Mimi Onuoha. Students will be asked to propose several projects as thought experiments, and fully realize one online/digital socially engaged proj... more description for ITPG-GT 2156 »
ITPG-GT 2157 Talking & Storytelling: The Art of Effective Communication
Successfully communicating is a critical skill not only for a graduate thesis, but also in the career that will follow. It boils down to this question: Are you persuading, influencing, or communicating your thoughts and ideas effectively, to any audience be it three people or three hundred? In this class we will systematically work our way through a four-step method to improve your ability to connect with your audience. We will explore the science that explains why stories work. We will tackle a basic framework for what a story is, using a process and foundation to develop any talk or presenta... more description for ITPG-GT 2157 »
ITPG-GT 2158 What Happens When The Internet Dies?
What do we do when the Internet is killed or dies? Or when the network is taken down by natural circumstances? How can we re-establish standalone or minimally dependent communications? How can we detect and differentiate between natural interference and designed interference, or can we? This class will investigate the design of the Internet itself, current communications protocols, and emerging techniques to supplement the Internet or establish separate networks. Besides architectural basics, we will look at case studies on how communities, activists, and organizations have reacted to network ... more description for ITPG-GT 2158 »
ITPG-GT 2159 The Uses of Discomfort
Meaningful growth involves discomfort. For individuals, in relationships, for communities it can be a key aspect in the process of reaching a desired outcome, in what Ida Benedetto calls "patterns of transformation". Our unique insights as designers, artists, and creative technologists can lead to innovative applications of this unorthodox tool. The Uses of Discomfort is an experience design course where we will spend six weeks delving into how this response functions, why it's of interest to us, and what we might be able to do with it. We'll look at four broad categories (visceral, intimacy-... more description for ITPG-GT 2159 »
ITPG-GT 2161 Game Design and the Psychology of Choice
As game and interaction designers we create systems and choices that can either prey upon our psychological foibles or help us avoid decision pitfalls. It is our responsibility to understand how we decide, to consider the ethics of the systems we create and to practice designing systems in a purposeful manner. Game Design & The Psychology of Choice will provide interaction and game designers with an understanding of the factors that influence behavior and decision-making by looking at the intertwining of cognitive psychology and economics through the development of behavioral economics. These... more description for ITPG-GT 2161 »
ITPG-GT 2162 Pop Up Window Displays
In New York City, every storefront window has the possibility to tell a story, spark a conversation or inspire an interaction. This workshop will focus on creating innovative interactive pop up installations designed for public window displays. A successful window is one that clearly delivers a message directly to the public. How do we create interactive displays that engage the public with a distinctive voice or style? Over seven weeks, students will concept, prototype and build an interactive experience meant to be installed in a storefront or commercial display. This course will explore lig... more description for ITPG-GT 2162 »
ITPG-GT 2164 The Future of Sculpture
This is an advanced seminar exploring the themes, production methodologies, and dynamic definition of sculpture in the 21st century. Much of the class will look with a critical eye through the lens of technology – What is technology’s role in the motivation, production, and proliferation of sculpture? Students in this course will: Gain understanding of major topics/themes in contemporary sculpture; Learn about the various digital and historical processes used in sculpture / object making; Apply critical thinking and discourse to weekly readings and discussions; Visit studios / museums / facil... more description for ITPG-GT 2164 »
ITPG-GT 2166 The Poetics of Space
"Memories are motionless, and the more securely they are fixed in space, the sounder they are." (Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space). This course is about exploring the unique affordances of virtual space in order to create VR experiences that transcend the (still awkward) headset. In class we will: Read and discuss relevant interdisciplinary writings from architecture, philosophy, neuroscience, art history, and poetry; Have in-class demos for core concepts of Unity3d for VR; Group critique of each other's work; Analyze the successes and failures of available VR apps; Have visits from gues... more description for ITPG-GT 2166 »
ITPG-GT 2175 Choreographic Interventions
This course re-conceives interactive media as a form of choreographic intervention. Instead of asking how moving bodies can control media, we will ask how interactive systems can influence movement. How do you make someone feel soft inside? How do you shake an entire room? How do you orchestrate duets between strangers? To accomplish this, the class facilitates a semester-long collaboration between ITP students and dancers from the Barnard/Columbia Dance Department. Choreographers will learn to apply computational thinking to choreography and creative coders will learn to apply choreographic ... more description for ITPG-GT 2175 »
ITPG-GT 2176 Collective Play
Rules of play shape competitive games from checkers to football. But how do the rules of interaction shape non-competitive play? In this course, we will explore, code and test design strategies for playful group interactions while at the same time interrogating both what it means to play and how individual identities and group behaviors. Some of the questions we will ask and attempt to answer: 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 ne... more description for ITPG-GT 2176 »
ITPG-GT 2177 Synthetic Architectures
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 virtual tourism of the latest humanitarian crisis or even the "airspace" of Airbnb; we are witnessing a dramatic transformation of what occupying space means. So where are these dramatic spatial paradigm shifts occurring? Who owns and occupies these spaces? Who are the architects and what historical and ethi... more description for ITPG-GT 2177 »
ITPG-GT 2180 Mobile Lab
One of the most transformative consumer products in history, the iPhone remains the standard bearer for great design and user experience. With the latest version of iOS and the introduction of the iPhone X, 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. We will cover both the design and technical elements that pertain to end-to-end mobile... more description for ITPG-GT 2180 »
ITPG-GT 2184 Technology, Media and Democracy: Addressing the Threats to an Informed Electorate
Across the City’s universities, the Technology, Media and Democracy program will bring together journalism, design, and technical disciplines to understand the various threats to journalism and media, and attempt to address these challenges using technical and computational methods and techniques. 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. These challenges include: dwindling resources and support for deep investigative journalism; smear, law and technical and even phys... more description for ITPG-GT 2184 »
ITPG-GT 2185 Quantified Humanists: Designing Personal Data
There are more “free” applications and services than ever before that help us to quantify and track what we do, when, how, and with whom. The quantified self holds the promise of improving our lives, but there is an ambivalence to how these technologies are affecting our lives. This course will examine, question, and critique the perspectives of personal data and “the quantified self” from multiple perspectives. We will explore these perspectives by working with the tools and methodologies for collecting personal data and generate visuals and other tangible output from these data. We will intr... more description for ITPG-GT 2185 »
ITPG-GT 2187 Paper Engineering 101 and Designing for Children
The class will focus on the many overlooked aspects of paper, and how it can be used as a three-dimensional material. We will learn the disciplines of making Pop-Ups, Origami, Paper Crafting, and Visual Design. Using these methods as a starting point, students will build prototypes to explore new ways to tell stories, inform, interact, play with, engage, and challenge a younger audience. Most classes are hands – on. The rest, dedicated to criticism (including from children), analysis, and refinement, technical and conceptual. We will discuss how they could be mass produced and distributed. Stu... more description for ITPG-GT 2187 »
ITPG-GT 2188 Digital Security and Human Rights
What do WhatsApp and Nelson Mandela have in common? How about Mr. Robot and the UN Council for Human Rights? When most people think “digital security”, they rarely think of these connections; but the connections are there. Digital security is much more than an industry buzzword— it encompasses techno-social idealism, open source development, and symbiotic coordination between sectors in tech, the humanities, and civic society. Certainly, we’re going to talk about Signal, Tor, VPNs, and OTR. But let’s dig even deeper. In this course, students will learn the principals of digital security; from... more description for ITPG-GT 2188 »
ITPG-GT 2189 Intro to Wearables
With emerging research and development with soft circuit technologies and its integration into textile and clothing design, the garment as a reactive interface opens up new possibilities in engendering self-expressions, sensory experiences and more. This 14-week class is to introduce students to this realm by creating connections between hardware engineering and textile crafting. The class is for students with basic physical computing knowledge to explore the possibility of wearables, and arouse discussion about the potential in re-imagining our relationship with personal devices, textiles and... more description for ITPG-GT 2189 »
ITPG-GT 2193 Video Sculpture
Sculpture is defined as a three-dimensional form of artistic expression concerned with space: occupying it, relating to it, and influencing the perception of it. In this class we will look at new ways of implementing video mapping, interactive time based media and augmented reality as a medium for creating engaging interactive physical and virtual sculptures. How do we create video sculptures that move, emote and react to our presence? The course will focus on taking video off the screen and into three-dimensional space in the form of site-specific and or physical installation. Through a serie... more description for ITPG-GT 2193 »
ITPG-GT 2195 Developing Technologies for Urban Gardens
This course explores alternative forms of permaculture while carving out a space for designers to develop technologies, products, methods or systems to facilitate urban gardening. Students of all creative backgrounds and skills sets, both tech and non tech are invited to apply to this course. Students will will learn how to use their creativity and existing skills to design and produce products and systems that investigate and help transform urban environments into green spaces. The course is both a seminar class and a production studio. Final outputs and projects for this course could inclu... more description for ITPG-GT 2195 »
ITPG-GT 2196 Art Toy Design
Is it a plaything? Sculpture? Nostalgia? A Product? Art toys exist at the center of a unique Venn diagram. Each student in this class will develop an original limited edition art toy. We will cover toy fabrication, character design, material selection, packaging design, and art toy culture. The class will be fabrication heavy, there will be weekly assignments, and a final project.
ITPG-GT 2198 Computational Approaches to Narrative
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) hype... more description for ITPG-GT 2198 »
ITPG-GT 2199 Computational Approaches to Typography
This course considers aspects of the materiality of typography and type design in the context of electronic media. Students will gain an understanding of how letterforms, typefaces and the layout of text have been represented as data throughout the history of electronic media, and experiment with different ways to author, manipulate and misuse that data through computation. Our eclectic and opinionated historical cross-section of topics includes (but is not limited to) typewriter art, minimalist and asemic poetry, 8-bit home computer text modes, interactive/kinetic text, parametric and generat... more description for ITPG-GT 2199 »
ITPG-GT 2227 New Interfaces for Musical Expression
The course focus is on the design and creation of digital musical instruments. Music in performance is the primary subject of this class. We approach questions such as "What is performance?" "What makes a musical interface intuitive and emotionally immediate?" and "How do we create meaningful correlations between performance gestures and their musical consequences?" Over the semester, we look at many examples of current work by creators of musical interfaces, and discuss a wide range of issues facing technology-enabled performance - such as novice versus virtuoso performers, discrete versus co... more description for ITPG-GT 2227 »
ITPG-GT 2231 Information Countours
We hear a great deal about neural networks, social computing, intuitive algorithms, and Web 2.0 and 3.0 to name a few of the exciting new information based techniques that are lighting up contemporary culture. What do these tools have in common -- just focusing information? Why are these digital tools generating so much economic, social and political buzz? Do they represent a shift away from an individualistic to a communal civic culture? Does this signify a nascent ?information society? dependent on an ?information state? to regulate phenomenon such as ?net neutrality?? Information Contou... more description for ITPG-GT 2231 »
ITPG-GT 2233 Intro to Comp Media
The 17th century philosopher Spinoza described "wonder" as a state of suspension in the mind, a paralysis resulting from a confrontation with something wholly new, disconnected from past experience such that judgements of whether it is good or bad are not possible. At this moment in time, we are caught in such a state of suspension with digital technologies. Creating computer applications instead of simply using them will provide you with a deeper understanding for the essential possibilities, limitations and unknowns of computation. The first half of Introduction to Computational Media focus... more description for ITPG-GT 2233 »
ITPG-GT 2253 Networked Objects
This course explores the possibilities and challenges of designing alternate physical network interfaces. In physical computing, students learn how to make devices that respond to a wide range of human physical actions. This class builds on that knowledge, covering methods for making interfaces talk to each other. On the physical interface side, students learn about a variety of network interface devices, including microcontrollers, network radios, and serial-to-Ethernet converters. On the network server side, basic server-side programming techniques in PHP are introduced. On the desktop compu... more description for ITPG-GT 2253 »
ITPG-GT 2256 Video for New Media
In 1967 the Sony Portapak became the first portable video system available to the public. Suddenly motion pictures became accessible to artists, experimenters and social activists, not simply Hollywood production companies. The introduction of the Portapak had a great influence not only on the development of ITP but also on the way we create, consume and distribute media today. How do we create video that is non-linear yet compelling, interactive yet engaging? The goal of this class is to provide an overview of both the history of video, and its relevance to present day new media. Topics cover... more description for ITPG-GT 2256 »
ITPG-GT 2273 The World, Pixel By Pixel
This class focuses on the art of computer graphics and image processing. We explore the concepts of pixilation, image representation and granularity and the tension between reality and image. Students are introduced to the tools and techniques of creating dynamic and interactive computer images from scratch, manipulating and processing existing images and videos, compositing and transitioning multiple images, tracking and masking live video, compositing and manipulating live video as well as manipulating depth information from Kinect. The class uses Processing.
