Classes

Graduate Classes Spring 2024

FOUNDATIONS

• •  Thesis
    This course is the capstone of the MS program in Integrated Design & Media. Each student, guided by their instructor, completes a major media-production project.
    Spring 24 instructors : Dalit Shalom. Vanessa Harden, Matthew Griffin, Camila Morales, Ruby Thelot, Aya Karpinska, Mick
  • Research Methods
    This course provides an overview of research methods for students to engage with in preparation for their Thesis work.
    Instructor : Esther Kang

• • Media Law
    This advanced seminar explores in depth the theoretical and practical aspects of media-communications principles and regulations. Knowledge of media law is crucial for professionals. A full range of models will be explored, from Open Source public license to Digital Rights Management, as well as working definitions of Fair Use and the practical limits of sampling/mixing in different idioms and economic sectors.
    Spring 24 instructors : Erik Dykema & Beth Rosenberg

• • Theories and Cultural Impact of Media & Technology
    In this course, students will examine and analyze the history and theoretical discourse of media and technology, while connecting these studies to contemporary trends and issues. Students will also explore the cultural impact of media and technology. Lectures, discussions, readings, research, and writing constitute the body of this course.
    Spring 24 instructors : Ahmed Ansari, Ruby Thelot, Yoav Halperin

• • Ideation & Prototyping
    The creative process will be investigated in order to generate ideas for art, design, technology, and business endeavors. The course will show how ideation, design research & thinking, and prototyping can inspire, inform, and bring depth to what one ultimately creates. Students will expand their arsenal of design research skills, learn how to think critically about their audience, content, form, and processes, as well as, understand the importance of utilizing more than one research and design strategy.
    Spring 24 instructors : Monica Raffaelli
  • Creative Coding
    This course is an introductory programming class, appropriate for students with no prior programming experience. Traditionally, introductory programming teaches algorithmic problem-solving, where a sequence of instructions describe the steps necessary to achieve a desired result. In this course, students are trained to go beyond this sequential thinking – to think concurrently and modularly.
    Spring 24 instructors : Kevin Siwoff

ELECTIVES

3 credit , 14 week courses

•  Mobile Augmented Reality Studio
  This course examines the potential of mobile augmented reality [AR] and its future impact on society. Augmented reality technology is poised to revolutionize the way we understand the world by overlaying physical reality with real time, interactive digital content. AR will change our interaction with digital media by dissolving the user interface and turning it into a physical experience of sight and sound. This course will explore these emerging possibilities through hands on learning with the latest software and hardware. The class explores techniques and methodologies through guest lectures and regular studio practice to give students an overview of the possibilities and the current state of the art, and to prepare them for thesis work or subsequent course work. Students will gain a strong understanding of the AR industry’s past, present, and especially its future trends.
  Instructor : Mark Skwarek
• Live Performance Studio
  This course introduces students to contemporary digital-performance techniques and issues, i.e., integrating computing technology into traditional performing arts. Drawing on contemporary research in performance studies, as well as technical advances in performing-arts production design, students perform research on how digital technology and media are integrated into dance, theater, performance art and concert-music performance. Students develop performance technologies as part of their research and present them to the group at the end of the semester.
  Instructors: Josh Goldberg, Robert Ramirez
• Sound Studio
  This course introduces DM students to contemporary techniques and issues in audio, sound and musical research. The class covers digital signal processing, synthesis, musical informatics and interaction design as it applies to contemporary music production, postproduction and live performance. Students are expected to achieve competence in a number of technologies and to create brief studies based on them.
  Instructor : Sam Tarakajian
• Interaction Design Studio
  This seminar introduces students from diverse backgrounds to interaction design as a creative and a design practice. The course surveys application areas, supporting technologies and their impact on individual and group relationships. Group projects introduce the collaborative and interdisciplinary development process common in the professional technology and design. Students are expected to develop technology competencies, including software programming, configuration of hardware devices and the operation of standard digital-media hardware and software tools. Students are also expected to demonstrate interpretive positions regarding analysis of the impact of technology on individuals and social interactions.
  Instructor : Camila Morales, Tim O’Keefe
• Game Design Studio
  This course guides graduate students through contemporary thought in game design, development, user testing and deployment. The course will benefit students interested in research or employment opportunities in game design or in related fields that require an understanding of human-computer interaction. This studio provides a foundation understanding of how games are developed, tested and experienced.
  Instructor: Seth Scott
• User Experience Design
  This is an introductory course on user experience design methodologies following a user-centered design process. The course is oriented toward practical methods for approaching a design problem holistically, beyond usability and usefulness. In this class, you will develop an appreciation for the notion of user experience including how to design for it and how to evaluate it. The course will focus on storytelling, sketching, and communication of design ideas within a design team and to potential users. Assignments will focus on hands-on learning through individual assignments, application of design skills in group mini-projects, and peer critique.
  Instructor : Regine Gilbert
  
