Category Archives: grad

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

DM-GY 9103 Better Storytelling Through Humor and Game Engines

“Humor is everywhere in that there’s irony in just about anything a human does.” – Bill Nye (“the Science Guy”, mechanical engineer, science communicator, and television presenter)

“When humor goes, there goes civilization.” – Erma Bombeck (female humorist)

Do our immersive media experiences sometimes feel too functional, either too programmatic or too earnest? Humor can be the agent that humanizes our technological products, services and experiences. It also can act as salve during moments of crisis in culture and society.

This course is designed to engage students critically in exploring humor and the absurd in the production of moving image works built with game engines and video editing software, including Unity, Unreal and After Effects. Taking a speculative design approach, students can address pressing societal issues, autobiography, the art of puns and more through thoughtful and imaginative implementations of comedic storytelling.

There will be lectures; class visits from scholars on the absurd, comedy writers, and game engineers; along with hands-on introductions to working with software to produce comedic moving image stories. There are no prerequisites for this course, however a key asset to success is tapping into your own sense of humor. The course will culminate in a screening of student work at locations in New York and the University of Texas at Austin.

Instructor: Carla Gannis

Sample Syllabus

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

DM-GY 9103 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 : Magdalena Fuentes

Sample Syllabus

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

DM-GY 9102 Restorative Spaces

Taking time to unwind is restorative and essential given the nature of our lives and the media rich environments inhabit. This couldn’t be any more true than it is for those attending interactive and digital media programs in NYC. There are many ways individuals and groups engage in this from taking walks in parks to meditation or yoga. Recently, more immersive environments have begun to pop up that leverage sound and projection. In this class, students will explore these new opportunities for developing restorative spaces, augmented with immersive technology, and more.

instructors : Najma Dawood, John Henry Thompson

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

DM-GY 9103 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.

instructor : Sarah Nejad

sample syllabus

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

DM-GY 9103 Tech, Media & 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

sample syllabus

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

DM-GY 9103 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

sample syllabus

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

DM-GY 9103 Museum Access and Accessible Interpretation

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

Sample Syllabus

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

DM-GY 9103 Future of UX & 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

Sample Syllabus

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

DM-GY 9103 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

Prior class work

Sample Syllabi