ITPG-GT 2274 Design Expo
Students address a design challenge that is presented at the start of the term. Over the course of the semester, students work in small teams to prototype and develop ideas in response to the challenge; classes take the form of critique sessions of these ideas and their presentation. This year's theme is still being finalized and it is likely that several other universities from various countries will also be participating in the Microsoft Design Expo. It is planned that one of the project teams from each university will be invited to present their work to the research and design groups at Mic... more description for ITPG-GT 2274 »
ITPG-GT 2296 Dynamic Web Development
How does one move away from creating static websites and toward building active, evolving hubs of activity? This class covers the design and implementation of the "dynamic" website in two distinct but related contexts: the technical aspects of manipulating content "on the fly", and the end user experience of interacting in this type of setting. Particular attention is given to social and community-based web interaction. The production environment consists of the MySQL database and the PHP programming language. Students can expect to develop a firm knowledge of database design and optimization,... more description for ITPG-GT 2296 »
ITPG-GT 2297 Future of New Media
Future of the US After Covid
Can the future be foretold? No, but the long-term outcomes of present-day actions can be foreseen -- and, as the 2008 economic crisis showed us, lack of foresight can have grave implications.Using a technique called scenario planning, students consider the present and future ramifications of knotty, large-scale problems related to the evolution of the internet and other aspects of the telecommunications infrastructure. In exploring this, we touch upon the global economy, demographics, international politics, environmental concerns, and other large-scale issues. Scenario planning is a rigorous ... more description for ITPG-GT 2297 »
ITPG-GT 2301 Intro to Physical Comp
This course expands the students' palette for physical interaction design with computational media. We look away from the limitations of the mouse, keyboard and monitor interface of today's computers, and start instead with the expressive capabilities of the human body. We consider uses of the computer for more than just information retrieval and processing, and at locations other than the home or the office. The platform for the class is a microcontroller, a single-chip computer that can fit in your hand. The core technical concepts include digital, analog and serial input and output. Core in... more description for ITPG-GT 2301 »
ITPG-GT 2324 Electrotecture
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, studen... more description for ITPG-GT 2324 »
ITPG-GT 2325 Unfamiliarly Convenient: Giving New Voice to Voice Assistants
How could we reimagine and expand our interactions and relationships with voice-enabled devices? Artificially synthesized voice introduced personal devices beyond push buttons, twisting and swiping. Nonetheless, while mediating notions of service, facilitated access to knowledge, and digital companionship, currently voice assistants are often reduced to trivial, task-oriented power plays: order me this, turn on that, play these, entertain. The course will aim to reconsider voice assistants as subjects rather than objects and attempt to create more holistic relationships with them through specu... more description for ITPG-GT 2325 »
ITPG-GT 2326 Afrotectopian Ecologies
In this course, students will explore and engage with Afrocentric and countercultural design practices and theories when considering pedagogy, technology, community building, and social engagement. Through guided research, design exercises, conversations around readings and other media, along with guest presenters, students will be exposed to an omni-specialized and comprehensive design practice 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 student... more description for ITPG-GT 2326 »
ITPG-GT 2327 Real-Time Online: Building Video & Audio Interactions for the Web
This year, we have seen our social lives thrust online: holidays with family, parties with friends and live performances have all been arranged (with varying degrees of success) into 2D grids of video feeds through platforms such as Zoom and Google Meet. What happens when we break out of this grid and explore new forms of real-time interaction online using webcam video and audio? In this course, students will create a series of experimental interactive spaces that try to answer these questions: How can we design for open-ended collaboration? For play? For the connectedness of a live perform... more description for ITPG-GT 2327 »
ITPG-GT 2328 Sound Art: Listening
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 p... more description for ITPG-GT 2328 »
ITPG-GT 2329 Socio-Political Video Feeds: from Performance to Propaganda
This course will offer techniques for producing performances and multi-media broadcasts via video conferencing platforms. We will consider the politician’s use and abuse of performing arts and media strategies. Assignments, screenings and readings will trace the lineage of political performance and its mediation from François Delsarte’s 19th century system for oratorical expression to current live-feed montaging used in American political campaigns. Taking into account the use of visual mediation in both process and propagandistic product, we will look at how scientific management techniques s... more description for ITPG-GT 2329 »
ITPG-GT 2330 Wireless Technologies and Applications
Wireless technologies have become a very critical part of our lives. However, even for some electrical engineers, radio frequency (RF) related topics are considered to be somewhat governed by “black magic”. This course aims to provide an intuitive understanding of how RF circuits and systems work, and to help you utilize wireless technologies in a more predictable manner. Topics such as wave propagation, modulation, RF transceiver topology, and basic antenna design will be covered. Lab sessions are tailored to provide hands-on exploration of various RF circuits/modules and their real- world ap... more description for ITPG-GT 2330 »
ITPG-GT 2331 Designing Change
This 7-week class focuses on design as a vehicle for change. As designers, we have the opportunity to create products and experiences that can change mindsets, break patterns and introduce new 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 behavioral psychology to provide a framework for designing products focused on initiating meaningful change. This class is for students with passion for an issue and enthusiasm to apply their creative and technical skills to s... more description for ITPG-GT 2331 »
ITPG-GT 2332 Signals, Calls, and Marches
This class looks at "creative signal processing" in the same way we look at "creative coding" - celebrating our ability to manipulate signals - functions and blocks of information that travel across time, frequency, and space - in the wider context of human perception, communication, and culture. In this course, we will consider standard building blocks of signal processing - audio and image synthesis, time- and frequency-domain processing of audio signals, chromatic and spatial processing of images, and feature extraction for signal analysis - in the same context as human languages, writing s... more description for ITPG-GT 2332 »
ITPG-GT 2333 Adapting: Using Design, Science + Technology for the World's Most Pressing Problems
2020 has amplified foundational flaws in our ecological, food, racial and environmental systems creating a persistent state of whiplash from crises, climate related catastrophes, racial injustice and industry meltdowns. While these areas may seem unrelated they actually exist within a Venn diagram of interdependency and influence where pulling a lever in one area directly impacts another area and the ability to shapeshift and adapt in the face of these rapid changes has become required for survival. This class will uncover the connections within these systems and use science, design and system... more description for ITPG-GT 2333 »
ITPG-GT 2334 Fundamentals of Multimedia Storytelling
People think in stories. They're how we make sense of the world. Professionally, it isn’t just artists who tell stories: activists, advertisers, and politicians all know that a compelling story can capture an audience in a way that arguments and statistics can’t. This course will introduce students to the fundamentals of narrative structure across a variety of media: written stories, movies, games, comics and graphic novels. Across these media, students will learn to identify the key elements that grab people's hearts and minds. Outside of class, students will focus on developing one interacti... more description for ITPG-GT 2334 »
ITPG-GT 2335 Fast Fun: Physical Controllers for Unity
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... more description for ITPG-GT 2335 »
ITPG-GT 2336 Making Visual Art with GANs
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 we... more description for ITPG-GT 2336 »
ITPG-GT 2337 50 Days of Making
50 Days of Making is a 1.0 unit online 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/. This course will meet four times on a bi-weekly basis over the course of the 1st 7-weeks of the term (every other week). Class time is spent discussing student progress and reflecting on students' creative journey. Note... more description for ITPG-GT 2337 »
ITPG-GT 2338 The COVID-19 Impact Project: Extracting Stories From Data
This course will use the open source COVID-19 Impact Dashboard as a basis to explore ways to humanize the unfolding data on the coronavirus pandemic. Students are invited to collaborate on the COVID-19 Impact Project. Students will discover how data flows from public github repositories and tools needed to visualize the data. We will review other data-centric open source projects related to COVID-19 and discuss the questions they are trying to answer or problems they are trying to solve. We will examine historical and contemporary data visualizations. Using data visualization as a scaffold, w... more description for ITPG-GT 2338 »
ITPG-GT 2343 Wearables for One
This course will focus on the prototyping of wearable electronics projects for a single user: you. In this class we will wear what we make, following an iterative cycle of research-design-make-wear. Lectures, readings, and discussions will serve to provide historical and contemporary framing for our work. Wearable technology prototyping strategies and techniques will be shared and tested. Special focus will be placed on circuit building and fabrication approaches that are compatible with a home studio environment. Previous experience with electronics or physical computing is strongly encourage... more description for ITPG-GT 2343 »
ITPG-GT 2412 Interactive Documentary
Interactive documentaries provide radical new possibilities for both community creation and active audience engagement. This class explore the history of the documentary form through photography, oral history, film/video, performance and current hybrid projects. Interactive Documentary is a production class. Weekly experiments in creating documentaries are supported by lectures, viewing of non-traditional works and learning the necessary audio/video & projection tools. Assignments focus on developing works whose creation mirrors the themes we are seeking to explore. In the past documentaries w... more description for ITPG-GT 2412 »
ITPG-GT 2422 Live Image Processing & Performance
This course teaches the ins and outs of using image processing software with an aim towards some type of real-time use (e.g. a performance or installation). The class looks at ways to manipulate different visual media (time-based, still, vector, and rendered) in real-time to allow students to develop interesting real-time performance systems. While the focus of this class is on using Max for visual work (through a software package called Jitter), it also looks at how to integrate interactive elements (sound, physical interfaces, etc.) into the work. Class time is spent on interface design and ... more description for ITPG-GT 2422 »
ITPG-GT 2446 Developing Assistive Technology
Assistive or Adaptive Technology commonly refers to "products, devices or equipment, whether acquired commercially, modified or customized, that are used to maintain, increase or improve the functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities." This multi-disciplinary course allows students from a variety of backgrounds to work together to develop assistive technology. Partnering with outside organizations students work in teams to identify a clinical need relevant to a certain clinical site or client population, and learn the process of developing an idea and following that through to th... more description for ITPG-GT 2446 »
ITPG-GT 2448 Methods of Motion
This class explores methods of storytelling through animation. We examine a range of techniques including pixillation, stop motion, collage, abstract and cartoon animation. We apply a variety of tools such as iStopMotion, After Effects, Flash and Motion. There are six animation short animation assignments and one final project. Students are encouraged to experiment. Drawing skills are not necessary though students are required to maintain a weekly sketchbook. A basic knowledge of digital video is a plus. This course has a lab fee of $201.
