All posts by Scott Fitzgerald

class, elective, undergrad, undergrad-elective-s25

DM-UY 3183 Photography and Words

This course explores various image editing techniques and outputs, utilizing various styles of text, including fiction and non-fiction. The assignments foreground how text influences viewers’ perception of images, and how images can enrich a body of writing. Students will use a range of production skills to create work — using After Effects for animation, HTML/CSS for website creation, book and print design, and archival printing methods. All projects are accompanied by readings that provide historical and theoretical grounding to support the concepts explored through practice. An emphasis on refining technical and aesthetic photography skills are central throughout the semester.

Instructor: Jack Toolin

Prerequisites: DM-UY 2183 or DM-UY 2263

Sample syllabus

class, elective, undergrad, undergrad-elective-s25

DM-UY 2123 Narrative Cinema

In this course, students complete a coordinated sequence of short projects that add up to a finished, live-motion video project. The course strongly emphasizes the relevance of particular tools and techniques to the specific project Concepts are introduced through the screening of historical examples, from 1895 to the present. The course format is modeled on professional standards and workflow for preproduction, production and postproduction.

Prerequisites: DM-UY 2263

Sample syllabus

class, elective, undergrad, undergrad-elective-s25

DM-UY 2113 Sound Design for Media

This course explores sound design, primarily within visual contexts. The course will focus on the use of sound within visual and interactive media, including film, video production, interactive user experience, web design, and gaming. Students will create weekly studio assignments in all of these areas, with an emphasis on developing a strong competence in integrating digital audio techniques into other media. Final projects could include novel sound design developed for film, video, web, applications, or games.
 
Prerequisite(s): DM-UY 1113 or MPATE-UE 1001
Instructor: Hideki Kato
class, elective, grad, grad-s25-studio, s25, special topic

DM-GY 9201 Virtual Production Cinematics

This course delves into the key issues, challenges, and best practices of cinematic storytelling in emerging media, with a focus on real-time spatial computing. Students will gain technical skills to create a narrative motion-capture cinematic using Unreal Engine. The course emphasizes the role of a technical director, responsible for overseeing the virtual production’s technical workflow while making both creative and administrative decisions.

Instructor: Todd Bryant

class, elective, grad, grad-s25-studio, s25, special topic

DM-GY 9201 Architectural Projection Mapping

This course focuses on the integration of cutting-edge technologies in architectural projection mapping, combining photorealistic rendering, motion graphic design, and media server workflows. Using Unreal Engine alongside the media server workflow of TouchDesigner, students will explore the technical and artistic aspects of crafting immersive visual narratives projected onto architectural surfaces, with an eye towards real-time simulations and photorealistic rendering while managing complex projection mapping setups. Emphasis will be placed on creating short, narrative-driven pieces that seamlessly blend motion graphics, 3D simulations, and real-world architectural environments. By the end of the course, students will be proficient in designing, simulating, and executing projection mapping projects with a focus on both technical precision and creative storytelling.

Instructors: Todd Bryant

class, elective, grad, grad-s25-seminar, s25, seminar, special topic

DM-GY 9113 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 : Margaret Jack

Sample Syllabus

class, elective, grad, grad-s25-seminar, s25, seminar, special topic

DM-GY 9113 Race, Culture, Design & Technology

This seminar course is a survey on the work done on thinking about the politics and ethics of design and technology, particularly with regards to the politics of race and culture. Drawing from a range of fields and disciplines that study cultural and racial difference in nuanced ways: anthropology, cultural studies, Black studies, settler-colonial and indigenous studies, and postcolonial and decolonial theory, we will put discourses from these disciplines into conversation with discourses from fields that deal with materializing new ways of living and being via technology like art, design, architecture, and computer science.

Topics we will cover in the course include the history of politics and ethics in design, design justice, decolonising design, race and technology, cosmofuturisms and cosmotechnics. We will have readings that deal with subjects and contexts outside of the United States, including Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, South and East Asia.

Instructor: Ahmed Ansari

class, elective, grad, grad-s25-seminar, s25, seminar, special topic

DM-GY 9113 Histories, Theories & Practices of Haptics

Since at least the 1980s, haptics technologies have teased us with a seductive promise to transform the landscape of digital communication. However, contemporary deployments of haptics remain limited primarily to vibration feedback emanating from video game controllers, smartphones, and wearable fitness trackers, still falling far short of reaching the ‘perfect haptics’ sought after by those in the field. Beginning with the technology’s origins in 18th century electrical experiments and nineteenth century experimental psychology labs, we explore the technogenesis of haptics, with the intent of understanding how haptics was shaped by the changing historical contexts of its gradual emergence. We will then turn to contemporary efforts to design and commercialize more advanced forms of haptics technologies, learning from both the successes and failures of various case studies, including remote manipulation interfaces, sensory substitution systems, virtual reality bodysuits, video game controllers, and teledildonic cybersex wearables.

Instructor : David Parisi

class, elective, grad, grad-s25-seminar, s25, seminar

DM-GY 9113 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

sample syllabus

class, elective, grad, grad-s25-studio, s25, special topic

DM-GY 9103 Conservation of AI-Based Artworks

The newest artist is AI. As the landscape for creating and displaying AI-based artworks is fast-paced and ever-evolving, what are the common tools and languages that will be necessary to conserve and re-exhibit these works into the future? In this class, students will work on case studies in collaboration with a contemporary artist and their studio, focusing on artworks created using AI.  Students will learn conceptual and practical frameworks of conservation as applied in this field through readings, class discussion and guest lectures, along with lab sessions to learn and apply skills to handle these artworks. Throughout the semester students will develop documentation and present conservation concepts for these fragile artworks.

Previous programming experience is highly recommended. Please contact instructors for  evaluation and guidance related to your current programming expertise related to this class.

Instructors: Thiago Hersan, Deena Engel