This course supports the exploration of theoretical, social, material, technical and contextual research and concerns in new media arts practice during the third semester of the D + M MFA program. It is a combined studio and seminar forum for Digital + Media second-year students. Students conceptualize and discuss their studio-based work and their ongoing practice as they begin the thesis process. Working artist bibliographies are developed - both projects and texts. Readings in critical cultural theory, media art theory, philosophy, semiotics and other areas further support the contextualization and grounding of the innovative practical and conceptual approaches of students in the Digital + Media department. The course is a mix of individual meetings, an optional lecture and workshop series and group critiques. Guest lecturers and visiting critics may also become involved with this class in terms of critical/research aspects. Each student will practice articulating their art process and work towards thesis, and will contribute to the dialogue concerning the research and work of their classmates.
Graduate Major requirement: Digital + Media majors only
Registration by Digital + Media department, course not available via web registration

This course supports the exploration of theoretical, social, material, technical and contextual research and concerns in new media arts practice during the first year of the first year of the D + M MFA program. It is a combined studio and seminar forum for Digital + Media first-year students. Participants become familiar with a vocabulary of multiple practices within digital media and, through a rigorous, hands-on approach, develop a thorough understanding of computational media as it applies to her/his individual creative practice. Students are introduced to a core set of methodologies and technologies from basic electronics and programming to interaction design to installation, and are encouraged to break comfort zones and practice through experimentation. Students conceptualize and discuss their studio-based work and their ongoing practice. Readings in critical cultural theory, media art theory, philosophy, semiotics and other areas further ground the conceptual approach of students in the Digital + Media department. The course is a mix of individual meetings, a required lecture and workshop series and group critiques. Some guest lecturers and visiting critics may also become involved with this class in terms of critical/research aspects. With a focus on studio experimentation and production, students will conceptualize and discuss their works-in-progress while beginning to work with new materials and systems in combination with a broad range media. Each student will practice articulating their ongoing studio art process and work, and will contribute to the dialogue concerning the research and work of their classmates.
Graduate major requirement; Digital + Media majors only
Registration by Digital + Media department, course not available via web registration
Open to first-year graduate

In this historical survey, we analyze the aesthetic conventions, narratives, and formats of works in new media. We examine the impact digital technologies and new media have had on existing media, as well as the ways in which new media function as a unique system of communication. While investigating the aesthetic conventions, economic conditions and infrastructures that affect the production of new media, we address the social and political contexts in which new media are disseminated, interpreted and privileged. We make connections across decades by focusing on the recurring themes of language, futurism, simulation, hyper-reality, transnationality and information.
Graduate major requirement; Digital + Media majors only
Registration by Digital + Media department, course not available via web registration
Open to first-year graduate

In "On Permission to Write", essayist Cynthia Ozick distinguishes between the "good-citizen writer" and the "shaman-writer" The first, she says, writes dutifully; the second, "obsessively", "torrentially", and most crucially, with self-given permission. For artists and designers who have, by and large, favored visual over written expression, obsession and torrent probably come more naturally in the studio than on the page. This course seeks to bring that same uninhibited, exploratory, and illuminating sensibility to the thesis, to suggest that writing is not a duty, but rather can be integral to studio practice. We will look at writing about one's work -- its art-historical, theoretical, and personal sources; its form and process; its motivation; its interpretation -- as a kind of translation from form to language (one that can be as individual and authentic as our chosen materials). The course will include writing exercises designed to help us think more deeply and coherently about our work and ideas, as well as discussion of assigned readings. The readings are exclusively written by artists and designers: criticism, manifestos, journal writings, and artist interviews - a selection intended to suggest that in permitting themselves to write, artists and designers establish artistic agency, lineage, and history itself through that writing.
Graduate major requirement, Digital + Media majors only
Registration by Digital + Media department, course not available via web registration
Open to second-year graduates

This course introduces the student to narrative and non-narrative experimentation with language in digital space, presented as fine art practice. Creation of elaborate imagery and animations with digital tools such as Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Flash and Final Cut as well as the basics of audio production, recording, arranging and sequencing with programs like Pro Tools and Ableton Live and other basic analog recording techniques. The course balances conceptual concerns related to content and structuring methodologies with artistic expression. Specific aesthetic histories are explored tracing the use of text in artistic practice including Concrete Poetry, the texts of Kurt Schwitters, Russian Constructivist posters, Fluxus poetic works, The Dada and Surrealist Word/Image, Magritte, Jenny Holtzer, Ed Ruscha, Barbara Kruger as well as other contemporary practitioners.
Elective, Open to senior, graduate
Also offered as GRAPH 7001. Register in the course for which credit is desired.