ITPG-GT 2450 Toy Design Workshop
Toys are an important element in the learning process of young children. Toys are always interactive and can easily take advantage of the tools and disciplines of thought we use at ITP. Toys make it OK to develop something just to be fun. We were all kids, so no-one knows better than us how to invent toys. This class is centered around the creation of toys for children of ages 5 - 12. Students in the class have an opportunity to research, design, prototype and test new ideas for toys using both digital and non-digital materials. Projects are developed individually and in teams. We test the d... more description for ITPG-GT 2450 »
ITPG-GT 2454 Big Games
What happens to games when they escape the boundaries of our tabletops and desktops and TV screens and living rooms? From massively multiplayer online games to networked objects that turn the city into a gigantic game grid, new forms of super-sized gaming are expanding at an alarming rate and opening up vast new spaces in which to play. Whether these games are measured in terms of number of players, geographical dimensions, or temporal scope, they represent a new trend in which the "little world" created by a game threatens to swallow up the "real world" in which it is situated. This class is... more description for ITPG-GT 2454 »
ITPG-GT 2455 Soft Sensing
When working with electronics we most often think about sensors as parts or components with clearly defined size, shape, and tactile properties. But what happens when we as designers start to consider sensors as materials rather than objects? How do we design with sensors that can be squishy, sticky, or slippery? And how do our designs change when we can sprinkle a sensor like fairly dust, spread it like paint, or knit it like yarn? This course will explore the softness of sensors both in physical form as well as in concept. Leveraging practices and research from the world of electronic textil... more description for ITPG-GT 2455 »
ITPG-GT 2457 Haptics
From the crass rattle of early pager motors to the more sophisticated purr of the iPhone taptic engine the ability to buzz has slowly worked its way into our devices. This course focuses on interaction design for non-visual feedback. Specifically it will explore how haptic feedback can be better utilized and integrated into handhelds, wearables, objects, and environments – basically 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... more description for ITPG-GT 2457 »
ITPG-GT 2461 Desert of the Real: Deep Dive into Social VR
he virtual expansion of screens began during the 1960’s with the exploration of head-mounted displays. Since the 60’s, virtual reality has been explored in a multi-disciplinary context including philosophy, design, arts, behavioral therapy. Baudrillard, with his publication of Simulacra and Simulation (1981), declared that human experience is being replaced by a simulation of reality (HyperReality). His theories brought the dystopian narrative of the virtual to mainstream pop-culture, as seen in films such as The Lawnmower Man and The Matrix . Contrary to Baudrillard, Canadian VR Pioneer Char... more description for ITPG-GT 2461 »
ITPG-GT 2465 Machine Learning for the Web
Libraries like TensorFlow.js and ml5.js unlocked new opportunities for interactive machine learning projects in the browser. The goal of this class is to learn and understand common machine learning techniques and apply them to generate creative outputs in the browser. This class will start with running models in the browser using high-level APIs from ml5.js, as well as explore the Layer APIs from TensorFlow.js to train models using custom data. This class will also cover preparing the dataset for training models. At the completion of this course, students will have a better understanding of ... more description for ITPG-GT 2465 »
ITPG-GT 2466 Energy
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 at ITP. Maybe you fear the existential threat of anthropogenic climate change, or maybe you just want your pcomp projects to work better. Either way, the class will help you und... more description for ITPG-GT 2466 »
ITPG-GT 2467 Playful Experiences
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 amuse... more description for ITPG-GT 2467 »
ITPG-GT 2469 Veillance
he course title, "Veillance" is a reference to the root of "surveillance" and "sousveillance", watching from above and watching from below respectively. As digital media becomes a greater part of our everyday lives, it is important to understand the new forms of surveillance that it enables as well as to harness these capabilities and perhaps to create systems of sousveillance. Through the course, we'll critically examine technologies that have become integral part of our lives; the technologies that drive the internet, the capabilities of web browsers, mobile phones, and the emerging class o... more description for ITPG-GT 2469 »
ITPG-GT 2470 Cabinets of Wonder
If you were inventing a museum today, what would it look like? Who would be there? What would its main purpose be? Before you answer that question, let?s take a look back. 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. The public was very limited; children were usually not allowed in. They were elitist institutions whose mission was... more description for ITPG-GT 2470 »
ITPG-GT 2471 Dancing in Digital Spaces
All students will learn the fundamentals of the motion capture pipeline. This includes calibrating an Optitrack system, tracking rigid bodies and skeletons, data cleaning, learning about movement qualities and physical interventions, avatar creation, rigging avatars, and streaming in real-time with MotionBuilder. In addition to real-time data, students will also work with pre-recorded data, both data recorded in class and from open-source datasets such as CMU Graphic Lab’s motion capture library. Following these fundamental lessons, students will explore these skill sets through task based lab... more description for ITPG-GT 2471 »
ITPG-GT 2473 Device to Database
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... more description for ITPG-GT 2473 »
ITPG-GT 2474 Intro to Industrial Design
The objective of this workshop is to make more beautiful things. Industrial Designer professionaThe objective of this workshop is to make more beautiful things. Industrial Designer professionals give shape to new technology, creating mass-produced things like trains, cars, appliances, furniture, medical equipment, toys, packaging, corporate identity -- any user interface. The methodology based on scientific problem analysis with a user-centered perspective applies to any media. This integration of problem solving and creative inspiration in the hands of talented people is a very powerful tool,... more description for ITPG-GT 2474 »
ITPG-GT 2475 Music Interaction Design
This class is a project development studio for interactive music projects —that is, pieces of music that are not linear, but rather offer multiple dimensions for listeners to explore. Applications include generative music installations, novel instruments, participative performances, museum exhibitions, games, and tools for producing and teaching music. Students will take a project from concept to execution over several iterations, applying interaction design, creative coding, and music production tools and techniques. The project development process will include gathering aural and visual ref... more description for ITPG-GT 2475 »
ITPG-GT 2477 Prototyping the Margins
Our perceptions of the future have been conjured via media, cultural references, and select readings as well as fact. In this we receive particular cultural and gendered perspectives, even unconsciously. Prototyping the Margins asks us to re-envision more diverse and inclusive futures, to ensure that they will exist. Through the reading and reference of alternate texts, using nontraditional perspective and high-lighting bias, this class will deconstruct previously held notions of the future through reexamining the past and rethinking the present via storytelling and prototyping. In this cour... more description for ITPG-GT 2477 »
ITPG-GT 2479 Product Design: Designing for People
In this course, students will learn the process of developing products that address user needs. Students will go through the process of identifying a user need, developing a product prototype, evaluating the product with the target user, and outlining the next development steps. Topics will include such elements as need finding, archetype development, user journey maps, ideation, prototyping, user evaluation and validation.
ITPG-GT 2480 The Nature of Code
Can we capture the unpredictable evolutionary and emergent properties of nature in software? Can understanding the mathematical principles behind our physical world world help us to create digital worlds? This class focuses on the programming strategies and techniques behind computer simulations of natural systems. We explore topics ranging from basic mathematics and physics concepts to more advanced simulations of complex systems. Subjects covered include physics simulation, trigonometry, self-organization, genetic algorithms, and neural networks. Examples are demonstrated in JavaScript using... more description for ITPG-GT 2480 »
ITPG-GT 2481 Big LEDs
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... more description for ITPG-GT 2481 »
ITPG-GT 2483 Resist! Intro to Technology + Political Activism [A Product Design Perspective]
This class will apply a product and service design lens to the rapidly evolving role of technology in politics, government services, and human rights, with a dual focus on the use of technology to advance the public good, and the threats that technology can pose to various aspects of civil society. On the one hand, there has been an explosion of technology tools that aim to promote healthy and peaceful democracies, provide more efficient government services, and promote human rights. This course will survey those efforts and the product design methodologies that guide them. On the other hand... more description for ITPG-GT 2483 »
ITPG-GT 2485 Sound in Space
Stereo (2-speaker) sound is the default way we produce and distribute most audio. This class challenges the stereophonic-centricity of digital sound and instead focuses on the context of listening, interfacing and interacting with audio beyond 2 speakers. We will take a novel approach to spatialization by interfacing web technologies (Javascript, Web Audio, WebRTC) with multichannel audio to create room-scale interactive music and sonic spaces, and then make our findings publicly available through musical artifacts, open source tools, and documentation. We will explore conventional and unconve... more description for ITPG-GT 2485 »
ITPG-GT 2486 Art/Science Collisions: Communicating W/ Data
The aim of this course is to explore and draw inspiration from the scientific process, its representations, and data. What does it mean to use the ?scientific method?? What is the purpose and value of data produced in experiments? How true are representations crafted with data, and who wants or needs to know about scientific results? What do we gain by incorporating scientific data or visualization into our own work? The course focuses on cases from emerging and converging scientific and technological fields: nano, info, & bio. The goal is to cultivate purposeful science communication and to e... more description for ITPG-GT 2486 »
ITPG-GT 2487 Artists in the Archive
The Library of Congress holds more than 160 million physical items, alongside countless more digital resources. The collection spans vast swaths of subject areas, geographical places, historical periods, and political eras. In this course we’ll learn about the unique properties of these holdings, about the ways that these objects are encoded in data, and how we can access the archive both remotely and in person. Most importantly, we’ll dream up ways that artists might interact with and interrogate the collections, to produce work in a variety of media from software to sculpture to performance.... more description for ITPG-GT 2487 »
ITPG-GT 2489 Beyond Binary: Analytical Methods for Navigating Uncertain Futures
The purpose of this course is to push beyond quotidian “problem solving” methods to equip students with the analytical capacity to tackle insoluble (“wicked”) problems and strategic uncertainty, with a particular focus on forecasting methodologies and “long-term thinking.” Taking a critical lens on analytical capacity building, the course will quickly progress from classical methods (i.e., critical thinking / design thinking / systems thinking) to more specific practices (i.e., forecasting, scenario planning, prediction markets). Readings from diverse disciplines, and exploration of timely and... more description for ITPG-GT 2489 »
ITPG-GT 2491 Escape Room
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. We will explore Zoom as a tool fo... more description for ITPG-GT 2491 »
ITPG-GT 2492 Math Tools for Audiovisual Digital Art
Artists working with digital audiovisual mediums deal on a daily basis with compression, sampling, digitalization, scaling, modeling, and quantizing. They also tackle challenges such as modeling natural events, noise filtering, time stretching, and parameterizing. In this class students will learn math tools for boosting their digital practice and fixing common problems, and also understand the math behind our human perception of the physical world. Each class we will learn different concepts and techniques, including probabilities, Fourier transform, and quantizing, and then will explore thei... more description for ITPG-GT 2492 »
ITPG-GT 2493 Subtraction: Cutting
This 2 credit class will focus on producing precision 2.5D parts, perfect for mechanisms and assemblies. We will cover 3 axis CNCs, 2D CAD, CAM, and machine setups. The class will be hands on and fabrication heavy, paying close attention to accuracy and craftsmanship. There will be weekly fabrication exercises, assignments, and a final project. This class will not cover the lathes, the 4 axis CNC, or 3D CAD, that is only covered in Subtraction: Turning.
ITPG-GT 2494 Subtraction: Turning
This 2 credit class will focus on creating 3 dimensional sculptural parts from raw materials. We will cover the wood lathe, the metal lathe, 3D CAD, and the 4 axis CNC. The class will be hands on and fabrication heavy, paying close attention craftsmanship. There will be weekly fabrication exercises, assignments, and a final project. This class will not cover 3 axis CNCs, 2D CAD, or CAM, that is only covered in Subtraction: Cutting.
ITPG-GT 2495 Hacking Smart Toys for AI Learning
Much of our daily life is quietly being reshaped by AI while an entire generation of children is growing up with this technology in their homes. The best way to understand the algorithms that drive AI applications is to make your own -- to write and train them through playful and interactive activities. The Hacking Smart Toys for AI Learning course consists of a series of hands-on activities focused on designing and testing several smart toys, construction kits and play experiences that can support youth to better learn and play with AI. Both beginners and more advanced students are welcome. I... more description for ITPG-GT 2495 »
ITPG-GT 2496 Critical Objects
Art, design and experimental electronics can be great tools for inciting discussions of complex issues such as privacy, sexism, racism, economic inequality and climate change. This course aims to provoke thoughtful discussions of pressing issues through the combination of Art, Industrial Design and Embedded Electronics (sensors, actuators, wifi enabled microcontrollers - ESP32, raspberry pis). Topics will include technological disobedience, adversarial design and critical engineering. In this 14 week class, students will combine technology, design, and critical theory to build Art Objects / I... more description for ITPG-GT 2496 »
ITPG-GT 2497 Autonomous Artificial Artists | Frontiers of Neural Arts
This course is a survey of some of the more exploratory new directions AI is heading towards in the coming years and the creative applications these new developments may enable. More specifically, the class will explore the following three subtopics: 1) Realistic language models: Turing-test passing text generators like GPT-3 are writing whole paragraphs with human-level coherence. We will explore techniques for generating creative fiction and chatbots using both APIs and our own home-brewed NLP models. 2) Generative music: Since WaveNet in 2016, generative models of audio have gradually evo... more description for ITPG-GT 2497 »
ITPG-GT 2498 New-Media-Space
Exhibitions speak to all our senses. Most creative professionals specialize in one or another particular field, be it space design, or media production, interactive ideation or storytelling. But when we merge all these components into one congruent whole, magic happens – they mutually amplify each other and create a powerful experience that speaks to all our senses synchronously. During a two afternoon course, students will systematically explore the opportunities of "New-Media-Space" and team up to combine a broad variety of media to design conceptual experiences that involve all our senses.
