Interaction and Participation

In this studio course the concept of network will be introduced and applied to the design of communication networks for everyday objects. The course implies no previous experience of computers, rather it will introduce students to methods for creating conceptual models of a network, and will introduce the use of the computer to simulate everyday objects communicating on the network model. Forms of communication will be explored based upon object characteristics. Object designs will be modified to include networking, which will impact the properties and behaviors of the objects. Using multiple computers and moving them around, students will study the impact of space on situated networks, and the impact of networks on different spaces. In the final project students will design a space, a network for the space, and the objects that inhabit the space/network, showing how each of three design has a working relationship with the others.

This team-taught, introductory studio course is the foundation for intermediate and advanced courses in the Art and Technology Studies department. Students are given the broad interdisciplinary grounding in the skills, concepts, and hands-on experiences that they will need to engage the potentials of modern technologies in digital art-making. Students are introduced to an in-depth understanding of electronics and how to integrate motors and sensors into their artistic practice. In addition, they learn how to solder basic circuits, control motors and design moving elements before integrating Arduino technology and other open source hardware and software into a final robotic and/or responsive object.

This course covers the fundamentals of programming computers to control and generate music and sound compositions. It offers a general overview of specific programming strategies for the generation of sequences of events, and for generating and manipulating temporal information. Generative techniques based on approaches utilizing stochastic and other indeterminate approaches, as well as deterministic models are covered. Historical and theoretic approaches to the use of 'automatic' generative systems for composition are reviewed. Special emphasis is placed upon the use of programs for live performance, the interfacing of alternate controllers via MIDI, and hybrid physical/computational systems. All programming will be done in Max/MSP and Supercollider II.

This course explores programmatic approaches to sound creation using softwares such as PureData, SuperCollider, Processing, and more, as well as looking at sound libraries in programming languages such as Python. While intended primarily for sound artists looking to go beyond programs like Max/MSP it is also appropriate for anyone interested in code based sound, including web design, game creation, glitch artists, etc.

Few artists can become experts in every system and language necessary for their work, but that is no reason to limit creative vision. Students can join with screen-based, responsive or electronic projects already in mind or develop projects during the course. Stuents develop the ability to evaluate their programming needs and learn to confidently teach themselves to use and connect the specific components they need.

In this studio course the concept of network will be introduced and applied to the design of communication networks for everyday objects. The course implies no previous experience of computers, rather it will introduce students to methods for creating conceptual models of a network, and will introduce the use of the computer to simulate everyday objects communicating on the network model. Forms of communication will be explored based upon object characteristics. Object designs will be modified to include networking, which will impact the properties and behaviors of the objects. Using multiple computers and moving them around, students will study the impact of space on situated networks, and the impact of networks on different spaces. In the final project students will design a space, a network for the space, and the objects that inhabit the space/network, showing how each of three design has a working relationship with the others.

This course focuses on wearables and 'soft' computing as a vehicle for subversion and artistic appropriation. Readings emphasize theoretical discourse on the relationships of the body, technology, fashion, social interactions and environment. Concepts are developed, designed and prototyped into working pieces by participants addressing personal expression and social dialog. Soft circuits (conductive paint, fabric, etc), new and recycled materials are explored in the development of expressive computational forms.

Once a centralized, monolithic system, the computer has shrunk and transformed itself into the mobile, wireless devices that ride in our pockets. Smart-phones and tablets with built-in web browsers, cameras, GPS trackers and a growing list of sensors, 'smart' badges and clothes, all are components of an emerging area of so-called ubiquitous computing. In marketing rhetoric and in actuality, these technologies have the potential to alter the way we think about space in paradoxical ways elevating the personal space of the individual, celebrating constant movement in physical space, while erasing the distinctions between geographic locales. These technologies offer new possibilities for artists, a mode of presentation that is intimate and personal, a tool for creating networks, a way to explore the boundaries between physical and virtual spaces. Students explore ways to create art with wireless devices and networks as they are introduced to programming tools for wireless platforms.

