Michael Naimark

INTERACTIVE TELECOMMUNICATIONS PROGRAM/NYU
SUMMER 2007
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
(3/22/07)

SUMMER SESSION I: MAY 14 - JUNE 22

TIER 1 –FOUNDATION COURSES
Introduction to Physical Computing
H79.2301 (Carlyn Maw) Tuesday/Thursday 3:15 p.m. to 6:10 p.m.
This course expands the students' palette for physical interaction design with computational media. We look away from the limitations of the mouse, keyboard and monitor interface of today's computers, and start instead with the expressive capabilities of the human body. We consider uses of the computer for more than just information retrieval and processing, and at locations other than the home or the office. The platform for the class is a microcontroller, a single-chip computer that can fit in your hand. The core technical concepts include digital, analog and serial input and output. Core interaction design concepts include user observation, affordances, and converting physical action into digital information. Students have lab exercises for every class to build skills with the microcontroller and related tools, and longer assignments in which they apply the design principles in a creative application. Some programming skill is necessary, unless students are willing to learn programming on their own as the class progresses.

TIER 2 -WORKSHOPS
Video for New Media
H79.2256 (Scott Fitzgerald) Monday/Wednesday 6:30 p.m. to 9:25 p.m.
This class is aimed for individuals with little formal background in video theory and production. Class time is divided between discussions, demonstrations, and group work. The nature of the class is to provide an overview of video art and its relevance to present day media art. Topics covered include aesthetics and concepts, camera usage, basic editing in Final Cut Pro, DVD creation, and an introduction to various interactive software packages, such as Jitter and Isadora. Experimentation and novel approaches to topics are encouraged. Students are not required to have any previous video experience.

Digital Sound Lab
H79.2266 (Daniel Palkowski) Tuesday/Thursday 6:30 p.m. to 9:25 p.m.
Advances in the field of digital sound have placed the art of soundtrack production directly into the hands of the artist. Current technology now enables us to collect, combine, control and manipulate audio materials digitally, allowing us the artistic freedom to experiment with sound to a hitherto unprecedented degree. In this course, students learn the skills needed to create and produce a digital soundtrack. Topics include digital editing and sampling, mixing and MIDI. Through lab assignments, lectures, discussion, listening and observation, students learn basic and advanced concepts in audio production. The goal of the course is to enable students to produce soundtracks of both artistic interest and professional sound quality for their own media projects.

Systems: Hacking Everyday Objects
H79.2460 (Todd Holoubek) Tuesday/Thursday 12:00 p.m. to 2:55 p.m.
In this class the student creates a piece by hacking into common everyday devices and machines. In this way we explore systems by examining the components and repurposing them for a new system designed by the student. On a larger scale, we look at how entire systems can be repurposed with little modification to the original system. This includes looking into the workings of common appliances. The class looks at both the hardware and the software sides of recycling technology. We also examine "throwaway culture." Issues surrounding the ethics, effects, and solutions for discarded technology are covered as well. Currently only 2% of consumers hold onto a particular device for five years. What can we recycle from this throwaway technology and what should we do with what can't be repurposed? This deconstructionist approach to physical computing includes creating our own components from the ground up as part of the new system. By co-opting the components of other systems and combining them with our own, the students has the opportunity to explore the make up of a system, create a new one, and provide commentary about technology in todays culture.

SciViz: From Interactive Virtual Spaces to Scientific Visualization
H79.2510 (Jean-Marc Gauthier) Monday/Wednesday 3:15 p.m. to 6:10 p.m.
Jump in as we look at ways to design interactive virtual spaces to help us further understand scientific visualization. This class challenges students to walk a thin line between being faithful to the physical world while expressing themselves using interactive 3D content. Scientific visualization using virtual reality applications took a new turn as interactive 3D brought that reality to a entirely different level. This class explores new possibilities offered by Maya and Virtools for creating and programming various examples of scientific visualization. The favoring of rules, behaviors, physics and artificial intelligence in the structures of video games is examined as a source of inspiration for visualizing scientific content. In addition, the dynamics and forms of real-life evolutionary systems are observed. The class presentations look into projects created for both scientific and creative fields, with the main focus addressing concepts covering medical research and archeology to A-life systems, natural phenomena and bio-mechanisms. Other topics covered in class include: the design of virtual objects with interactive controllable and transformable parameters, virtual simulations of physical spaces using light, sound and physics, and emerging topics in virtual reality including artificial intelligence and autonomous agents. Students prepare weekly assignments and a final project that may take place inside a Cave system where individuals can enter, learn, play and work inside a virtual environment. No pre-requisite is needed for this class. Please check the syllabus at http://www.tinkering.net/sciviz

Interweaving Performance and Technology
H79.2560 (Marianne Weems) Monday/Wednesday 3:15 p.m. to 6:10 p.m.
This class is a performance development studio which will critically address issues in incorporating technology into performance. Contemporary performance increasingly grapples with media, interactivity and networked events – but with mixed results. In this course, students focus on the challenges posed by integrating technology into performance by working through small exercises and then a final project created either alone or in collaborative groups. We ask: what are the motivations in staging technology, and what stories does it tell? How can we successfully integrate technologies to reflect and amplify meaning? How does technology function within a “live” event, and how do we know it is live? Classes consist of seminar discussions drawing on examples from contemporary performance, as well as active experimentation with performance and interactive elements (sound, video, etc.) Technical skills are a prerequisite, this course focuses on conceptually and creatively integrating those tools. Class participation and group presentations lead to a final project.