ITPG-GT 2499 Experiential Storytelling
As students look towards entering the working world as emerging directors, writers, and producers, they will benefit greatly by gaining a deeper understanding of the storytelling and creative opportunities that exist within the area of emerging media. The class will focus on the artistic possibilities of cinematic VR and other new media. Students will be asked stretch their imaginations and embrace the distinct affordances of each offering. We will focus on how to create impactful experiences through learning about new modalities, exposure to the latest works, and experimenting to understand... more description for ITPG-GT 2499 »
ITPG-GT 2507 Appropriating Interaction Technologies
This course explores the structures and systems of social interactions, identity, and representation as mediated by technology. We will investigate ways that technology can be used to augment, subvert, alter, mediate, and ultimately deepen interaction in a lasting way. How do the things we build and use limit and expand the way we understand and relate to each other? We'll explore this question by building new tools and creating new situations for breaking us out of existing patterns, and discussing contextual examples from media art, performance art, psychology and pop culture. Technologies ... more description for ITPG-GT 2507 »
ITPG-GT 2518 Social Facts
Social Facts centers on two questions. The first is, how do we function in groups? Group effort presents significant coordination problems, problems that have to be overcome even to do anything as simple as getting everyone in the same place at the same time. Getting a group to function as a relatively cohesive unit means getting its members to set aside enough of their autonomy, and to come to regard their membership in the group as important. The second, related question is, why do we function in groups. Group life is often unpleasant ? it can be frustrating or boring in the extreme, and yet... more description for ITPG-GT 2518 »
ITPG-GT 2521 Designing for Live Performance
For centuries, great works of music, theater, and dance, have combined art and science to make integrated performances that move audiences. Today, we are seeing exciting changes as artists experiment with video and real-time interactivity to draw audiences even deeper into the performance, and enhance the shared experience of the moment. This class explores conceptual approaches to design, industry-standard software, prototyping frameworks, and data flow programming to provide student designers with the cutting-edge tools necessary to confidently collaborate with writers, directors, and perfor... more description for ITPG-GT 2521 »
ITPG-GT 2534 Constructing Generative Systems
Living Art combines Physical Computing and Generative Art techniques, providing an environment for students interested in pursuing an artistic outlet for their physical computing skills. Generative Art creates a process of evolution. Where most art imitates life, generative art has a life of its own. Generative methods have been chained to the personal computer for too long. What would happen if we took the algorithms employed in software art and applied them to the physical world through sensors and reactive elements? Or like Ned Kahn's piece "wind," apply laws of nature to physical works? ... more description for ITPG-GT 2534 »
ITPG-GT 2536 Programming from A to Z
This course focuses on programming strategies and techniques behind procedural analysis and generation of text-based data. We'll explore topics ranging from evaluating text according to its statistical properties to the automated production of text with probabilistic methods to text visualization. Students will learn server-side and client-side JavaScript programming and develop projects that can be shared and interacted with online. This fall the course will also explore topics in machine learning as related to text. There will be weekly homework assignments as well as a final project.
ITPG-GT 2538 Drawing It Together
If we consider drawing as one of the most ancient forms of interaction, it has the power to engage users like no other technology. With the right setup and call for action – I’m always taken aback by how a cup full of crayons and a pile of paper can bring the child out of a serious businessman. But how do you pass the strong barriers of users who are afraid to draw? In this weekend workshop we’ll examine various techniques that can spark an interaction which is all focused on the action of drawing. Workshop topics include an exploring into collaborative drawing platforms, interactive drawing ... more description for ITPG-GT 2538 »
ITPG-GT 2546 Computational Cameras
Computers should see. We depend most heavily on light to sense the world. As our experience is increasingly mediated through computers, it is not surprising that cameras have become an integral part of them. As computers become small, cheap and ubiquitous in laptops, cellphones and microcontrollers the cameras attached to them can gain coverage of every corner of life. This class looks at the possibilities and the computer software for getting a hold of the signals coming in from all these cameras. The class first looks getting images, integrating multiple views and transmitting them ove... more description for ITPG-GT 2546 »
ITPG-GT 2550 Digital Imaging: Reset
Digital cameras and printers are making photography more ubiquitous and more useful than ever. This course is a workshop that looks at changing the rules for capturing and printing digital imagery. By gaining a better understanding of the engineering fundamentals and limitations of digital photography, students can produce breathtaking images with all the benefits of digital media but with an image quality that rivals film. Students experiment using low cost, hands-on tips and tricks in software and hardware to capture high dynamic range, expanded color, night color, 3D, time lapse, and stop m... more description for ITPG-GT 2550 »
ITPG-GT 2558 Agile Web Development
This is a production-based course that will introduce students to the fundamentals of creating media for the web. With basic web development as a consistent backbone to the course, students will be exposed to a range of mediums and technologies including 2D design, digital imaging, sound, video, animation, and effects. The forms and uses of these communications technologies are explored in a laboratory context of experimentation, collaboration, and discussion. Fundamentals of creative storytelling will be emphasized throughout with an ultimate goal of creating compelling content in the context... more description for ITPG-GT 2558 »
ITPG-GT 2564 Project Development Studio
Project Development in a Period of Crisis
In the words of Ernesto Oroza in Technological Disobedience - "Más severa es la crisis, más poderosa es la creatividad de las personas" (The more severe the crisis, the more powerful is the creativity of the people). In this special format of Project Development Studio, students will look into techniques and frameworks to design and develop projects with limited resources during turbulent times. This is a production heavy four-credit course, where students will be required to propose a single project that will be researched and expanded during the semester utilizing creative practices that ex... more description for ITPG-GT 2564 »
ITPG-GT 2565 Connected Devices and Networked Interaction
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 challe... more description for ITPG-GT 2565 »
ITPG-GT 2568 Computers for The Rest of You
This class explores the possibilities of subtle interaction with computers. Conventional computer interface tends to accommodate conscious, explicit, intentional communication. Many unconscious cues and actions that are valued in ordinary human expression are ignored or filtered by computer-mediated interactions. Relinquishing a conscious gatekeeper can be associated with such uncomfortable subjects as subliminal manipulation, subconscious repression, even a loss of free will and the insanity defense! On the other hand going past conscious control can be associated with achieving virtuosity in... more description for ITPG-GT 2568 »
ITPG-GT 2569 Culinary Physics
This studio and seminar course explores the basic principles of food biochemistry, enzymology and food processing and how they relate to memory, the senses and the processing of information. Students will also learn basic principles of molecular gastronomy and modernist cuisine as framing devices for understanding how food also functions in the context of bodily health, environmental health as well as cultural and political narratives. Our food system consists of more than food production and consumption and this class will address how science and food science plays a more integral role in thi... more description for ITPG-GT 2569 »
ITPG-GT 2571 Data Art
Fascinating and terrifying things are happening at the intersection of data and culture. Our lives are being constantly measured, and information about us is being surveilled, stolen, and commodified. Dialogue around this data revolution has been dominated by corporations, governments, and industry – but what about the arts? In this class, we’ll investigate the means by which artists can engage (and are engaging) in the collection, processing, and representation of data. Using a research-focused, prototype-based approach, we’ll build a series of collective and individual projects to interrogat... more description for ITPG-GT 2571 »
ITPG-GT 2572 Interactive Screens & Cinematic Objects
What does it mean to create cinematic works? What are the limits of the term ?cinema,? and what are its possibilities? Will it be story-based, formalist, or symbolic? How does interactivity impact narrative perception, rhythm and arc? Is an interface user-driven or machine-driven? Multi-linear or singular? Screen or object based? Do we want to work for our stories? Is it possible to make profound or emotional narrative work in a multi-linear or interactive environment? The creation and evaluation of work in this class pivots on the notion of narrative perception: a viewer?s desire to actively ... more description for ITPG-GT 2572 »
ITPG-GT 2574 Redial: Interactive Telephony
New technologies, such as Voice over IP, and open source telephony applications, such as Asterisk, have opened the door for the development of interactive applications that use telephony for its traditional purpose -- voice communications. This course explores the use of the telephone in interactive art, performance, social networking, and multimedia applications. Asterisk and low cost VoIP service are used to develop applications that can work over both telephone networks and the internet. Topics include: history of telephony, plain old telephone service (POTS), voice over IP (VoIP), inter... more description for ITPG-GT 2574 »
ITPG-GT 2577 Dynamic Web Development
This 7-week, 2-point course will provide a framework for learning how to develop and program web applications. It will focus on server side development using JavaScript, Node.js with the Express framework, and persistent databases on cloud based infrastructure. Additional topics will include login and session management, web services and APIs, and will lightly touch on front-end web development. The course will be a mixture of lecture and in-class collaborative coding, with weekly programming and reading homework.
ITPG-GT 2586 Recurring Concepts in Art
As a response to developing technologies, artists working in areas of new/digital media are continually inventing new concepts for self-expression - interactivity, the passage of time and resolution, just to name a few. Yet these concepts are new only in the sense that they are being adapted to new media. For example, the notion of interactivity, frequently observed as original and specific to the user-interaction component of computer-mediated works, was equally, if differently, specific to Gianlorenzo Bernini's 17th-century Baroque sculpture and architecture. Indeed the very concept of new m... more description for ITPG-GT 2586 »
ITPG-GT 2588 Show and Tell Studio
There is no shortage of great ideas and projects at ITP. But there is often a shortage of class time to thoroughly develop the concept for a project and to communicate effectively about it in writing or orally in presentations. At some point you are going to have to pitch your projects to people outside ITP and this studio will help you gain the skills you will need. This studio is a complement to a production class -- each student brings a project from another class -- we take the time, often lacking in class, to learn how to focus an idea into a workable concept, and to practice and experime... more description for ITPG-GT 2588 »
ITPG-GT 2592 Mainstreaming Information
Information sources that have the power to impact our day-to-day lives on topics such as global and domestic politics, health, the economy, and the environment, are now readily available online. The best information design work is still primarily relegated to obscure journals and websites, and asks too much from the viewer. This workshop aims to bring information sources we all care about into the mainstream. Our goal is to explore how selective streams of information can be sited and expressed in a way that not only creates engagement on the part of the viewer, but inspires action. Students w... more description for ITPG-GT 2592 »
ITPG-GT 2607 The Fungus Among Us
We live among the vast and relatively unknown Kingdom of Fungi. Mycelial networks have been likened to social and communications networks. What do we have in common with mushrooms? What can we learn from them? Fungi communicate, remediate, and decompose. They are used as food, medicine, spiritual guides, and material building blocks. Some are crucial to the soil food web; others will kill you. Fungi are closer to Animalia than to Plantae, and only 5% of the Fungi have been classified. Students will explore fungi through reading, research, writing and interacting with fungi, and making one cas... more description for ITPG-GT 2607 »
ITPG-GT 2608 Fabricating Information
Replacing a constellation of expensive and specialized machines to cut, fold, and aggregate material, flexible "computer numerical controlled" (or CNC) machines are increasingly finding their way into different arenas of material production. These machines, using lasers, spindles, glue, high-pressure water, and plasma are able to translate digital forms and patterns directly into material processes. The seminar functions as both an introduction to different CNC + prototyping equipment as well as a studio in which to test the possibilities and constraints of these new methods of production. Usi... more description for ITPG-GT 2608 »
ITPG-GT 2611 Mashups - Creating With Web APIs
As the World Wide Web continues to grow and permeate our everyday lives, an ever-increasing amount of data and digital services are accessible to us through public web APIs - Application Programming Interfaces. Common to many web sites, including YouTube, Twitter, Google Maps, Wikipedia and more, web APIs offer a means to programmatically request and re-purpose endless troves of information. But how exactly do we access these datasets and services? How can we write code to transfer, store, and display this content on our own web sites? And how might we use these available resources to design u... more description for ITPG-GT 2611 »
ITPG-GT 2617 Towers of Power
In NYC we take our cellphone and Wi-Fi signals for granted. It’s always on and we are always connected. This not the case for 2 billion people who lack affordable communication and 700 Million people who have no coverage at all. New technologies are democratizing communications infrastructure; Software defined radios, lowered hardware pricing and open source solutions have made it possible to install low cost infrastructure that can be controlled by communities instead of multinational corporations. In this class you learn how to create your own communications networks. We will cover the sof... more description for ITPG-GT 2617 »
ITPG-GT 2620 Site Specific: Augmntatn Afftnities & Frames
Site suggests contexts that are spatial, temporal, narrative, and populated. Site-specific works require a frame for participants, a set of stories and a point of entry. More than art within "the framework" of an art institution, site-specific, interactive and community-based works require rigorous levels of observation, interrogation, and participation. Whether in the physical or the virtual public, frame and context are primary considerations in the work you produce. This class is part studio and part refection, using contemporary art examples and writings that engage and critique the local ... more description for ITPG-GT 2620 »
ITPG-GT 2624 Mechanisms and Things
This class is designed to equip the student with a basic knowledge of mechanical engineering, materials, and component selection for practical use. Emphasis is placed on finding and using affordable, everyday components for the hobbyist. Real-world, professional level components and technologies are also covered in case studies and class examples. From kinetic sculptures to modernThis class is designed to equip the student with a basic knowledge of mechanical engineering, materials, and component selection for practical use. Emphasis is placed on finding and using affordable, everyday componen... more description for ITPG-GT 2624 »
ITPG-GT 2667 Flying Robotic Journalism
It used to be that only the wealthy and powerful could put eyes in the sky. Dramatic aerial images of riots and other uprisings–captured by guerrilla drone journalists, activists and protestors—suggest a politically transformative leveling of the playing field. Yet even the cheapest quadcopter can threaten evisceration or fatality, and unmanned flight is a legal minefield. With all this uncertainty, what are the prospects for drone journalism in the US and globally? In this class, learn about the law, technology, and practice of drone journalism. You’ll meet pioneers of the field, develop co... more description for ITPG-GT 2667 »
ITPG-GT 2680 Big Screens
This class is dedicated to experimenting with interactivity on large-scale screens. Students develop one project over the course of the semester, culminating with a showing at InterActive Corps' 120 X 12-foot video wall at their corporate headquarters on 18th St. and the West Side Highway. A mock-up of the system is available at ITP for testing. Class time is divided between independent project development, critique, technical demonstrations, and field trips to IAC. Students should be comfortable programming in Java and Processing.