This course will teach basic programming concepts with a focus on processing and web-based applications. Beyond basic cross-language technical skills, the course will also ground software practices in a critical context to examine how and why contemporary artists choose to use software, how software written by artists gets used and disseminated via the web, and how software practices intersect with traditions of performance art and public art. Students will create case studies of software-based art projects to gain greater understanding of the social, political and technological forces at work in software development. The course will explore variables, functions, data structures, loops, conditionals, web architectures -- and various approaches to the software development process -- iterative design, debugging, unit testing, usability. Students will collaboratively experiment with different programming languages such as ActionScript, PHP and Processing along with XML and mySQL data sources to develop web-based software projects.
No prior programming experience is necessary.
Elective; graduate level
Open to senior, fifth-year, space permitting.

This class will speculate on the future effects of living in an ever-increasingly technological world and, based on current impact on the behavior of people, students will speculate what a world even further in the future might look like based on their own individual interests; how are we not just utilizing technology, but actually adapting to it.
Students will be expected to create a thorough investigative route; from research writing, documentation, sketches, prototypes, etc. Any medium or combination of media can be used to deliver a conceptually strong project that encapsulates the core message and engages an audience.
Students may work individually or collaboratively.
Major elective

The image was once a modest thing, fixed inside the boundaries of a frame. With today's HD projectors, video walls, and fast GPUs, the image has burst free of its limits: it has escaped the rectangle, grown as large as architecture, and adhered to any surface that will allow it. This studio-based course provides students with practical skills for creating non-standard moving-image displays. Video presentation is considered as installation, architecture, and interface. In what ways can we creatively spatialize the image? The main focus of the course is the use of Max/Jitter for real-time video control and analysis. (Other software will also be utilized, including AfterEffects, MultiScreener, VPT, Touch Designer, MostPixelsEver, and QT Pro.) Techniques covered include multi-channel installation; synchronized playback from multiple computers; screen-as-window; video-mapping for architecture and sculpture; computer-vision controlled image-masking; best practices for robust video installations. Discussion of brief theoretical readings (Guy Debord, Jacques Ranciere, Jonathan Crary, Paul Virilio, Vilem Flusser) provides critical perspectives that inform the hands-on technical workshops. We survey the imaginative display strategies of various design and public art projects, and also of fine artists (Nam June Paik, Tony Oursler, Gary Hill, Pipilotti Rist, Candice Breitz, and Camille Utterback). Working individually or in groups, students create a major final project: a moving-image installation in which the mode of presentation is given as much creative focus as the content. The course is open to students of all levels of technical expertise; no experience in programming is required. Students from both Design and Fine Arts Divisions are encouraged to participate in the class.
Course Level: Senior, Graduate

Students will research how fashion meets technology for the 21st century--from DIY to haute couture. As the field of wearable technology expands and fashion as art becomes more relevant, students will be challenged to explore the intersection of fashion, art and technology while using the body as a vehicle. This course will encourage new ways of thinking about body adornment via innovative design, additive manufacturing, experimentation with materials (hard and soft), and embracing technology.
Through a series of workshops and assignments, students will develop a working knowledge of traditional flat pattern making techniques combined with techniques and technologies of the future, such as 3D printing, LED?s, smart fabrics, and thermochromic inks. Computer skills such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator are mandatory. There is a prerequisite of 3D digital drawing capability for students interested in 3D printing.
Estimated materials cost $35-$150

This studio workshop is a primer for site-specific installation: the goal of this class is to support students in developing a vocabulary for artistic expression and of synthesizing their ideas and concepts. Many contemporary artists have worked with installation in order to force a meeting of abstraction with materials or objects in space. Throughout the course, students are encouraged to experiment with installation and space as a place to make fiction, fantasy and illusion. To articulate students' conceptual ideas and strategies, each class will have short screenings, presentations, and readings about contemporary artists' works.
This course will give students an overview and working knowledge of the various components of installation. The class will cover the following technical aspects.
1. Simple mold castings using Alginate and creating parts for installation. 2. Experimental video image-making and projecting techniques for media installation. (i.e. Making Glitch videos, Video Projection Mapping to a specific object) 3. Workshop for physical computing with Arduino. Using Arduino, students will learn how to make a simple interactive installation with sensors. 4. Digital photography workshop for documenting installations as well as making images for projection. 5. Experimental sound making, recording, synthesizing, editing.