Teaches the design, construction and programming of robotic projects, both artworks and designed objects, such as interactive furniture, objects, and habitable spaces. Topics to be covered include sensors, embedded micro-controllers, and motor control, lighting, etc. Student projects ranging from embedded interactive devices to autonomous spatial object-scaled, will be designed and built with a critical approach to normal market forces and human factors. Discussions investigate a range of robotic endeavors, examining connections with related fields such as interaction design, artificial intelligence, kinetic sculpture, etc., and critically examine works embodying these strategies.

Immersive Environments is a studio course focused on setting up interactive, head and hand tracked, dynamic, collaborative, stereoscopic, three dimensional computer graphic spaces for large format displays such as the CAVE. The class will cover the necessary programming, modeling, interaction, and audio components to start mastering this digital craft. Through the course, we will consider various artworks realized in Virtual Reality as well as other immersive devices and mixed reality settings, and how they inform public consciousness of mental spaces. Accompanying readings are but a sample of current endeavors meant to open up a common discourse from where to discuss issues of immersion and human experience, such as metaphors of space, dynamic form in three dimensions, perception and representation, simulation, information, mapping, embodiment, and telepresence.

Art Games considers computer based games as New Media artworks and art as a game-like system. Computer-based games constitute a significant form of new screen media and cultural activity. Artists work with game-like structures and approaches to create New Media projects. Students will play, discuss and develop art games that share relationships to forms of gameplay from text-based adventure games to first-person shooters, strategy games and simulators to conceptual games of chance. This advanced level studio course enables students to hack, modify, and critique existing games, and independently author games as New Media artworks.

Students explore the activity of weaving through traditional looms (table top, back-strap), and alternatively constructed looms (constructed from found objects and architectural influences). Students develop a conceptual focus and a technical vocabulary through processes, products, tools, and histories of weaving. The intersection between weaving and the collaborative processes are explored topically by way of thematic discussions on pattern development as a form of communication, looms built in situ, implication of globalization on craft production, gifting and participation. Collaborative research, critical discussions, and readings are central to the course.

This course is a continuation of the technical vocabulary learned in Collective Weaving I with an additional focus on the tapestry loom as a collaborative effort. Students will propose and develop conceptually generated, self-directed projects concerning cooperative approaches to weaving. Experimentation with pattern, structure, and loom type is encouraged. The course is designed to allow for in depth research and intensive labor. Participation in independent and group discussions is key.

This seminar is designed to introduce the student to the language of the moving image, its history and the ways in which artists have used moving images in this century. The course will explore the idea of radical contecnt and experimental form by establishing the normative models and procedures of cinema and video, and then showing the ways artists have challenged these conventions. The course will define and differentiate the two dominant forms of mocing image: film and video, and begin a consideration of new and expanding forms for the moving image. The course is a prerequesite to both Film I and Video I and intends to introduce the student to the moving image through a series of group excercises.

This seminar is designed to introduce the student to the language of the moving image, its history and the ways in which artists have used moving images in this century. The course will explore the idea of radical contecnt and experimental form by establishing the normative models and procedures of cinema and video, and then showing the ways artists have challenged these conventions. The course will define and differentiate the two dominant forms of mocing image: film and video, and begin a consideration of new and expanding forms for the moving image. The course is a prerequesite to both Film I and Video I and intends to introduce the student to the moving image through a series of group excercises.

This class is inspired by Johannes Itten?s radical early twentieth-century basic art course developed for the Weimar Bauhaus School of Art, but here using the Maya 3D software, typically used for commercial productions by the entertainment industry. Students will solve a series of formal problems, introduced in increasing levels of complexity. Moving from the 2-dimensional to the 3-dimensional and ultimately to the four-dimensional or time-based, students will evolve their abilities to utilize aspects of light and dark, form, rhythm, color, proportion and volume but in terms of a post photographic discourse, with the intention of advancing a new virtual cinema.