ITPG-GT 2688 Drawing Machines
Norbert Weiner (the pioneering cyberneticist) spoke of an electronic machine that could reproduce itself. Such an electronic machine would produce an image of itself and this image would be the instructions required to produce the next machine. Though clearly a truthful statement about the state of the art, it is also a quality immanent in Nature. Even ephemeral qualities such as ideas are machines, and in the case of humans, one could reasonably argue that the act of drawing is the most powerful replicator of the idea. Without drawing we would not have high art, composed music, written langua... more description for ITPG-GT 2688 »
ITPG-GT 2690 Mobile Me(Dia)
Through the course we'll examine the current state-of-the art in mobile technology with a focus on that which enables the consumption and production of media. We'll examine at how that media can integrate with the devices' original social and communicative purposes. Additionally, we'll look at the ways that mobile devices and mobile media are active in transforming global culture. Finally, we'll create projects and build applications that explore new forms of media creation and consumption on the mobile devices. In this course we'll cover creating new applications and experiences for Android ... more description for ITPG-GT 2690 »
ITPG-GT 2698 Wearables Workshop
Our bodies are our primary interface for the world. Interactive systems designed to live on the body can be intimate, upfront, and sometimes literally in your face. This course provides a technical and conceptual framework in which to experiment with works that live on the human form. Through a hands-on approach, topics addressed include general concepts of physical computing as applied to wearables, soft and alternative approaches to circuitry, working with sewable hardware, emerging and repurposed technomaterials, and techniques for manipulating, modifying or creating garments & accessories.... more description for ITPG-GT 2698 »
ITPG-GT 2706 Collective Narrative
This two-point workshop is centered on the examination and creation of collective storytelling environments. We will examine a wide-range of storytelling spaces including participatory and user-generated environments, site-specific works, community based arts practices, and transmedia storytelling. Weekly assignments, field trips, and student presentations.
ITPG-GT 2710 Crafting With Data: Re- Velations, Illus, Truth
Contemporary interaction designers and artists often manipulate scientific, historical, commercial and social information. Literacy in design, art or engineering requires the complement of literacy in data. This class makes a powerful addition to your existing skill set of programming, visual design and electronics. Students become conversant in the tools and methods for properly collecting data and evaluating it to uncover truths about the world. In this class we learn about the "lies, damn lies and statistics" that are encountered in our daily information feeds. Basic training is provided in... more description for ITPG-GT 2710 »
ITPG-GT 2714 Flash of Flash
This course is an introduction to ActionScript 3 as an object oriented language and the tools used (Flash, Flex, AIR) to develop applications running into the Flash player with a particular focus on its creative potential. The approach is to develop a complete application every class from concept to developing and testing. Topics include user interaction and the concept of events and listeners, animation and sprite manipulation, audio, video and use of Adobe components, dynamic data support and the net and xml packages, text manipulation and the text engine. Note: This two point course will m... more description for ITPG-GT 2714 »
ITPG-GT 2716 Frame Bv Frame Creation and Manipulation of The
Thanks to modern day computers and software, we now have a very high degree of control over digital images and video. Non-Linear editors allow us to easily assemble sequential images on the frame level while image manipulation programs give us the power to change images on the pixel level. By using techniques from animation, special effects, video editing, and programming, we break images apart and reassemble them into new moving imagery. Our primary tool is Adobe After Effects but we also explore the algorithms behind image manipulation so that students might integrate the techniques into the... more description for ITPG-GT 2716 »
ITPG-GT 2719 Subtraction
Subtractive fabrication is a common manufacturing process that produces durable and functional objects. This class will cover multiple techniques on machining and milling raw material into custom parts. We will focus on both traditional and digital fabrication tools: lathe, CNC router, 4 axis mill, etc. We will cover CAD, CAM, and machine setups as well as research affordable desktop milling solutions for personal shops. The class will be hands on and fabrication heavy, paying close attention to precision, accuracy, and craftsmanship. There will be weekly fabrication exercises, a midterm, an... more description for ITPG-GT 2719 »
ITPG-GT 2722 Video Sculpture
Video is the new marble. In this class we breathe new life into video as a medium for creating engaging interactive physical sculpture. Video is no longer a flat screen based medium. How do we create video sculptures that move, emote and react to our presence? The course takes video off the screen and into the world of three-dimensional space in the form of site-specific and or physical installations. Through a series of weekly experiments and assignments, students work with projection, tiny LCD screens, physical sensors and interactive software to hack video into interactive sculptures in the... more description for ITPG-GT 2722 »
ITPG-GT 2724 Visual Communication
We see information before we read it - and often we see instead of read. Effective technologists and storytellers embrace the importance of visual design and understand the many tools available to convey and manipulate the user experience. These tools include everything from the layout and packaging of the written word to photo editing, information graphics, illustration, typography, animation, color and spatial modeling. This course provides an overview of the tools available and, through a series of practical exercises, enables students to understand the implications of their use. The goal o... more description for ITPG-GT 2724 »
ITPG-GT 2728 Basic Analog Circuits
Today's mostly digital world also requires a basic knowledge of analog circuits. In this course students learn about the basic principles of analog circuits design and operation. Students learn about discrete components such as resistors, capacitors, diodes and transistors as well as integrated components such as operational amplifiers. In addition, students become familiar with the operation of basic electronic test equipment such as digital multimeters, oscilloscopes, function generators. The instructor lectures on, and demonstrates, basic analog concepts so that students can form a basic ru... more description for ITPG-GT 2728 »
ITPG-GT 2734 Live Web
The World Wide Web has grown up to be a great platform for asynchronous communication such as email and message boards. More recently this has extended into media posting and sharing. With the rise of broadband, more powerful computers and the prevalence networked media devices, synchronous communications have become more viable. Streaming media, audio and video conference rooms and text based chat give us the ability to create content and services tailored to a live audience. During this course, we focus on the types of content and interaction that can be supported through these technologies ... more description for ITPG-GT 2734 »
ITPG-GT 2737 Storage Wars and Data Dumps: Narrating Digital Archives
This course begins with the position that big data makes for poor archives of digital culture. While big data sets are meant to generate conclusive analysis, the best digital archives focus on archiving practices, not objects or files, and allow material to remain open to endless re-performance and reuse. As a result, the most important digital archives have often emerged from artistic practices and internet vernaculars. In this mixed studio/seminar, we will create better digital archives, and re-perform and critique existing ones. We will explore artistic responses to the various pressures o... more description for ITPG-GT 2737 »
ITPG-GT 2738 If Products Could Tell Their/Stories:Sustainble
Is there lead in my nephew?s toy? Does my new HDTV have a much greater impact on global warming than my old TV? When I finally recycle those old cell phones and computers that have been collecting dust in my closet, where will they be taken, and will anything or anyone be harmed as they are recycled? Without answers to these questions that people are seeking, there are limits to the role consumption can play in our shift to a more sustainable economic model. As product developers, designers, tinkerers, and technologists, we have the means to uncover these answers, and communicate the backstor... more description for ITPG-GT 2738 »
ITPG-GT 2742 Stu: Project Development
This is a workshop for students to develop an existing project idea. It is a combination of self-directed study, with the structure of a class and an opportunity for peer learning. This particular studio is appropriate for projects in the areas of installation art with a focus on the moving image, non-linear or multi-channel video and animation, and site-specific projects. Each class time is a chance to work on your project, share project development and critique. Students devise and then complete their own weekly assignments updating the class wiki regularly. They also present to the class ev... more description for ITPG-GT 2742 »
ITPG-GT 2744 Service Design for Public Space
If you could improve one everyday experience in New York City, what would it be, and how would you do it? In this class, we ask: What's a service and how are good ones conceived and created? What can we, as interaction designers, contribute to services for public space? What responsibilities do users as "citizens" rather than "customers" demand of designers? Drawing from my own interest in, research for, and links to, New York City agencies and service providers, we explore the kinds of relationships that services broker, and practice some key design processes and methods to understand how co... more description for ITPG-GT 2744 »
ITPG-GT 2746 Expression Frameworks for Data: Info Vislztn
This class uses animals, humans, and other creatures as a way to think about character representation. Claude Levi-Strauss? observation that ?Animals are Good to Think? is the starting point from which we make, discuss, and examine the ways in which art works imagine the interrelationships between the human, the animal, and our environment. If we can only perceive these things through mediation (media representations), then how we represent them is the fundamental question, reflecting our ideologies, prejudices, hopes, and fears. Do we speak for animals, and if so what are we saying for them?... more description for ITPG-GT 2746 »
ITPG-GT 2748 Dataflow Progamming for Projects
Graphical dataflow programming languages like the Max family (Pd aka Pure Data, Max/MSP, jMax, etc.) provide a more intuitive approach to media creation and manipulation. This paradigm is based on mapping out the flow of the data, which more closely mirrors the experience of realtime media. We start with the basics of Pd itself, and cover the basics of audio, video, 3D, physical computing, networking, and how to organize large projects. Pd is free software, and also runs on embedded systems like PDAs and iPhones, providing possibilities previously only feasible using microcontrollers. The M... more description for ITPG-GT 2748 »
ITPG-GT 2750 Little Computers
Apple sold the iPhone as a phone, but its buyers use it as a little computer. In no time, hackers cracked the phone and found it to be not much different than their OS X based laptops and desktops. The cute device runs a mature UNIX based operating system and it supports most of Apple?s object-oriented API, Cocoa. The class covers object oriented programming, C/Objective-C/Objective-C++, scripting languages, OS X internals, Interface Builder, and XCode. The Cocoa and Cocoa Touch APIs covered include: Quartz, OpenGL, Core Location, CFNetwork (wifi), as well open source frameworks such as GD... more description for ITPG-GT 2750 »
ITPG-GT 2754 Thinking Physically
Our bodies are ripe with the potential to express and perceive, but aspects of our physical selves are often ignored by the devices and communication systems that we use. Even as our technologies become smaller and more versatile, we find ourselves bending down towards our keyboards and screens, and much of what we communicate with our bodies gets lost in translation. In Thinking Physically, we work to open ourselves back up and embrace the rich capabilities and inherent expressiveness of the human form. Starting with the body itself, we think about how it works and take a brief look at motion... more description for ITPG-GT 2754 »
ITPG-GT 2756 Spatial Media
Computer screens are nothing new. But what happens to the screen when itComputer screens are nothing new. But what happens to the screen when it becomes a table or a mirror or a sidewalk? How does one design for such a screen? This course explores how interactive media can be integrated into physical spaces and furniture through the creative use of projectors and embedded displays. The course also examines the multitude of questions that arise when when designing for this type of media. Emphasis will be placed on the role of spatial and social context and the importance of relevant content wit... more description for ITPG-GT 2756 »
ITPG-GT 2758 Doing Good is Good Business
UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) takes on issues affecting the health, well-being and opportunities of children and youth around the world. Increasingly, this includes creating and managing novel communications tools, from online forums for youth journalism or story-telling to support for youth AIDS activists. It also includes physical design challenges like designing off-the-grid communications infrastructure. (A list of relevant projects can be found at Mepemepe.com) In this class, students examine some of the design challenges UNICEF faces, and work in groups to research and prototyp... more description for ITPG-GT 2758 »
ITPG-GT 2760 Visual Music
Op Art, Synaesthesia, Liquid Light shows, Andy Warhol's exploding plastic inevitable, the Expanded Cinema of Jordan Belson and Tony Conrad's Flicker, Xenakis and Le Corbusier's sonic architectural designs are some of the many other examples that reflect the dynamic integration of sound and image. Using Anton Webern's concept of "Klangfarbenmelodie" (Sound-Color-Melody) as a jumping off point, this course evaluates and studies the history and practice of Visual Music. Ranging from spectral music and serial composition as a foundation, this class moves into the history and practice of experim... more description for ITPG-GT 2760 »
