Logistics

Complete Spring 2018 Syllabus (PDF)

Personnel: Professor Golan Levin •  Claire Hentschker, TA
Location: Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, Room CFA-111
Time: Fridays, 8:30am-4:20pm (+lunch break). Optional work sessions on Thursday evenings.
Course Calendar: http://bit.ly/golancoursecalendar
Login: /wp-admin/

Course Description

This is an “intromediate” course in creative coding, interactive new media art, and computational design. Our goal is to develop an understanding of the contexts, tools, and idioms of software programming in the arts. Intended as a second course for students who have already had one semester of elementary programming (in any language), this course is for you if you’d like to use code to make art, design, architecture, and/or games — and if you’re already fluent in the basics of programming, such as for() loops, if() statements, arrays, and objects.

This is a “studio art course in computer science”, in which our objective is art and design, but the medium is student-written software. The course develops skills and understanding of text-based, imperative programming techniques in a variety of popular open-source arts-engineering toolkits, including p5.js (JavaScript), Processing (Java), and openFrameworks (C++), with the aim of applying such skills to interactive art and design, information visualization, generative media, and other creative cultural practices. Rigorous programming exercises will develop the basic vocabulary of constructs that govern static, dynamic, and interactive form. Topics include the computational manipulation of: point, line and shape; texture, value and color; time, change and motion; reactivity, connectivity and feedback; interactive graphics, sound, and simulation; and the incorporation of various modes of input (sensors, cameras) and multimedia output.