  
• ACCESS & ASSISTIVE TECH IN HISTORICAL SITES & MUSEUMS
  This multidisciplinary course allows students from a variety of backgrounds to work together to learn about and develop assistive technology for historical sites and museums. Students will work in teams to develop prototypes for individuals with diverse motor, cognitive, sensory, and behavior-emotional abilities.
  Instructors: Amy Hurst & Tripta Velamoor
• Subverting Digital Media
  Students learn to explore their creative and subversive ideas within the context of digital media practices. Students will engage in a self-directed practical and theoretical inquiry into harnessing machine learning, social media, and other internet and virtual platforms as a means of artistic subversion. The class will engage with intervention and disruption through the lens of the historical avant-garde, political ideologies, and contemporary artistic and tactical media practices. Electronic civil disobedience, data visualization, game space intervention, and research and archiving as control methods will be among the topics studied. This is a course where students are encouraged to experiment, try new techniques, and work with different intentionality.
  Instructor : Carla Gannis
• Animatronics
  In this course, students will learn techniques and skills to build robotic puppets. These may act autonomously, or be reactive to external stimuli. Skills will include hands on fabrication, the use of electronics, and simple machines to create and realize engaging “beings”. These may be anthropomorphic or fanciful, and will be created in response to readings and critical studies on automation and control. Through assignments, readings, lecture, and class discussion, we will consider the history of human relationships with robotic and mechanical objects, looking to realms such as toys and automata, sci-fi, fashion, fine art, industrial design, and HCI. While the course will be very hands-on, all skill levels are welcome.
  Instructors : Scott Fitzgerald & Kathleen McDermott
• Amusement Parks
  Ever wonder how an amusement park comes to life? Amusement park prototyping draws from a wide range of disciplines that come together to make immersive experiences. This class will discuss the key issues, challenges, and best practices in experiential storytelling through theme park ride design. Topics discussed include art direction, story writing, computer graphics, projection design, virtual reality, ride control, show control, audio and video, lighting, mechanical actuators, and animatronics.
  Instructor : Todd Bryant
• Science, Technology, and Society
  What makes something a scientific fact? What is the social impact of new technologies? Who in society benefits and who is harmed by the rapid development of modern science and technology? These are just some of the questions tackled by researchers in the field of Science and Technology Studies, an interdisciplinary field that studies the interconnections between science, technology, and society. In this graduate-level survey of the field, students will become familiar with current topics of scholarly interest in the field such as critical data studies, feminist objectivity, infrastructure studies, cyborg theory, and actor-network theory. We will also draw from other interdisciplinary fields, such as Black studies and disability studies, to broaden our engagement with questions of how assessments of and interventions upon human difference are shaped by technology. Students will be assessed through a combination of short written assignments, in class engagement, and a term paper. In class participation will be informed by weekly readings of current scholarly literature. The term paper can take the form of a research paper or a deep dive into an area of theoretical interest, decided in consultation with the professor.
  Instructor : Danya Glabau
• Design for Social Impact
  The social impact of technologies is typically thought about fairly late, if ever, in the design process. Indeed, it can be difficult at design time to predict what effects technologies will have. Nevertheless, design decisions can inadvertently “lock in” particular values early on. In this course, we will draw on science & technology studies, technology design, and the arts to analyze the values embodied in technology design and to design technologies to promote positive social impact. What social and cultural values do technology designs consciously or unconsciously promote? To what degree can social impact be “built into” a technology? How can we take social and cultural values into account in design?
  Instructor : Maggie Jack
• Affective Interfaces
  In this course, students will experiment with interfaces that engage with human emotions. Leveraging techniques in machine learning, physical computing, haptic media, bio-sensing, sound, gestural interfaces and facial recognition, students will create experimental emotionally-aware technologies. In doing so, students will challenge the ways that emotion and affect are construed and captured by dominant platforms. This is a project-based course in which students will explore novel modes of expression collaboratively and through individual projects.
  Instructor: Craig Fahner
• Looking Forward
  This course surveys assistive technologies for people with low vision and blindness, from historical, contemporary, and forward thinking perspectives. Guest lectures from leaders in the field and people with lived experience will help students learn about low-vision and blindness accessibility across several domains (web, wayfinding, literacy, socialization, etc.). In the second half of the class, students will partner with each other and clients/community members to develop their own projects that transform and advance these technologies.
  Instructors : Regine Gilbert & Gus Konstandinos
• Tech, Media, and Democracy
  This course represents a New York City-wide effort to create new tech that supports and defends journalism and media — the most critical elements of our democracy — as they are increasingly threatened by political and market forces. The course brings together journalism, design, media studies, 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 physical assaults of media organizations and journalists; challenges to credibility and reliability including fake news and discrediting campaigns; and shifting business models and income sources that threaten both local and national news organizations and coverage.
  Instructor : Justin Hendrix
  
