All posts by Scott Fitzgerald

class, elective, special topic, undergrad, undergrad-elective-s25

DM-UY 4913 Live Media Processing for Performance and Installation

This hands-on studio class will introduce students to the fascinating world of real-time video and audio processing. Using a range of tools, students will build playback systems for live performance and multi-channel media installations. The course is based in Isadora, but we will build expandable systems that can incorporate a variety of generative media programs such as Resolume and Modul8, as well as hardware including sensors and controllers (both virtual and physical). Topics will include projection mapping, live mixing, live-feed cameras, serial, OSC and MIDI communication and designing multi-projector, immersive environments. We will also explore how to develop a project conceptually as well as production and editing skills to generate your own dynamic video images.

Instructor: Lauren Petty (website)

Sample syllabus

class, elective, special topic, undergrad, undergrad-elective-s25

DM-UY 4913 Motion Capture

This course provides an introduction to motion capture and the virtual production pipelines used to record 3D animation for film, video games and live performance. While using the motion capture studio, students will learn the tools for tracking performers, cameras, and props. Students develop concepts around the technology and integrate their motion capture data and video along with 3D models into a virtual world they construct using the Unreal gaming engine.

Instructor : Matthew Rader (website)

Sample Syllabus

elective, special topic, undergrad, undergrad-elective-s25

DM-UY 4193 HYBRID VISUAL IDENTITY: DESIGN AND APPLICATION

This course is an advanced, project-based experimental design studio with parallel discussions of readings and critical theories in contemporary visual culture and visual identity creation. Students will devise and construct a visual identity (brand) for an imagined persona, collective or organization, then (as a class, communally, collaboratively) design an application of their brand in the form of a digital experience with the opportunity to incorporate, combine, and hybridize multiple media and disciplines. Students should be fluent in usage of the Adobe Suite, digital design and prototyping using Figma, and an iterative ideation design workflow. Experimentation and intentional misuse of design tools will be central to the course experience. Possible disciplines through which students can draw from and/or explore further include graphic (2D) design, spatial (3D) design, animation (4D) design, sound design, digital prototyping, code, and other digital media skill sets they have developed through their IDM foundation.

instructor : Jesse Seegers (website)

Sample syllabus

elective, special topic, undergrad, undergrad-elective-s25

DM-UY 4193 DARK PATTERNS

“Dark patterns,” malicious uses of good design practices, manipulate and trick users into following UX flows to increase spending and reduce data privacy. Students will identify the design practices at play in dark patterns, design their own manipulative interfaces, and implicate the ethics of UX design practices in a corporatized digital landscape. This course will balance literature analysis with project-based learning to provide students with a well-rounded view of design’s power in a technology-driven world. To enroll in this course, students are expected to have basic knowledge of Figma, UI design, and UX best practices.

Instructors : Edan McDevitt, Casey Judge

Sample Syllabus

class, elective, special topic, undergrad, undergrad-elective-s25

DM-UY 4193 Designing the Post Natural

This design studio explores the post natural environments we now inhabit and asks how we might design ways of paying better attention to their shifting dynamics. Through a series of projects that engage with digital technologies, we will probe opportunities to amplify our daily environmental encounters and ecological entanglements. Course readings will introduce different theoretical concepts of the environment and probe our relationship to it, as well as offer a range of perspectives on what it means to live in an era shaped by human disturbance. We will work with environmental data, explore collections and develop experimental interfaces.

Instructor : Tega Brain

Sample Syllabus

class, elective, special topic, undergrad, undergrad-elective-s25

DM-UY 4193 3D FOR AR

In this course, students will learn how to create original content for Augmented Reality (AR) experiences. Far too often, found and premade assets are used in AR experiences. Having to rely on other people’s creations waters down a creators vision and may completely break a user’s experience. AR has the potential to engage an individual’s senses in a unique and deeply engaging way, different than other extended reality technologies like VR. Students will learn a professional pipeline for AR content creation including proper modeling techniques, automated content creation, file optimization, animations + keyframes, and exporting.

Instructors : Mark Skwarek

Sample Syllabus

class, elective, special topic, undergrad, undergrad-elective-s25

DM-UY 4193 PROBLEM SOLVING THROUGH XR

Together, we will unpack the definition of XR and speculate what future applications of extended reality could look like. We will learn to pitch ideas for both creative and professional applications of XR and prototype these ideas using low tech web based methods. The first half of the class will focus on 3D asset creation and environment world building using web based platforms. In the latter half of the class, we will discuss XR in the context of physical installation and learn the basics of creating and deploying scenes in Unreal to headsets. This class is meant to introduce students to a sampling of tools within the XR toolkit and will focus on incorporating XR into students’ creative design practice.

instructor : Tee Topor

Sample syllabus

class, elective, special topic, undergrad, undergrad-elective-s25

DM-UY 4913 DATA VISCERALIZATION

This is a hands-on, project based studio course that pushes beyond typical notions of data visualization, examining ways that data can be transformed into embodied experiences. Students will engage with techniques in physical computing, haptic technologies and VR towards the creation of a series of unconventional data visualizations. Each project will interpret dynamic data sets, conveying complex phenomena such as climate change through tactile and embodied forms of representation.

Instructor : Craig Fahner

Sample Syllabus

elective, special topic, undergrad, undergrad-elective-s25

DM-GY 4913 Advanced Creative Coding

In this course, students will refine and build on the skills from their Creative Coding course while learning how to work with media – sound, image, video, 3D assets, text, and other data – in real time using the visual programming environment Max. Students will learn to develop interactive and generative media software for performance and installation contexts and will regularly develop prototype ideas. Students will learn how to optimize media for real-time performance as well as how to use sensor technology and serial and networking protocols for interaction design. Students will also be exposed to the creative technology industry as a whole through class visits and guest speakers.

Instructor : Melody Loveless

Sample syllabus

class, elective, undergrad, undergrad-elective-s25

DM-UY 4153 Experimental Game Narratives

How do games tell stories? How can we move beyond the traditional narrative in games? Is there a more holistic approach that embeds the story deeply into the interaction? In this class, students will begin to answer these questions by analyzing games and developing their own experimental narrative games.

Prerequisite: DM-UY 2153

instructor : Toni Pizza

Sample syllabus