ITPG-GT 2762 When Strangers Meet
Even the simplest exchange among strangers can contain a tangled accumulation of meanings: what transpires may have physical, emotional, social, political, technological and historical dimEven the simplest exchange among strangers can contain a tangled accumulation of meanings: what transpires may have physical, emotional, social, political, technological and historical dimensions. This class takes an analytical approach to unraveling and understanding these charged moments. In the process of the studying how and why strangers interact in public, we address some of the abiding themes at ITP?ur... more description for ITPG-GT 2762 »
ITPG-GT 2764 Pencils, Polymers, & Pix Els: Working W/Prototyps
From complex systems to beautiful objects, prototypes form an evolutionary path from idea to product realization. Prototyping is both a skill and way of thinking. It allows us to take great risks at low cost, expose critical challenges and communicate complex interactions. In this course, we explore many prototyping forms, methods and techniques to better understand where, when and how prototypes can be applied to inform a design. Through a series of challenges and group exercises, students create prototypes to explore, validate and test ideas. Students should come to this class with a big ... more description for ITPG-GT 2764 »
ITPG-GT 2766 Game Studies
Games are as old as human society, if not older, and the past thirty years has seen an explosion of creativity from this once 'invisible' art form. With the popularization of the computer, games have come to occupy a larger and larger part of the mind-share of modern culture. This in turn has inspired the range of voices that have stepped forward to examine the phenomenon of games and its artifacts. In this class we survey the major work that has been done to understand games, both digital and traditional, in the past sixty years. Starting with foundational texts by historian Johan Huizinga an... more description for ITPG-GT 2766 »
ITPG-GT 2767 Homemade Hardware
Hardware is not hard, and rapidly prototyping circuit boards is easier than ever with new tools available at ITP. Students will learn how to grow from a breadboard to a custom surface mount board, 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 the multitude of tools and processes required to make a DIY circuit board. These include Eagle CAD, micro-milling machines, drawing schematics, ordering parts, surface-mount components, acid ... more description for ITPG-GT 2767 »
ITPG-GT 2768 1', 2', 10'
User InteUser Interface isn't just an exploration of good design?either on screen or in a hardware?it's increasingly becoming a transformation of input based user interaction; the UI of an iPhone application, allowing multi-touch and access to a variety of sensors differs from that of a Television with limited inputs, computer with keyboard and other inputs, or a newly created device. As the available inputs and UI changes with each device, so does the content, design limitations and the narrative. We currently live in a world where we interact with content in 3 main environments 1 foot?cell ... more description for ITPG-GT 2768 »
ITPG-GT 2770 Persuasive Technologies: Designing The Human
Persuasive technologies range from Google's Image Labeler to the Karryfront Screamer Laptop Bag, from Clocky to Facebook's socially-reinforced news feed updates. This class critically examines the design of these technologies as they play upon specific human emotions and vulnerabilities. In the spirit of transparency and ethical investigation, we explore approaches to subverting, upending and exposing our relation to such technologies. Furthermore, we examine the power of persuasive technologies in creating opportunities for communicating non-human intentions and viewpoints. Readings range fro... more description for ITPG-GT 2770 »
ITPG-GT 2772 Technology as Identity
This class is an experiment, part seminar part workshop, where we look at the relationship between technology and identity. We look at how the technologies we employ and consume ? technologies of activism, surveillance, sexuality, and sustainability ? subconsciously expose us and highlight the contrasts between cultures. Through surveys, outside lectures and projects, we question how our identity, ethnicity, and cultural footprint are reflected through our technology. We consider how emerging technologies and movements, like open source, genetics, sustainable design, hacking, and wearable com... more description for ITPG-GT 2772 »
ITPG-GT 2773 Bodies in Motion
Course Description: This course provides an introduction to the concepts of motion capture and the motion capture production pipeline to perform and record 3D animations for film and video games as well as stream for live performances. Students will learn all of the tools for tracking props and performers using MAGNET’s cutting edge motion capture studio. Students will also develop concepts around the technology and integrate their data into 3D computer graphics along with keyframe and procedural animation and custom 3D assets to build final projects using the Unreal game engine. Program Lear... more description for ITPG-GT 2773 »
ITPG-GT 2776 N.Y.City: a Laboratory of Modern Life
It is the inherent social nature of people and of creativity that makes New York City so important to the arts. Whether it's highbrow or lowbrow, high culture, or street culture, New York City remains an important international center for music, film, theater, dance and visual art. This workshop focuses on creating mixed media art inspired by and created for New York City. Over the course of the session, students study the "cultural economy" of the city, through an in depth examination of current New York based photographers, filmmakers, and installation artists. Students will then create four... more description for ITPG-GT 2776 »
ITPG-GT 2778 Reading and Writing Electronic Text
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 poetics, language, creative writing and text analysis. Weekly programming exercises work toward a midterm project and culminate in a final project. Poetics/text analysis topics covered include: the history of computer-generated writing in arts and literature; plain text transcription and character encodings; ethics and authorship in ... more description for ITPG-GT 2778 »
ITPG-GT 2784 Designing The Future of Television
The television watching experience has radically transformed in the last several years. First technologies like TiVO and DVR allowed consumers to timeshift their viewing behavior. Then the Slingbox and services like BitTorrent allowed consumers to easily placeshift their viewing environments. Next, a wave of on-line services like YouTube, Joost, Hulu, Boxee, and Netflix introduced an unlimited supply of on-demand content ranging from short-form user generated content to weekly TV shows to long-form movies. As these technologies proliferated, the epicenter of the TV watching experience quickly ... more description for ITPG-GT 2784 »
ITPG-GT 2785 Art Strategies
This class is an introduction to the diverse practices gathered under the category “Visual Art.” This world of visual art includes sound installation and performance, and happens not only in galleries and museums, but also on streets, parks, rivers, in nail salons and rowboats. Artists now are hybrid beings, bringing into their work personal orientations of race, class, gender – even interspecies interests, focuses ranging from law, neuroscience, beekeeping, and the legacies of 125 years of “modern” experimentation. Whether you want an introduction to art-making and the concerns that inf... more description for ITPG-GT 2785 »
ITPG-GT 2786 Integrating The Virtual and The Theatrical
New media artists, interaction designers, and live performers, come together in this class to expand and integrate the virtual presence with the performer?s presence on stage. First we examine the current explosion of media use on the stage including projection, text messaging, video chatting and their relation to the acting moment. Quickly we move into experimenting with new possibilities for digital presence on stage and explore actor responses to the parallel narratives of the live and the virtual. Questions that are addressed in the class include: what does it mean to be in the moment when... more description for ITPG-GT 2786 »
ITPG-GT 2788 Intro to Comp Media On The Web
What can a global network of interconnected computers add to art, culture, humanity? Creating web based applications, rather than just being a user of them, will provide you a deeper understanding of the possibilities available through networking and computation. The course focuses on the fundamentals of programming (variables, conditionals, iteration, functions, and objects) and touches on some more advanced topics such as user interface, text parsing, databases, and communicating through and with the physical world. PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) and JavaScript are the primary programming vehi... more description for ITPG-GT 2788 »
ITPG-GT 2790 Virtual Worlds Workshop
Technology evolves in sporadic bursts, and in so doing often churns up old ideas in new guises. The term "virtual worlds" is the latest reinvention of a timeless idea - freeform social interaction in a completely virtual space, though even this generic definition is fuel for much debate. This course draws on historical and contemporary readings to critically examine virtual worlds and the issues surrounding them, from the recently popular Second Life and myriad casual social web spaces to the early pioneering work of Active Worlds and the innumerable MUDs that arose in the Internet's infancy. ... more description for ITPG-GT 2790 »
ITPG-GT 2793 100 Days of Making
Iteration and its impact on your creative process is the theme of this class. The format of the course turns its head on the traditional class structure and instead of focusing on syllabus that builds to a final project, the course is focused on a daily, iterative practice. Students will identify a theme, idea or topic they would like to explore over the course of 100 days and must commit to making or producing a variation on that idea and posting social evidence of their work every day for 100 days. Projects can focus on building, writing, drawing, programming, photographing, designing, compo... more description for ITPG-GT 2793 »
ITPG-GT 2798 Mediated Intimacy: Closeness & Distance
The experience of intimacy across distances is at least as old as the technology of the letter. Since then, every new technology of connection produces new ways of initiating, enriching and sustaining intimacy. These new developments are often perceived simultaneously as creating distance and bridging distance. Because the invention of technologies of intimacy is a perennial pursuit at ITP, the goal of the class is to enrich students' ability to create meaningful and successful projects related to intimacy. Students gain a studied and nuanced understanding of the idea of intimacy and the physi... more description for ITPG-GT 2798 »
ITPG-GT 2800 Social Activism Using Mobile Technology
We all know how mobile phones and ubiquitous computing have changed communication and networking in our personal lives, but do you understand the affect they have had on political and social justice movements around the world? More importantly, do you know how this has been done, so that you can apply these techniques when your own moment to raise your voice comes? While Obama Vice-Presidential SMS announcement was a milestone for politics in the U.S., activists and organizations around the world have been using mobile phones for years to get their message out, organize their communities, safe... more description for ITPG-GT 2800 »
ITPG-GT 2802 Mashups: Remixing The Web
What does DJ Danger Mouse have in common with a modern web application developer? Mashups! A hallmark of Web 2.0, mashup applications draw upon content retrieved from external data services to create entirely new and innovative applications. This introductory course explores what it means to be a web mashup, the different classes of popular mashups, and the enabling technologies needed to create mashup applications. Through projects and hands-on tutorials, students learn about the practical tools and technologies they need to remix digital content using XML, AJAX, and web service APIs such as ... more description for ITPG-GT 2802 »
ITPG-GT 2805 Designing Meaningful Interactions
This class will focus on the skills and frameworks for putting the user at the center of the design process and ensuring the products and experiences we create meet user needs and expectations. The course will cover the full design process including strategies for conducting design research, methods for creating journey and experience maps, wire-framing, ideating, prototyping and user testing. Students will be active participants in the class and should come to every class with a computer and sketchbook. The class format will include lecture, in-class design exercises and a final design projec... more description for ITPG-GT 2805 »
ITPG-GT 2806 Solar Design for The Developing World
Sustainable energy solutions cannot exist in a bubble, they must be interlinked with local people, enterprise, and culture. There is a range of sustainable energy technologies that show huge promise. There are many projects, from massive to small, to bring technologies like solar to the developing world, but most fail. In order for such projects to succeed, they need to be considered in the whole context: affordability, usability, financing, local participation, long term maintenance, and even local culture. Information technology can lubricate these interactions, by easing communications, red... more description for ITPG-GT 2806 »
ITPG-GT 2808 Understanding Networks
Interactive technologies seldom stand alone. They exist in networks, and they facilitate networked connections between people. Designing technologies for communications requires an understanding of networks. This course is a foundation in how networks work. Through weekly readings and class discussions and a series of short hands-on projects, students gain an understanding of network topologies, how the elements of a network are connected and addressed, what protocols hold them together, and what dynamics arise in networked environments. This class is intended to supplement the many network-ce... more description for ITPG-GT 2808 »
ITPG-GT 2810 Representing Earth