This class is inspired by Johannes Itten?s radical early twentieth-century basic art course developed for the Weimar Bauhaus School of Art, but here using the Maya 3D software, typically used for commercial productions by the entertainment industry. Students will solve a series of formal problems, introduced in increasing levels of complexity. Moving from the 2-dimensional to the 3-dimensional and ultimately to the four-dimensional or time-based, students will evolve their abilities to utilize aspects of light and dark, form, rhythm, color, proportion and volume but in terms of a post photographic discourse, with the intention of advancing a new virtual cinema.

This introductory course focuses on screen-based new media works, their historical contexts, their specific aesthetics and theoretical concerns. Students gain an understanding of the emerging culture and historical antecedents of new media. Interactive, network and web-based technologies are introduced from the perspective of media art making. New media works are screened, discussed and demonstrated.

Systems, Codes & Spaces critically introduces the art of nonlinear media art via an understanding of its historical and theoretical trajectories. Students view and analyze structurally a variety of works in the mediums of video, installation, interactive media, new media and experimental 3D. Readings drawn from Jack Burnham, Pamela Lee, and Edward Shanken are discussed to assess the contemporary state of the field. Students must enroll in FVNM 2100 New Media: Crash Course simultaneously as a corequisite.

Multi-monitor projects, live feeds, interactive environments, political interventions, meditative spaces: video installation offers artists a rich and multi-layered vocabulary with which to address a host of issues in contemporary culture. In public life, video is 'installed' everywhere as a permanent fixture - in the high-tech spectacle of Nike-town and the surveillance and security systems of parking garages, shopping malls, and prisons. This class combines studio practice, site visits, screenings, readings, and critiques of student work to examine the diverse languages and practices of video within an installation context. Students experiment with monitors, projectors, and other media while addressing concerns of site and scale, issues of narrative, identity, reception and audience, and private/public space. Students who enroll in this class should already have basic knowledge of video production; however students with backgrounds in all media?video, film, sculpture, painting, or photography?are encouraged to enroll.

Art Games considers computer based games as New Media artworks and art as a game-like system. Computer-based games constitute a significant form of new screen media and cultural activity. Artists work with game-like structures and approaches to create New Media projects. Students will play, discuss and develop art games that share relationships to forms of gameplay from text-based adventure games to first-person shooters, strategy games and simulators to conceptual games of chance. This advanced level studio course enables students to hack, modify, and critique existing games, and independently author games as New Media artworks.

Every idea has a medium most suited to its execution, but often not the one in which the artist is working. This class considers new ways of translating ideas into other media to develop a sense of possibilities beyond the straight photograph. Conceptual art has given us an understanding of the triggers that might provoke an investigation of layers of meaning within the simplest of ideas. Assignments encourage students to think beyond the usual way they work and include the use of collaboration, installation, audio, video, live feed, the internet, performance, and performative uses of photography.

This course covers the fundamentals of programming computers to control and generate music and sound compositions. It offers a general overview of specific programming strategies for the generation of sequences of events, and for generating and manipulating temporal information. Generative techniques based on approaches utilizing stochastic and other indeterminate approaches, as well as deterministic models are covered. Historical and theoretic approaches to the use of 'automatic' generative systems for composition are reviewed. Special emphasis is placed upon the use of programs for live performance, the interfacing of alternate controllers via MIDI, and hybrid physical/computational systems. All programming will be done in Max/MSP and Supercollider II.

This course explores programmatic approaches to sound creation using softwares such as PureData, SuperCollider, Processing, and more, as well as looking at sound libraries in programming languages such as Python. While intended primarily for sound artists looking to go beyond programs like Max/MSP it is also appropriate for anyone interested in code based sound, including web design, game creation, glitch artists, etc.

