NB: This schedule is subject to change
Week 1 – 9/5
- Course overview – ritual syllabus review
- Slides from class (as a pdf)
- kinds of light & sources
- visible
- invisible
- Natural light
- The cosmic
- Fire
- Anthony McCall
- Illustration and sequences
- Anthony McCall
- Assignment (due before class on 9/12) : Create your own analog score, plan, or means of sequencing a series of lights. Use paper, pencil, pen, colored inks, etc. Be explicit, use math, or create your own language. Don’t use a computer or tablet. Think of this in the context of ritual. Make this an analog mapping of a sequence of lights. Use candles, tea lights, prisims, sundials, etc — anything not powered by electricity to realize this work (please be extraordinarily cautious if you are using flame of any sort). Post a scan of the score to the blog under the category -‘sequence’.
Briefly explain your inspiration and motivation for the sequencing. Post a video of ther result on Vimeo, YouTube, or NYU stream and embed it in your post.This list describes a number of ways of writing about, or describing light. Here’s another list suggested by Tom Igoe. Can you incorporate these in the descriptions of your work? - Reading : Read Bartosz Ciechanowski’s Light and Shadows. It’s a great description of how light works off of different surfaces, how it acts when it is emitted, and what happens when it is occluded. Play around with the interactive elements to get a feel for it. At the end of the article, he links to this video on “The speed of dark” which is relevant to this course in practical terms, but also ends on a note about the metaphorical ways in which light and darkness are used in relation to knowledge.
Week 2 – 9/12
- review work
- Artificial light
- Incandescent
- fluorescents & ballasts
- neon
- microcontroller refresher
- relays – a brief video on relays
- solid state & electromechanical to control various kinds of lights
- triacs / dimmers
- relays – a brief video on relays
- Color!
- color temp
- moving pieces of paper around – Albers
- gels
- Reading : Rune Madsen’s Programming Design Systems – A Short History of Color Theory, Color Models and Color Spaces, and Color Schemes. While this book is written with screen based work in mind, it’s also applicable to luminous sources. This page, however, details various techniques for mixing light colors. You should refer to this before proceeding with the assignment below.
A bonus reading would be Bartosz Ciechanowski’s Color Spaces page. Similar to last week, it is full of interactions to illustrate the concepts. - Assignment : working with incandescent lights, gel and change the color of the lights following Albers’ exercises. Mirrors, glass, and other reflective surfaces will be helpful in this exercise.
- Make one color look like 2
- Choose a colored light source – this could be a gelled light, something shone with a flashlight, focused LEDs, neon, whatever floats your boat. Take these and make a new, fourth color from the the three other lights.
- Take three colors and make a fourth
- Choose three colored light sources – this could be gelled lights, something shone with a flashlight, focused LEDs, neon, whatever floats your boat. Take these and make a new, fourth color from the the three other lights.
- Take 3 colors and make them look like 2
- Make one color look like 2
Week 3 – 9/19
- Visiting artist Jonathan Sims
Week 4 – 9/26
- LEDs
- Weekly Assignment : using digital controls and LEDS (strips, pickles, rgb/w, single color), create a sequence of lights with LEDs with just a microcontroller or other hardware. Can you do this solely using hardware like with a 555 timer? What about your algorithm, what is the story you’re trying to tell with the lights? Make this so it is not ‘interactive’ but so it runs without human intervention.
- Long form assignment : Formulate a proposal for a sculptural or experiential project you want to realize over the next several weeks for the class. There is no specific expectation for this except that it is a well thought out work that uses emissive light devices (LEDs, incandescents, neon, etc) as a core material aspect of the work. You should consider color, composition, and time in your proposal. You need to create a ‘score’ (the audience need not see this), and technical documentation of the work ahead of time. You may use any protocols, interactions, or additional materials to realize the work. Please keep scale and scope in mind.
- Reading : Janku, Laura Richard. “Jim Campbell’s Motherboard and Father Time.”, Geek Graffiti Takes on New York (Wired Magazine) – (see also the original GRL throwie page), and “Remembering the Aqua Teen Hunger Force” Bomb Scare that Shut Down Boston.
Week 5 – 10/3
- Review algorithmic LED work
- touch base on the final projects, with particular focus on scale and scope
- Digital protocols
- DMX-512
- With an Arduino
- sACN
- Artnet
- with a eDMX pro
- DMX-512
- Weekly Assignment : Write up your final project proposal and post it to the class site. This should include a concept, a detailed Bill of Materials (BOM), plan for interaction / score, space and technical requirements, sketches or renderings of the piece, and any supplementary information that you need to share to get the idea across.
Week 6 – 10/10
- Gamma correction in LEDa
- Matricies and control
- using video as a controller
- SD card
- Serial
- Assignment: continue working on your project for next week.
- Write a short blog post (250-300 words) on a light artist or work that inspires you. How do you think this piece works? What about it excites you? Are there themes that you want to draw out in your own work? Include images of video as appropriate.
Week 7 – 10/17
- networked / architectural lights / scale
- Color Kinetics demo
- LED wall
- project check-in
- AOB?
- For next week, you must document your work for the blog. This includes video and photo documentation of the process, the finished artifact or installation, and links to any code, circuit schematics, etc that are part of your project. Describe what a visitor sees or does – use descriptive words for articulating the quality of light and why this form works in this context. How would you improve on the experience? What do you think of the outcome of the project? How did other people receive the work? This write up is due before Saturday March 12.
Showcase 10/24
- Final project showcase – Building 22 during regular class time
Invite your friends, lovers, haters, people you want to impress – use this as a hybrid art show / project review.