Tandon School of Engineering of New York University
Technology, Culture and Society
Integrated Design & Media
DM-GY 9201 A – Light & Control
Fall 1 2024, Sept 3, 2024 – Oct 22, 2204
Th 6:30PM-9:20PM, Brooklyn Navy Yard, Bldg 22 Room 332
Professor Scott Fitzgerald
shf220@nyu.edu
370 Jay Street, Room 359
Office hours Tuesdays 1pm-4pm by appointment at this link
Description
In this studio-based course, students will learn about and apply various protocols for controlling digital lighting for interactive, expressive, sculptural objects. While light-based art goes back centuries, the last few decades has seen an explosion of tools for creative output using various electric lighting fixtures and technologies. In addition to the technical aspects of control, this course explores aesthetic dimensions of this form through exposure to a variety of works and artist practices. At the end of the class, students will have a mini-exhibition displaying their work. Experience with programming and electronics is strongly encouraged.
NB : This syllabus is subject to change
Course Pre-requisites
none! But genuine curiosity is always appreciated.
Course Objectives
At the end of the course students will:
- Understand a variety of methods for controlling analog and digital lighting elements from a protocological level
- Experiment with different techniques for controlling light.
- Propose and develop a complete lighting piece as a final project
Program Learning Objectives
In this course students will:
- develop conceptual thinking skills to generate ideas and content in order to solve problems or create opportunities.
- develop technical skills to realize their ideas.
- develop critical thinking skills that will allow them to analyze and position their work within cultural, historic, aesthetic, economic, and technological contexts.
- gain knowledge of professional practices and organizations by developing their verbal, visual, and written communication for documentation and presentation, exhibition and promotion, networking, and career preparation.
- develop collaboration skills to actively and effectively work in a team or group.
Course Structure
This course is a hands-on studio class in which we will discuss media, look at light-based design and art, write code, build circuits and installations critique one another’s projects, and collectively review problems and issues in class. You will write code, build circuits, and make things. I will provide instructions, guidelines, and demo for you. I’ll probably have to lecture sometimes too.
In order to make this all work effectively, there are a couple expectations :
- Talk to me in person about issues or problems
- Consult the class site each week for any updated information in the syllabus
- Come to class on time and be familiar with the current class topics, and be ready to answer or ask questions and participate in discussions
- Give your classmates constructive feedback. Don’t be passive in critiques or take it personally. Push everyone’s ideas further.
- Keep up with all of the readings and assigned videos.
- Be creative and experiment
- No whining
- Don’t be afraid to fail
- Don’t be a jerk, have fun, and be safe
Course Materials
Required books:
none! But I will be sharing PDFs and URLs for you to read in class.
Recommended books:
Just because there are no required books doesn’t mean there aren’t a bunch to choose from to give more context. Many of these can be found in the NYU Library as a physical book, or as an ebook
Assignments
Class blog
We have a shared class blog that you will all contribute to. The purpose of this is twofold. First, it is a valuable way for you to communicate to me that you are keeping up with the work in the class. I read the site to see how you are doing. Second, the journal is a way to document your work for your own use and that of others.
You must update the blog weekly with the work you have done for class. It’s generally easiest to do this as you do the work, not right before class on the bus or subway.
Document your projects thoroughly as you go; don’t put it off until the end. Photos, video, drawings, schematics, and notes are all valuable forms of documentation. Explain the project at the beginning of your documentation, so that people who come to your site from outside this class can understand your work quickly.
Don’t overload your notes with code. Code repositories like github are best for sharing code. Post your code to a repository and link to it from your blog. Do not post screenshots of your code. When you base your code on someone else’s code, cite the original author and link to their code, just as you would when quoting another author in a paper. If you only changed one part of an existing program, post only the part you changed, and link to the original. Make sure any code you post is well-commented, so you and others can understand what it does. Copying code or techniques without attribution is plagiarism. Few ideas come out of the blue, and your readers can learn a lot from the sources from which you learned and by which you were were inspired. So be generous in sharing your sources.
Good documentation of larger projects and finals should include a description and illustration of your project. You should include what it looks like, what it does, what the user or participant does in response. When it’s interactive, mention and show what the user does. Your explanation should give enough information that someone who’s never seen the project can understand it.
You should also include a section describing how the project works, aimed at a more informed reader (your instructor, or next year’s classmates). Include a system diagram to make clear what the major components of the system are and how they communicate.
Weekly blog posts
You will be asked to respond to a prompt, reading, video, or some other form of media each week. These do not need to be long, but they should be thoughtful and not just describe the media, but act as a place for you int inexpert and describe your thoughts and responses to the content.
Short assignments
In the first few weeks of the course, you will have a number of short assignments – these will be useful for you to try out techniques, apply the knowledge of the course, and have fun. Be weird!