This course is an introduction to world-wide web digital design. The class will review current visual communication practices on the net, considering the basic concepts of information architecture, developing core technical and design competencies, and exploring the fundamentals of motion and interaction design. Students projects will employ a range of communication metaphors-from static, page-based work to responsive, multimedia-influenced approaches. The class encourages a critical examination of net culture and challenges students to expand the creative potential of the medium.

How are the conventions of Design being re-invented for new screens? Who and where are the leading innovators? How would you conceive and produce work for new screen technology? New Screens introduces graduate and advanced BFA students to the new trends in media art, including historical, aesthetic, and theoretical analysis, with special emphasis on the changing role of design and it?s relationship to the screen. The course combines praxis studio work with readings, lectures, visiting speakers, and surveys of outside works. Topics for focus: multiplicity and framing, interactive screens, database imaging, public screen installations, live computed video.

Explore the connections between fashion, costume, performance, and production. This summer course works toward the goal of exhibiting works created in class at the Art Institute of Chicago in conjunction with the opening of Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity for the Benefit Gala. Alternative methods of garment construction is used as well as established methods. Focusing on four elements: time, space, the performer's body, and costume, students work both within and between the areas of fashion, costume and performance art.

Explore the connections between fashion, costume, performance, and production. This summer course works toward the goal of exhibiting works created in class at the Art Institute of Chicago in conjunction with the opening of Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity for the Benefit Gala. Alternative methods of garment construction is used as well as established methods. Focusing on four elements: time, space, the performer's body, and costume, students work both within and between the areas of fashion, costume and performance art.

A rapidly increasing variety of objects in everyday life are acquiring an awareness of their environments, a repertoire of behaviors, and the ability to communicate with other objects, their owners, or, through networks, with more comprehensive integrated systems. This class explores the design processes, skills, and tools necessary to thrive in this exciting creative domain. The course incorporates substantial hands-on development experience in a lab environment. Students will conceptualize, prototype, and build working objects that respond to and cooperate with their owners and with each other.

This team-taught, introductory studio course is the foundation for intermediate and advanced courses in the Art and Technology Studies department. Students are given the broad interdisciplinary grounding in the skills, concepts, and hands-on experiences that they will need to engage the potentials of modern technologies in digital art-making. Students are introduced to an in-depth understanding of electronics and how to integrate motors and sensors into their artistic practice. In addition, they learn how to solder basic circuits, control motors and design moving elements before integrating Arduino technology and other open source hardware and software into a final robotic and/or responsive object.

This team-taught, introductory studio course is the foundation for intermediate and advanced courses in the Art and Technology Studies department. Students are given the broad interdisciplinary grounding in the skills, concepts, and hands-on experiences that they will need to engage the potentials of modern technologies in digital art-making. Students are introduced to an in-depth understanding of electronics and how to integrate motors and sensors into their artistic practice. In addition, they learn how to solder basic circuits, control motors and design moving elements before integrating Arduino technology and other open source hardware and software into a final robotic and/or responsive object.

A rapidly increasing variety of objects in everyday life are acquiring an awareness of their environments, a repertoire of behaviors, and the ability to communicate with other objects, their owners, or, through networks, with more comprehensive integrated systems. This class explores the design processes, skills, and tools necessary to thrive in this exciting creative domain. The course incorporates substantial hands-on development experience in a lab environment. Students will conceptualize, prototype, and build working objects that respond to and cooperate with their owners and with each other.

The objective is to build virtual environments that incorporate 3D space, ambient/reactive audio, interactivity, weather, life forms, and/or objectives. Students develop the virtual space as an art practice in support of games space. The class introduces the Unity3D authoring tool and covers content production using 3D rendering in Maya, audio in Puredata/Max/MSP as well as on-site audio and recordings. Students are introduced to programming for Unity. We review the work of artists and game designers from Marcel Duchamp, to James Tai (Saints Row 2). The course begins with introductions to possibilities in virtual environments, ultimately focusing on the skills necessary to complete individual project(s).