  
• THE FUTURE OF UX AND AI
  This graduate course will explore the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and user experience (UX) design, with a focus on incorporating user research and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) principles throughout the design process. Students will learn how to design effective AI-powered user experiences by understanding the capabilities and limitations of AI, and by applying user-centered design methods. Through a combination of lectures, discussions, case studies, and hands-on projects, students will gain the knowledge and skills they need to create AI-powered systems that are intuitive, efficient, and satisfying to use.
  Instructor : Setor Zilevu
  
  
• Bio Design Studio
  In this class we will cover a basic understanding of the state of current research in environmental microbiomes. Students will get hands-on experience in which they will learn the computational methods to analyze genomic data. We will design physical devices to interact with this invisible component of our environment, either in the form of sampling instruments, bioreactors or bio receptive substrates that propose new symbiotic relationships with the microbial environment. Selected projects will be presented at the Biodesign Challenge, an international design competition held at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in NYC in June 2024
  Instructors : Elizabeth Henaff & Sara Nejad
• Accessibility as Creative Practice
  How does an artist develop an accessible creative practice? In this studio-based course, inspired by Patricia Kalidonis’ “Accessibility as a Creative Practice” and Emily Watlington’s “The Radical Accessibility of Video Art (for Hearing People)” we will focus on creative expression and accessibility. Working across many sensory modalities, students will create original artworks and then re-imagine and re-create the work in multiple forms, expanding their creative practice, deepening their understanding of the chosen subject or theme, and broadening the audience for their work. In this class we will center accessibility as a way to inform an iterative, generative creative practice. We will push the boundaries of each sensory modality, exploring their affordances and limitations. For example, students might create a tactile object then remake it as an audio description, a captioned video, and a non-verbal sound piece. Disabled artists and members of the disability arts community will be invited as guest lecturers and critics. We will survey artists working across access modalities and read texts on Disability Arts Activism, disability-centered art praxis, and creative access. While not required, we recommend students have an existing creative practice in analog or digital media such as (but not limited to) virtual environments, photo, film/video, sculpture, drawing/painting, physical computing, or textiles.
  Instructor : Stefanie Koseff
• HANDS-ON RESEARCH: ART AND ELECTRONICS EDUCATION
  This class will relate to an active NSF research project developing creative computing curricula within a performance tech educational environment. Students will gain experience working with a client/community partner, gain hands-on knowledge in physical computing, curriculum design and documentation, and will have opportunities to have their work published.
  Instructor: Kathleen McDermott
• Deep Learning for Media
  Deep learning has promoted breakthroughs in managing and creating media content, and continues to shape the future of the multimedia landscape. This course provides a hands-on, project-oriented introduction to deep learning for the classification, retrieval, and creation of media content, with emphasis in audio-visual content. Students create and work with existing deep learning models and Python libraries, and think critically about the application of these models for media.
  Instructor: Keunwoo Choi