TIER 2 -SEMINARS
Technology and Social Activism: The Remix
H79.2121 (Michelle Halsell) Tuesday/Thursday 3:15 p.m. to 6:10 p.m.
This course explores the nature of social activism and how the uses of technology as a primary tool has evolved within participatory media. Through case studies, guest speakers and research projects, students have the opportunity to learn about the process of different organizations that rely on social activism to reach their goals. Students are expected to identify communities that may best benefit from creative technological solutions and develop proposals on how best to implement projects which can meet their needs. Project groups are guided to construct specific process plans that can be successfully implemented into existing non-profit organizations. They are also encouraged to deconstruct existing activist solutions to determine which technologies are the most successful for social activism and which ones could benefit from modification. The course is both discussion and presentation based. All students are expected to participate in the discourse, exploring communities in need. critiquing existing projects and developing creative solutions. Texts include, The World is Flat II, Race, Class, and Gender on the Internet, Falling through the Net: Defining the Digital Divide, A Report on the Telecommunications and Information Technology Gap in America, as well as various works of film, video, and interactive media. Guest speakers represent foundations, non-profit community groups, museums, and interactive media firms.

SUMMER SESSION II: JUNE 25 - AUGUST 3

TIER 2 -WORKSHOPS
Digital Sound Workshop: MIDI and Synthesis
H79.2284 (Dan Palkowski) Tuesday/Thursday 6:30 p.m. to 9:25 p.m.
Probably the most significant trend so far in digital audio has been the gradual shift away from the dedicated hardware synthesizer to the 'soft' synthesizer, that is, a synthesizer that is simply a programming environment on a general-purpose computer. With the increase in CPU speed and disk capacity, such soft synths are becoming more powerful and flexible. This course serves as an introduction to tools, which allow you to repurpose the computer to be a soft synth. The main focus is on Cycling 74's Max/MSP software, as well as its video component Jitter. You learn to use the tool to manipulate synthesizers (both hard and soft), generate and manipulate audio signals and alter live audio and video, and much more. The Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) specification is explored as a control system both generally and from within the Max environment. Exploration of synth methods in a typical MIDI device leads in turn to DSP techniques including FM, Additive Synthesis, Granular Synthesis, Waveshaping, and Physical Modeling. Video is treated as an extension to the sonic palette, and integration is sought between visual and aural creations. Portability is stressed, and students are encouraged to work with their own tools as appropriate.

Personal Expression and Wearable Technologies
H79.2442 (Despina Papadopoulos) Monday/Wednesday 3:15 p.m. to 6:10 p.m.
In this class we explore the possibility of developing wearable devices & accessories as means to generate social experiments and as agents of expressivity and communication. As the class traces the relationship between the body, fashion, technology and social interaction students are asked to actively explore this trajectory and develop ideas and devices around them. What would an electronic gesture be like? How can technology & fashion allow people to dynamically express themselves? What is a subversive technology? Weekly assignments frame the theoretical discourse while a final project help students synthesize theoretical considerations and design practices in the wearable computing space.

Sustainable Energy
H79.2466 (Jeffrey Feddersen) Monday/Wednesday 3:15 p.m. to 6:10 p.m.
This class introduces students to concepts of renewable sources of energy. The course begins with a broad overview of the topic, a definition of terms, and an opportunity to discuss the political and social ramifications of the field. At the same time, students are introduced to a handful of technical concepts that supplement the skills learned in physical computing. These skills allow the student to evaluate, monitor, harvest, and store small and/or intermittent sources of (typically electrical) energy, such as those from solar cells, turbines, and other sources. Students execute several small hands-on projects and one larger-scale project using the concepts learned in the class.

Perform or Die
H79.2660 (Luke DuBois and Lian Amaris Sifuentes) Tuesday/Thursday 3:15 p.m. to 6:10 p.m.
This course explores the conceptual and practical intersection of performance and technology through a weekly performance studio. Each week, students are expected to conceptualize, design, and execute a brief solo or group performance at a public event space. Students are expected to create and experiment in a number of disciplines (performance art, theater, dance, music, etc.) using a wide variety of technology and media drawing from their creative interests and technical expertise, leading up to a final performance at the end of the six-week course. Along the way students are given critical readings and exposed to repertoire from the different performing arts, discussing the works in class as well as their own ideas for performances. Particular focus is paid to the conceptual challenges in technologically-mediated performance as well as the hurdles involved in staging these works in a highly compressed time frame.

Circuit Board Design
H79.2662 (Todd Holoubek) Tuesday/Thursday 12:00 p.m. to 2:55 p.m.
A project needs to be robust. A breadboard is insufficient for this. It's good for initial prototyping, but to really get robust performance, we need to use something with more consistency and stability. For this we turn to printed circuit boards. At the heart of this class, each student acquires the skills necessary to design, prototype and produce a printed circuit board intended to be installed in a piece of the student's choosing. We begin the process with prototyping with breadboards, perforated boards and etched boards. The final circuit is designed using the Eagle PCB software. Other topics covered in this class include: circuit serial programming; the many package types of components and the benefits they add to a circuit; and surface mount soldering using a hot air bath. The project is of the students choosing may be a practical application or an artistic piece that uses the printed circuit board designed for the class.

NOTE: Courses are 4 points unless otherwise noted, with the exception of Internship, which ranges from 2 - 6 points.

For more information about ITP, please visit our website (http://itp.nyu.edu) or call 212-998-1880.