Electronics can be a kind of language that, when an artist becomes fluent in it, opens doors to numerous aesthetic possibilities. Students will learn the basic principles of electronics along with hands-on techniques for putting the power of electrons into their work. They will be introduced to electronic components and circuits for switching, sensing, making decisions, and, to a limited degree, linking to computers. Students will encounter digital and analog answers to some of the most common art-making needs, gaining a foundation which will enable them to continue to expand their repertoire of aesthetic technological skills.

Constructing art objects that incorporate real or apparent motion often requires skills in a number of areas: physical shaping and fastening of elements, linking them to an actuator (such as a motor), and controlling the motion, most typically through electronics. This course will give students a grounding in all these techniques as well as initiate a discussion of some of the problems and possibilities inherent in the aesthetic use of motion.

This studio course investigates the creative possibilities in programming, from interactivity to information visualization. Students explore interactive narratives and games, software art, simulations and emergent behaviors, and other code-based forms. Lectures and demonstrations provide a conceptual, aesthetic and technical foundation in programming as a creative practice. Techniques and concepts are presented through the open-source programming environment Processing, with an introduction to advanced topics such as C++ and OpenFrameworks.

With the introduction of World Wide Web (WWW) browsers to the Internet, a whole new potential venue has emerged for artists. In this course, students will learn the Hypertext Mark-Up Language (HTML), which is the basis of WWW authoring. Students will learn to integrate text, images, sound, and video into their own web page, which they will create. Also, newer developments such as Java, and any other up-to-date concepts and possibilities for networked hypertext authoring will be introduced. Potential overall format and conceptual frameworks for developing a web site will be investigated, and ways of subverting the traditional web page format in order to create unique approaches to the dynamics of the web will be explored. This course is a valuable preparation for advanced courses such as the Telecommunication Arts course.

Students dissect, expand, subvert, and critique computer games to develop new hybrid forms of interactive art. Beyond alluring graphics and fast reflexes, computer games often operate as stories, as simulations, or as social events. Screenings and examples in class analyze the language and structure of computer games, and the ways artists can use them to manifest new content. Technical workshops introduce methods of hacking games, building interactive artworks with game engines, and deploying them on both PCs and virtual reality environments.

Students explore the activity of weaving through traditional looms (table top, back-strap), and alternatively constructed looms (constructed from found objects and architectural influences). Students develop a conceptual focus and a technical vocabulary through processes, products, tools, and histories of weaving. The intersection between weaving and the collaborative processes are explored topically by way of thematic discussions on pattern development as a form of communication, looms built in situ, implication of globalization on craft production, gifting and participation. Collaborative research, critical discussions, and readings are central to the course.

This course examines the transformation and definition of space through the use of materials - including hard and soft, flexible, found and alternative - and the meanings these materials invoke. The implications of inter-dependency, rearrangement, and responsiveness to time within an environment are considered. The concept of installation includes relationships of objects, environments, and site-specific works, and will examine a range of spaces: public/private, interior/exterior, and urban/rural. Concepts are developed through research, material investigations, and developments of both two- and three-dimensional explorations. Emphasis is placed on both collaborative and individual direction.

This course is a continuation of the technical vocabulary learned in Collective Weaving I with an additional focus on the tapestry loom as a collaborative effort. Students will propose and develop conceptually generated, self-directed projects concerning cooperative approaches to weaving. Experimentation with pattern, structure, and loom type is encouraged. The course is designed to allow for in depth research and intensive labor. Participation in independent and group discussions is key.

This seminar is designed to introduce the student to the language of the moving image, its history and the ways in which artists have used moving images in this century. The course will explore the idea of radical contecnt and experimental form by establishing the normative models and procedures of cinema and video, and then showing the ways artists have challenged these conventions. The course will define and differentiate the two dominant forms of mocing image: film and video, and begin a consideration of new and expanding forms for the moving image. The course is a prerequesite to both Film I and Video I and intends to introduce the student to the moving image through a series of group excercises.