A remarkable convergence is enabling vast numbers of photos to be collectively ?mapped? or modeled together in various ways. Small cheap digital cameras together with image processing, 3D modeling, cloud computing, and crowd-sourcing have enabled new ways to seamlessly aggregate images. The ultimate end result may be an unimaginably giant Earth model, containing as much detail as is chosen to add. The big players know it. Yahoo has Flickr (with over 2 billion images) and Flickr Maps, Microsoft has Live 3D and Photosynth, and Google has Google Earth and Streetview. Advances and new features spr... more description for ITPG-GT 2810 »
ITPG-GT 2811 Hacking the Browser
Web browsers were originally used only for displaying simple HTML pages, but over the years they have become supercharged all-powerful web execution machines. In this class we’ll explore experimental new features and HTML5 APIs that allow browsers to communicate with the OS and their environment. APIs that will be covered may include: Battery Status, Geolocation, notifications, accelerometer usage, video access, speech recognition, and text-to-speech. We'll cover the mechanics of bookmarklets and Chrome extensions, with a sustained multi-week focus on building extensions and exploring Chrome's... more description for ITPG-GT 2811 »
ITPG-GT 2812 Visualization Techniques
The goal of this course is to augment your introductory Processing knowledge with concepts, examples, and sample code for creating data visualizations. In addition to code the course focuses on graphic design, specifically hierarchy and typography in visualization. Here are some design questions the course considers: Who is your audience? How would a first-time user approach/understand a piece? Does your choice of typeface enhance or detract from what you're trying to communicate? Discussion ranges from writing clean source code to Sol Lewitt, Douglas Engelbart and Edward Tufte. On the technic... more description for ITPG-GT 2812 »
ITPG-GT 2814 Electronic Project Development Studio
This class is an environment for students to work on their own electronic project ideas that may fall outside the topic areas of existing classes. This particular studio is focused on projects involving electronics. Students are required to present a project description on the first day of class. They then work together with the class and the instructor to develop a production plan for their project. Class meetings consist of critique and feedback sessions on individual or group projects, and breakout sessions with students working individually or in groups of people working on similar project... more description for ITPG-GT 2814 »
ITPG-GT 2815 Storytelling with Non-Linear Video
Throughout history, as new storytelling mediums have emerged, content has adapted to fit the developing form. From oral narratives to theater, cinema, and television, storytelling will always evolve to fit the possibilities enabled by the platform. Given its interactive nature, digital storytelling is gradually adapting to the medium. So - how is non-linear video shaping the future of digital storytelling? This workshop will combine filmmaking and classic storytelling with narrative gaming structures. The class will introduce the depths of non-linear video and allow students to create their o... more description for ITPG-GT 2815 »
ITPG-GT 2839 Nothing: Creating Illusions
How do we make something from nothing, and nothing from something? The idea of nothing, and optical illusions have been linked since the western discovery of zero lead to the beginning of linear perspective. In this course we will explore an array of optical illusions, ranging from traditional approaches to new technologies. Structured as primarily a studio course, we will work directly with Pepper's Ghost, disappearing acts, making solid objects appear transparent, invisibility, false sense of depth, and approaches to designing negative space.
ITPG-GT 2845 Prototyping Electronic Devices
The most difficult part of prototyping is not the building process, but the process of deciding how to build. If we choose proper technology for prototypes, we can improve their robustness and simplicity. This course will cover available and affordable technologies for ITP students to build prototypes. The course will start with soldering, wiring and LED basics. Then students will design an Arduino compatible board in Eagle, get it fabricated, assembled. And then using the debugger to dig deeper to understand how a microcontroller works. The class will also cover multitasking, signal process... more description for ITPG-GT 2845 »
ITPG-GT 2853 The Temporary Expert: Research-based Art and Design Practice
What does it mean to become a “temporary expert?” How does one develop one’s own creative research-based practice? The Temporary Expert identifies problems, challenges and questions as a basis for research and imaginative art/design opportunities. In this course, students will adopt a wide variety of tools and strategies in order to lay the foundations of a research-based art practice that considers materials, media, context, and audience, as well as one’s personal strengths and desires. Students will develop art/design projects that interface with a multiplicity of other disciplines, and eng... more description for ITPG-GT 2853 »
ITPG-GT 2865 Open Source Cinema
The medium of motion pictures will be will be transformed by virtual reality technologies. But the emerging hybrid form will likely have less to do with the iconic VR headset and immersion, than in the newly possible flow of expression in the other direction, out of the participant. This class looks at the true potential of virtual reality as its mutability, to put ordinary users in the role of director of visual media as they already are in their dreams and fantasies. Democratizing media by breaking it down into discrete more easily remixable parts has historically, from DNA to alphabets to... more description for ITPG-GT 2865 »
ITPG-GT 2877 Audience Development for Media and Content Creators
In a networked environment, the audience pays as much (if not more) attention to each other than they do to the creators and brands that they love. In order to build consistent attention, creators have to take advantage of and build for these network effects. This workshop takes you through methods for understanding: - Audience behaviors and fan culture. Using qualitative & quantitate research to understand culture and conversation volume. - Community building. Using conversation and content to interact with, influence, and organize a community.
ITPG-GT 2890 Designing for Digital Fabrication
The ability to digitally fabricate parts and whole pieces directly from our computers or design files used to be an exotic and expensive option not really suitable for student or designer projects, but changes in this field in the past 5 years have brought these capabilities much closer to our means, especially as ITP students. ITP and NYU now offer us access to laser cutting, CNC routing, and 3D stereolithography. In this class we will learn how to design for and operate these machines. Emphasis will be put on designing functional parts that can fit into a larger project or support other comp... more description for ITPG-GT 2890 »
ITPG-GT 2897 Toy Design and Sustain- Ability
Ever make a cool platform, instrument, or some super abstract reusable code and told yourself you’d make some actual content for it…later? Ever see an awesome camera/display/musical instrument one of your classmates has made and say, wow I’d really like to use that thing to make something else!? Using a unique tool/framework/process invented by yourself or someone else at ITP, this class will focus on making compelling content, while also examining critically the rise of “the content creator” and the relationship between medium and message. This is a crash course in working with the affordance... more description for ITPG-GT 2897 »
ITPG-GT 2902 Mo-Graph
This course offers an introduction to motion graphics. Students work with 2D photoshop imagery and animation in after effects. The course focuses specifically on graphic design, typography, interstitial animation and video graphics for the web and/or broadcast. Throughout the summer session students experiment with masking, image manipulation, and video effects in order to create an original portfolio of work. No previous experience is required and experimentation and creativity is highly encouraged.
ITPG-GT 2903 Industrial Design-Ideation & Development Methodology
This course introduces students to the materials, techniques and ideas that comprise the three-dimensional world of "made" things. It focuses on the design process and methodology from the conceptualization of creative ideas to the realization of innovative designs. You develop a range of skills to help you generate ideas and communicate concepts – from traditional methods such as sketching, ideation-tools and hands-on prototyping, to digital applications such as computer-aided design (CAD) software and an introduction to rapid prototyping modeling and manufacturing. We take a close look at th... more description for ITPG-GT 2903 »
ITPG-GT 2904 Electronic Design and Prototyping
Have you tried squeezing a breadboard circuit into a wearable? Designed a toy that kids instantly ripped apart? Created an instrument that malfunctioned on stage? Simple proof-of-concept prototypes are a great way to explore new ideas but sometimes, more advanced prototyping and fabrication techniques are needed to achieve a polished end result. Knowing the appropriate tools and components for a given project can really make a difference in transforming an idea from your sketchbook into a solid piece of hardware. This class demonstrates how to design projects that are physically smaller, easil... more description for ITPG-GT 2904 »
ITPG-GT 2905 Prototyping for Android with App Inventor
Have a great idea for a mobile app, but you're not a programmer? Instead of just putting it on the shelf or trying to convince someone to make it for you, make it yourself with App Inventor. Based on MIT's Scratch, a way for non-programmers to get build interactive experiences by combining visual blocks of code, App Inventor can help you to build a solid prototype. Students learn how to create custom layouts and how to connect behaviors to those layouts. We discuss the strengths and limitations of App Inventor, how to build on/utilize its strengths, and how to design a prototype that shines. S... more description for ITPG-GT 2905 »
ITPG-GT 2922 Designing Social Platforms
Most social media platforms follow a similar recipe. A user signs up, creates a profile, contributes / shares content, posts comments, builds a reputation, etc. What makes each social media platform unique is the object of conversation, the intended purpose and the participatory culture that arises from its use. In this course, we will learn how to design and develop a fully functional social media platform using HTML, CSS, jQuery, PHP and MySQL. An emphasis will be placed on creating applications that operate both on desktop computers and mobile devices. In addition, topics related to informa... more description for ITPG-GT 2922 »
ITPG-GT 2925 Comics
Code without content gets boring fast. This seven week course will show you how to create stories around which you can weave the technology learned in other classes. When content comes first, interesting problems arise to solve. Participants will get solid grounding in how to tell a visual story using words and images in a traditional format, so then they can take that format and reimagine it in entirely new and unique ways. The first few classes are devoted to getting basic comic skills. The remaining classes will hone and expand these abilities while posing the question: what can be done dif... more description for ITPG-GT 2925 »
ITPG-GT 2954 Waving at the Machines
We are living in a world that has not fully absorbed the societal and individual implications of networks and new technologies, but is already saturated with the vernacular implementations of these things. These seminars will focus on examples of these technologies and their effects, and on how we may group and communicate them, using the example of the New Aesthetic, a project of recognition and classification. In this class students will explore the many variations of technologically mediated and co-produced artworks, artefacts and experiences, and build individual practices of categorisatio... more description for ITPG-GT 2954 »
ITPG-GT 2956 Pop Up Window Displays
In New York City, every storefront window has the possibility to tell a story, spark a conversation or inspire an interaction. This workshop will focus on creating innovative interactive pop up installations designed for public window displays. A successful window is one that clearly delivers a message directly to the public. How do we create interactive displays that engage the public with a distinctive voice or style? Over seven weeks, students will concept, prototype and build an interactive experience meant to be installed in a storefront or commercial display. This course will explore lig... more description for ITPG-GT 2956 »
ITPG-GT 2958 Always on, Always Connected
With their always on and always connected nature, mobile devices (phones) have become the center of our connected self. They offer us the ability to access the network anywhere at anytime enabling us to sharing our experiences and to share in the experiences of others at a distance. In addition, they are starting to emerge as the hub of an emerging set of smart personal accessories such as watches, glasses and jewelry. In this class, we'll examine the current state-of-the art in mobile technology with a focus on developing applications which leverage the built-in sensors and media capabilit... more description for ITPG-GT 2958 »
ITPG-GT 2959 Bodies and Building
Why is it so hard to care for our planet and ourselves. We seem hungover from a century of prosperity and ingenuity, unable to invent economic models that create jobs, improve health, and restore the earth. Eager ITP students are better equipped than MBAs to envision and hack our way out of this trap, but often lack an understanding of the mega forces of business, regulation, and bad cultural habits that keep us from saving ourselves. But don’t despair! We’ll get busy, and make things again – but also provide you with conceptual scaffolding upon which to build your worldchanging ideas. Our to... more description for ITPG-GT 2959 »
ITPG-GT 2960 Collective Narrative
This two-point workshop is centered on the examination and creation of collective storytelling environments. We will examine a wide-range of storytelling spaces including participatory and user-generated environments, site-specific works, community based arts practices, and transmedia storytelling. Weekly assignments, field trips, and student presentations.