1.5 credit , 7 week courses

• SYSTEMIC DESIGN
  This course intends to introduce students to general principles, frameworks, and methods in designing at different scales to implement systemic change, drawing from a range of different approaches from the intersection of design research and applied systems thinking. The course covers a range of different movements and approaches in systems thinking and systemic design research, from first- and second-order cybernetics, to wickedness and complexity theory, leverage points, and theories of change. Class lectures will focus on the applications of systems and complexity oriented approaches to service design, design for social change, and design strategy and innovation. Through a combination of in-class workshops and exercises and a collaborative studio project, students will learn to design at various levels and scales, develop appropriate interventions in the form of products and artifacts, services and experiences, and platforms and strategies, and be in a better position to evaluate the consequences of their designed interventions.
  Instructor: Ahmed Ansari
• SPECULATIVE EXPERIENCES: THE WEIRD AND THE EERIE
  This course intends to introduce students to thinking about design and art through the registers of two modes, affects, and genres: the weird, and the eerie. The ‘weird’ – related to the strange and the uncanny – is a mode and an affect that has been the focus of significant theorizing in the arts, and particularly in literary and film theory, through the work of writers and scholars like China Mievelle, Jeff Vandermeer, Eugene Thacker, and Mark Fisher, and has become a literary genre in its own right: weird and new weird fiction. Fisher in particular – whose work we will be dealing with extensively in this course – extends his interests in analyzing and critiquing capitalist cultures through the lens of the weird into another mode, the eerie. Through a combination of lectures, discussions, in-class film viewings, exercises, and a major studio project, students will be inculcated in thinking through speculative creative practice by engaging with critical theory, genre theory, and affect theory, developing projects that reflect on the strangeness, the weirdness and the eeriness of contemporary forms of life.
  Instructor: Ahmed Ansari
  
• ERGONOMICS IN EVERYDAY LIFE
  Taking a broad view of ergonomics — the study of safe and efficient interaction design — this course explores efforts to use ergonomic principles to decrease musculoskeletal, sensory, and cognitive disorders in everyday activities. Students will develop strategies to improve their own approaches to protect themselves from injuries that occur from work and other everyday activities and apply them in the design of products, experiences, and interaction to optimize participation with a focus on people with disabilities.
  Instructor : Anita Perr
• THE MUSICAL WEB
  This course will explore web based tools for creating interactive and experimental sound pieces online. The class will primarily be taught using p5.js, but students will be encouraged to use other libraries and frameworks, such as Max and the Web Audio API. Coursework will take the form of creative, and technical exercises, with some critical responses to readings and other media. Guiding our practice will be an attunement to our own creative voice, and the ways in which it can take shape through code and sound. Students will come away with a deeper understanding of how music can be experienced and shared on the web, and a work for their creative portfolio. The class will culminate in a student showcase of websites and networked performances. Some experience with HTML, CSS, or Javascript (p5.js) is recommended.
  instructor: Tommy Martinez

Undergraduate Classes Spring 2024

FOUNDATIONS

• Audio Foundation Studio
• Visual Foundation Studio
• Creative Coding
• Ideation & Prototyping
• Intro to Web Development
• Still and Moving Images
• Interactive Narrative
• Professional Practices for Creatives
• Senior Project

ELECTIVES

• Contemporary Techniques in Digital Photography and Imaging
• Sound Design for Media
• 3D Modeling
• 3D Animation
• 3D for Interactive Applications
• Intro to Game Development
• Motion Graphics Studio
• Advanced Creative Coding
• User Experience Design (UX)
• Experimental Game Narratives