Final project
In week 5 of the class you will propose a final project. We will discuss this more in weeks 3 & 4, but it should be an installation, experience, or sculptural object.
Grading and assessment
The assignments are designed to test and deepen your knowledge while giving me valuable information about how you’re progressing in the class.
Remember, finished is better than perfect. An attempt at an assignment that does not meet your expectations is better than nothing at all.
You are expected to push yourself, be curious, and be challenged every week. If you have previous programming experience, this means you will be expected to “go beyond” the assignment, and interpret what a next step (or steps) would be for yourself. If you have no programming experience, that’s great – this course is made for you too and you should find yourself exploring means of creative expression that are novel to you.
Practice makes perfect. The more time you spend playing with these tools, the better versed you will be come in their possibilities. I suggest that instead of spending 4 hours the night before class trying to cram in everything, you spend a little time each day practicing and iterating your project.
Your in-class participation counts towards your grade. This means you are expected to be actively engaged in class discussions, attentive to other students, and mentally present in the classroom and on excursions. We will be having active discussions in class. If you are not naturally a talker, this is an excellent chance to become one. I recognize that English is not everyone’s primary language, that should not prevent you from trying to express yourself.
Grading breakdown
- 30% Attendance and Participation
- 20% Weekly Exercises
- 20% blog posts
- 30% Final project
Absences and tardiness
Your attendance is important. Notify me of all absences prior to class. Each unexcused absence after your first will impact your final grade by a third of a letter (ex. one unexcused absence will drop a final grade of A- to B+, two unexcused absences would drop that A- to a B). If you have 2 or more unexcused absences, you fail the course automatically.
If you’re more than 10 minutes late for class, you will be considered tardy. Two instances of tardiness = one unexcused absence.
Things happen and we all slip up sometimes. If you miss a class – let me know ASAP. I am generally understanding, but I always want to know what is going on.
Academic Integrity
Violations of academic integrity are considered to be acts of academic dishonesty and include (but are not limited to) cheating, plagiarizing, fabrication, denying other access to information or material, and facilitating academic dishonesty, and are subject to the policies and procedures noted in the Student Handbook and within the Course Catalog, including the Student Code of Conduct and the Student Judicial System. Please note that lack of knowledge of citations procedures, for example, is an unacceptable explanation for plagiarism, as is having studied together to produce remarkable similar papers or creative works submitted separately by two students, or recycling work from a previous class.
Please review NYU Tandon’s academic dishonesty policy in its entirety. Procedures may include, but are not limited to: failing the assignment, failing the course, going in front of an academic judicial council and possible suspension from school. Violations will not be tolerated.
All work for this class must be your own and specific to this semester. Any work recycled from another, non-original source will be rejected with serious implications for the student. Plagiarism, knowingly representing the words or ideas of another as one’s own work in any academic exercise, is absolutely unacceptable.
This includes copying code for other sources, using code from other sources with only slight modifications and using code from other sources without a reference.
Generative Tools
Always cite the use of generative (AI) tools in this course – that is, identify when you have used them, how you used it , and what content was used by . Consult this guide on MLA citation for advice on how to do so. For brainstorming and research purposes, use large language models (such as ChatGPT) at your own risk. These tools have been used to generate biased or completely false data, and the data sets that these tools have also been trained on may not have been procured ethically. ou may not use generative AI tools to produce content for assignments that require you to create original content with the intent of passing it off as your own. This includes personal reflections and academic writing.
Generative outputs may be copied verbatim into any document you are submitting. This must be treated like any material that is not your own. At a minimum, text must be paraphrased and cited, code needs to be commented and written in your own style. The use of generated content should be limited. This is similar to other sources, in that you shouldn’t over rely on any one source.
At the end of the day, you are responsible for all materials submitted, even those that come from a generative tool. Be sure to check on the veracity and research anything that comes our of a generative system.
Academic Accommodations
If you are student with a disability who is requesting accommodations, please contact New York University’s Moses Center for Students with Disabilities at 212-998-4980 or mosescsd@nyu.edu. You must be registered with CSD to receive accommodations. Information about the Moses Center can be found at http://www.nyu.edu/csd. The Moses Center is located at 726 Broadway on the 2nd floor.
If you are experiencing an illness or any other situation that might affect your academic performance in a class, please email the Office of Advocacy, Compliance and Student Affairs: eng.studentadvocate@nyu.edu.
Statement on Inclusion
The NYU Tandon School values an inclusive and equitable environment for all our students. I hope to foster a sense of community in this class and consider it a place where individuals of all backgrounds, beliefs, ethnicities, national origins, gender identities, sexual orientations, religious and political affiliations, and abilities will be treated with respect. It is my intent that all students’ learning needs be addressed both in and out of class, and that the diversity that students bring to this class be viewed as a resource, strength and benefit. If this standard is not being upheld, please feel free to speak with me.