ITPG-GT 2961 Computation and Fashion
This class is about the intersection of computation, software, and fashion design. We will explore clothing design and production with digital tools like laser cutting, 3D printing, and scanning as well as traditional clothing construction techniques. The course will investigate unique approaches in materials, user interface, data, and process from Issey Miyake to Nike. Involving concepts from art, manufacturing, and product, the field of fashion and technology presents exciting possibilities for expanding on centuries of craft. Class structure will be small workshop assignments culminating to... more description for ITPG-GT 2961 »
ITPG-GT 2962 Design for the Real World: Women in Haiti
This class give students an opportunity to work as a design and development team on a real project to develop an online community to bring information and resources to women in Haiti. Design principles and methodology will be learned within the context of this work. The project, already underway, is an online portal that seeks to address the needs of Haitian women and create a platform for empowerment and knowledge sharing. Students will develop innovative prototypes around: Content: educational and entertainment, listing of resources, emergency alerts, marketplace Delivery: best practices fo... more description for ITPG-GT 2962 »
ITPG-GT 2963 Digital Spaces: New Frontiers in Realtime 3D
In this course we’ll explore Realtime 3D as a medium for artistic expression and develop our own interactive experiences that take place in virtual spaces. We’ll critically survey a broad selection of Realtime 3D works, from traditional video games to more experimental interactive experiences. To create our own worlds, we’ll be using Unity3D, a free full-featured 3D game engine. For the first half of class, a series of weekly exercises will introduce different topics in Unity including 3D models, textures, shaders, lighting and animation. We’ll be writing code in C#, Unity’s preferred language... more description for ITPG-GT 2963 »
ITPG-GT 2964 Drawing on Everything
The objective of this course is to explore analog and digital drawing not only as a static exercise, but also as a tool for performance installation and collaboration. The course will explore different methods for expression and capturing output. Examples include drawing under camcorders, digital projection, digital drawing software, and simple code platforms. Students will gain the skill and confidence to draw in real time using a variety of different mediums, improve their improvising skills, and learn to perform without delay.
ITPG-GT 2965 Fandom: Popular Subculture in a Digital Age
Why do we care so much about our pop culture obsessions? Why do Doctor Who, Anime, and PBR beer inspire such fanatical devotion? Over the last two decades, the internet has transformed geekiness from an embarrassing mark of stigma into an important focus for creators, marketers, everyday nerds, and a million internet celebs. Fandom is the study of the communities that form around pieces of popular culture, whether based on a shared love of Star Wars, the New York Yankees, Harry Potter, or a niche Java library. Good fans are adoring, evangelical, and useful. Bad fans can be toxic, or even dange... more description for ITPG-GT 2965 »
ITPG-GT 2966 Flying Robots
Flying robots, aka Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones, are growing in number and influence in military use. In parallel, the hobbyist community is developing DIY methods, making flying robots more accessible to more people. What is yet to become common is for these DIY aircraft to carry out visions rather than simply take pictures. This course aims to provide the conceptual and technical foundation for using flying robots for visionary purposes. Here, technology is the tool. The air vehicle is the paintbrush, the poster, the camera; visible to some degree but not the purpose. The fir... more description for ITPG-GT 2966 »
ITPG-GT 2967 Germline: DIY IGM ARTS
DIY GERMLINE IGM ARTs encourages students to begin to practice re-design of human heredity through transgenic methods. Intentional Genetically Modified Human Genome Arts questions style and innovation in our genepool through a critical hands-on examination. The class begins by redefining where and how we interface with life, through some of the following hands-on wet laboratories -- 1: Bioinformatics :: Literary Studies 2: Bacteriology :: Tranformed Painting 3: Ethology :: Art for All Phylla 4: Body Art :: Developmental Biology 5: Food Science :: Gastronomic Arts 6: Ecology :: Ecoart In... more description for ITPG-GT 2967 »
ITPG-GT 2968 Hacking Higher ED
Exciting innovation is happening in the area of higher education. This class will ask students to look at ways to reinvent higher education to increase its accessibility and exceed the current quality of the experience. Students will survey current experiments such as Udacity, Khan Academic, O’Reilly, Code Academy, Meetups, TED Talks, General Assembly, Hackerspaces. Guest speakers working in this space will join the class discussions. Students will create the working parts of an educational institution including curriculum, scheduling, lectures, discussions, community and assessment using such... more description for ITPG-GT 2968 »
ITPG-GT 2973 Noticing
Artists, designers, inventors and scientist all need to see things that are new—often that no person has ever seen before. Yet our brains are designed to direct our attention to a thin stream of operational tasks. We screen out the shoes of the person across the subway and the leaves on the trees above our heads. We don't pay much attention to the interplay of shadows or consciously hear the soft squeaking of distant doors. In conversations we rarely attend to what goes unsaid, though vital information often lurks in the omissions. The seeds of a brilliant work might lie in detecting a simple ... more description for ITPG-GT 2973 »
ITPG-GT 2974 Playful Communication of Serious Research
Exhibition design is the art of marrying experience and information. The best do 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 2975 Rest of You
You live with illusions. The nature of these illusions has long been described in mystical practices but is now increasing corroborated by modern research such as neuroscience, behavioral economics, social psychology, embodied cognition, and evolutionary psychology. What does this have to do with computational media? With technology, we have the ability to revisit some of these vestigial illusions that made sense in ancient environments but that might limit our personal happiness or the overall functioning of modern society. Will the computer’s ability to run more objective statistical analysi... more description for ITPG-GT 2975 »
ITPG-GT 2988 Hello, Computer: Unconventional Uses of Voice Technology
Computers are able to understand human speech better than ever before, but voice technology is still mostly used for practical (and boring!) purposes, like playing music, smart home control, or customer service phone trees. What else can we experience in the very weird, yet intuitive act of talking out loud to machines? The goal of this course is to give students the technical ability to imagine and build more creative uses of voice technology. Students will be encouraged to examine and play with the ways in which this emerging field is still broken and strange. We will develop interactions, ... more description for ITPG-GT 2988 »
ITPG-GT 2989 Performing the Internet
This class seeks to use the internet and web browsers in new and disruptive ways. Rather than the traditional use of websites as static means of one-to-many communication, we will use websites as stages to perform and intervene in front of a live audience. Students will learn HTML/JavaScript as a means of making interactive websites/instruments to be played for an audience and chrome extensions that will allow us to modify the content of existing websites to political or dramatic ends. We will draw on the art historical traditions of detournement and culture jamming to study what it means to m... more description for ITPG-GT 2989 »
ITPG-GT 2991 Voice as a Performance Technology
This course will focus on the use of voice in live performance. We will discuss the voice as it relates to identity and semantics, study relevant precedents in performance and sound art, explore a range of aesthetic and compositional strategies, and become familiar with microphones and audio editing software. We will also consider the voice conceptually in light of recent technological advances in dictation software and synthesis. Students will complete small weekly assignments which will culminate in a final project. The course will focus primarily on speech, not singing, but we will do som... more description for ITPG-GT 2991 »
ITPG-GT 2992 Weather Worlds at UNFCCC COP24
Weather Worlds is a studio course that explores the role that design plays in public engagement on climate disruption. In this outcome-focused course the students will design a popup Weather Worlds studio platform for the 24th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP24) that will take place in December 2018 in Katowice, Poland. Students will design the format of the engagement in consultation with Red Cross Climate Centre experts, and produce it during the semester. The Weather Worlds studio will be a traveling platform ... more description for ITPG-GT 2992 »
ITPG-GT 2993 Generative Music
This course will go over the field of generative music, from its inception to the current state. The course would focus on both the history and technical implementation of generative music systems. Some topics of discussion will include mechanical and analog processes of algorithmic composition, genetic algorithms and other biological systems, generative grammars and other overlaps with natural language (such as audio Twitter bots), and data sonification. We will work up to what has been done at the intersection of music and machine learning, examining both older practices (such as Markov chai... more description for ITPG-GT 2993 »
ITPG-GT 2994 The Neural Aesthetic
Making words and images public used to be difficult, complex, and expensive. Now it's not. That change, simple but fundamental, is transforming the media landscape. A publisher used to be required if you wanted to put material out into the public sphere; now anyone with a keyboard or a camera can circulate their material globally. This change in the economics of communication has opened the floodgates to a massive increase in the number and variety of participants creating and circulating media. This change, enormous and permanent, is driving several profound effects in the media landscape tod... more description for ITPG-GT 2994 »
ITPG-GT 2995 Citizen Science: Biotechnology
Genspace is collaborating on this course with ITP so that students can learn science literacy through several specialized workshops that will take place Genspace – topics include Biohacking (with an introduction to CRISPR) + Biomaterials. Students will create projects throughout the semester utilizing both Genspace and ITP resources. Additionally, students will learn the basics of biodesign and bioinformatics to help them frame and conceptualize their research and their projects and how best to use these skills ethically and responsibly in aesthetic and scientific ways. Since 2009 Genspace ha... more description for ITPG-GT 2995 »
ITPG-GT 2996 Open Source Studio
Open Source Studio is a class about maintaining an inclusive, healthy open source project. The first half of the semester will focus on the technical aspects of project management and open source software development (Git, Github, Unit Testing, Continuous Integration). Students will be complete weekly short exercises around contributing to open source projects. The second half of the semester will transition to a “studio” style course. Students will work together and propose a contribution to an open source project or develop their own project. We’ll use a broad definition for “open source” pr... more description for ITPG-GT 2996 »
ITPG-GT 2997 Design Research
This course will focus on different design research and innovation workshop methodologies including Design Thinking, LEGO Serious Play, Service Design and Systems Design. The format will be a combination of seminar, presentation and practical application with students leading workshops both in and out of class. Students will learn how to design and facilitate workshops, creating deliverables such as roadmaps, journey maps and service blueprints along the way. The workshop methodologies and exercises we will cover include: Futurecasting and scenario planning, Life Design, DSL World Cafe, Google... more description for ITPG-GT 2997 »
ITPG-GT 2998 Making Media Making Devices
Small, affordable single board computers enable you to blend the principles of Physical Computing with media playback and capture. This course uses the Raspberry Pi computer as a platform for creating portable devices that have the capability to display graphics, play video, play audio, take photographs, and capture video. As a foundation for the course, students will learn the basic workflow of using the Raspberry Pi computer for physical projects. This foundation includes an gaining an understanding of the Linux software, Python, and digital input and output. Students will work independently... more description for ITPG-GT 2998 »
ITPG-GT 4289 Beyond Binary: Analytical Methods for Navigating Uncertain Futures
The purpose of this course is to push beyond quotidian “problem solving” methods to equip students with the analytical capacity to tackle insoluble (“wicked”) problems and strategic uncertainty, with a particular focus on forecasting methodologies and “long-term thinking.” Taking a critical lens on analytical capacity building, the course will quickly progress from classical methods (i.e., critical thinking / design thinking / systems thinking) to more specific practices (i.e., forecasting, scenario planning, prediction markets). Readings from diverse disciplines, and exploration of timely and... more description for ITPG-GT 4289 »