This seminar is designed to introduce the student to the language of the moving image, its history and the ways in which artists have used moving images in this century. The course will explore the idea of radical contecnt and experimental form by establishing the normative models and procedures of cinema and video, and then showing the ways artists have challenged these conventions. The course will define and differentiate the two dominant forms of mocing image: film and video, and begin a consideration of new and expanding forms for the moving image. The course is a prerequesite to both Film I and Video I and intends to introduce the student to the moving image through a series of group excercises.

This seminar is designed to introduce the student to the language of the moving image, its history and the ways in which artists have used moving images in this century. The course will explore the idea of radical contecnt and experimental form by establishing the normative models and procedures of cinema and video, and then showing the ways artists have challenged these conventions. The course will define and differentiate the two dominant forms of mocing image: film and video, and begin a consideration of new and expanding forms for the moving image. The course is a prerequesite to both Film I and Video I and intends to introduce the student to the moving image through a series of group excercises.

This seminar is designed to introduce the student to the language of the moving image, its history and the ways in which artists have used moving images in this century. The course will explore the idea of radical contecnt and experimental form by establishing the normative models and procedures of cinema and video, and then showing the ways artists have challenged these conventions. The course will define and differentiate the two dominant forms of mocing image: film and video, and begin a consideration of new and expanding forms for the moving image. The course is a prerequesite to both Film I and Video I and intends to introduce the student to the moving image through a series of group excercises.

This seminar is designed to introduce the student to the language of the moving image, its history and the ways in which artists have used moving images in this century. The course will explore the idea of radical contecnt and experimental form by establishing the normative models and procedures of cinema and video, and then showing the ways artists have challenged these conventions. The course will define and differentiate the two dominant forms of mocing image: film and video, and begin a consideration of new and expanding forms for the moving image. The course is a prerequesite to both Film I and Video I and intends to introduce the student to the moving image through a series of group excercises.

This class is inspired by Johannes Itten?s radical early twentieth-century basic art course developed for the Weimar Bauhaus School of Art, but here using the Maya 3D software, typically used for commercial productions by the entertainment industry. Students will solve a series of formal problems, introduced in increasing levels of complexity. Moving from the 2-dimensional to the 3-dimensional and ultimately to the four-dimensional or time-based, students will evolve their abilities to utilize aspects of light and dark, form, rhythm, color, proportion and volume but in terms of a post photographic discourse, with the intention of advancing a new virtual cinema.

This class is inspired by Johannes Itten?s radical early twentieth-century basic art course developed for the Weimar Bauhaus School of Art, but here using the Maya 3D software, typically used for commercial productions by the entertainment industry. Students will solve a series of formal problems, introduced in increasing levels of complexity. Moving from the 2-dimensional to the 3-dimensional and ultimately to the four-dimensional or time-based, students will evolve their abilities to utilize aspects of light and dark, form, rhythm, color, proportion and volume but in terms of a post photographic discourse, with the intention of advancing a new virtual cinema.

This introductory course focuses on screen-based new media works, their historical contexts, their specific aesthetics and theoretical concerns. Students gain an understanding of the emerging culture and historical antecedents of new media. Interactive, network and web-based technologies are introduced from the perspective of media art making. New media works are screened, discussed and demonstrated.

Systems, Codes & Spaces critically introduces the art of nonlinear media art via an understanding of its historical and theoretical trajectories. Students view and analyze structurally a variety of works in the mediums of video, installation, interactive media, new media and experimental 3D. Readings drawn from Jack Burnham, Pamela Lee, and Edward Shanken are discussed to assess the contemporary state of the field. Students must enroll in FVNM 2100 New Media: Crash Course simultaneously as a corequisite.

This is a Production Laboratory class for students interested in working with the ideas and techniques of directing performers for the camera. We will consider issues of scripting, pre-production, rehearsing, shooting, and editing performances. The course requires active participation in 3 roles -- as a director, performer, and camera operator -- as these constitute the primary collaborative relationships of a director. The main objective of this class is to get students to consider various methods of directing performers that both explore and elaborate on traditional theatrical schools of directing. Through hands-on experience, readings, critique and screenings, students will begin to carve out their own style of working.

Multi-monitor projects, live feeds, interactive environments, political interventions, meditative spaces: video installation offers artists a rich and multi-layered vocabulary with which to address a host of issues in contemporary culture. In public life, video is 'installed' everywhere as a permanent fixture - in the high-tech spectacle of Nike-town and the surveillance and security systems of parking garages, shopping malls, and prisons. This class combines studio practice, site visits, screenings, readings, and critiques of student work to examine the diverse languages and practices of video within an installation context. Students experiment with monitors, projectors, and other media while addressing concerns of site and scale, issues of narrative, identity, reception and audience, and private/public space. Students who enroll in this class should already have basic knowledge of video production; however students with backgrounds in all media?video, film, sculpture, painting, or photography?are encouraged to enroll.

Realtime explores audio-visual systems and performances of live experimental new media art. Artists create, control, effect and transform digital media in realtime using systems created by and for artists. Digital and computational systems allow improvisation, live audio-video performance, and synthesis of complex works and projects. Students learn, play and perform with artware, open source tools and systems (PureData, GEMS and dyne:bolic!) and commercially available software (Max/MSP and Jitter). This studio course includes a historical approach to realtime systems, and features use of the Sandin Image Processor, an analog patch programmable computer optimized for video processing from 1971?1973. Current praxis is discussed in relation to the earlier realtime forms from early cinema (such as Oskar Fischinger?s Lumigraph), video (such as the Dan Sandin?s Sandin Image Processor) and New Media.

As computers continue to shape contemporary cultural perception, they provide artists with a never ending pallet of breaks, fixes, fissures, and malfunctions to navigate and with which to interact. Lost Signals: The Glitch, explores media, history, and culture through failures and accidents in the creation or presentation of media art. Digital technology has its own misfires and breakdowns, from scrambled images to computer translations. These new glitches have important historic parallels to bad processing, hairs in the film gate, and video-tube burns. Students develop projects that engage 'the glitch' in creating and/or viewing work in contemporary media culture.

This class is inspired by Johannes Itten's radical early twentieth-century basic art course developed for the Weimar Bauhaus School of Art, but here using the Maya 3D software, typically used for commercial productions by the entertainment industry. Students will solve a series of formal problems, introduced in increasing levels of complexity. Moving from the 2-dimensional to the 3-dimensional and ultimately to the four-dimensional or time-based, students will evolve their abilities to utilize aspects of light and dark, form, rhythm, color, proportion and volume but in terms of a post photographic discourse, with the intention of advancing a new virtual cinema.

Gertrude Stein was perhaps the most spectacular of modernist celebrities. She was Pablo Picasso's best friend. She was a radical avant-garde poet with a best-seller and adoring popular following. She was at various points a writer of lesbian erotica, a patron of and influence upon cubism, a fascist sympathizer, and literary and philosophical experimentalist whose influence is pervasive even today. Her work was so idiosyncratic that it spawned imitators and hecklers in equal measure; it requires an almost complete adjustment of what it means to read, much like cubism changes what it means to view. This course is an introduction to the Stein mode of reading. Prepare to immerse yourself in her pages. You will be rewarded if you do.

This course is an introduction to world-wide web digital design. The class will review current visual communication practices on the net, considering the basic concepts of information architecture, developing core technical and design competencies, and exploring the fundamentals of motion and interaction design. Students projects will employ a range of communication metaphors-from static, page-based work to responsive, multimedia-influenced approaches. The class encourages a critical examination of net culture and challenges students to expand the creative potential of the medium.