The availability of digital technologies has made it easy for artists to use elements of digital audio and video in their work. This course will expose the full potential of both mediums while challenging students to create great content through narrative devices. Students will get hands on experience using professional audio equipment, hi-resolution DSLR cameras and the latest version of Final Cut Pro X video editing software. Class presentations and critiques will invoke discussion about the use of narrative form in art and trends in digital media. Lectures and discussions will include examining work by a broad range of artists (for example: Nam Jun Paik, Errol Morris, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Janet Cardiff, among others.)
Students will learn and experiment, developing skills and experiences including: . Planning, organizing and producing works that present unique understandings of narrative forms (audio, video, installation) . Incorporation of personal work . Working knowledge of how to appropriately use professional audio and video equipment to make, gather and edit media right for a work . Practice with creative editing techniques that alter and enhance time and suspense . Understanding of innovative approaches of how contemporary artists, filmmakers and journalists are using audio and video in their work

In this course we will explore techniques and art practices associated with video and video installations. We will trace back to experiments done by artists from the Avant-garde period to contemporary digital and Internet culture. Students will work on a series of short projects that will lead up to one final project, that will both technically and conceptually challenge ideas of time-based art.
Using digital technologies (software such as Final Cut Pro and After Effects), and video equipment such as HD and SLR cameras, students will learn how to creatively approach videos and video installations. In addition to technique in creation, students will also learn about the art of appropriation, found footage and remix editing. The course will be divided between workshops, critique, viewing sessions, discussions based on readings and studio time.
We will examine Soviet Russian Cinema, Surrealist and DADA Cinema, Fluxus videos, You Tube and Internet Remix; alongside we will discuss the work of artists and experimental film makers as Sergei Eisenstein, Luis Buquel, Francis Picabia, Guy Debord, Vito Acconci, Nam June Paik, Christian Marclay, Mike Kelley, Ryan Trecartin, Cory Arcangel, and Oliver Laric among others. No prior video experience is necessary.

When you eat alone, do you do it in front of your computer? Do you do it with your phone out? Do you ever splatter on your technological devices, or spill OJ all over your keyboard like my sister did? It's okay, you can tell me. You can tell me because this class is dedicated to technological messes. Technology is often just as messy as it is slick, chrome, and ergonomic. Cords tangle, things break, and people break up over gChat.
In this course we will explore what happens when you make messes on purpose: when you collide the digital world with the messy world of the analog, and abut the world of the non-technological on the landscape of the technology. Assignments will draw through three units on: cords and other technological detritus such as vacuums, computer mice and broken tech devices; mixing the high-tech with the low-tech; human relationships and breakups. The course will culminate with a large final project of each student's own choosing.
The content of this course is important because, as technology becomes increasingly more slick, neat, and clean, it becomes more invisible to us. For instance, we learn to ignore projectors when we see them in galleries, and just as we sometimes choose to pretend that we can't see each other's text messaging over dinner. As we increasingly view technological objects in terms of their function rather than their form, we cede the ways these technological devices physically insert themselves into our lives -- and how messy and imperfect that insertion can be. This course aims to re-locate and re-site the digital world within its devices, and in doing so, cast a culturally critical lens on technology's growing place in our everyday lives.
Note that while we may be messy with technology, we'll be thorough with our thoughts: we will engage with theoretical underpinnings as much as we will play. Readings will draw from Manovich, Katchadourian, Heidegger, and Turkle, among others. Students are expected to create work that is experimental in nature but also grounded in thoughtful engagement with the sloppy sides of technology.

Algorithms dominate much of the background activity in our day-to-day lives. However artists, writers and philosophers have been aware of and used algorithms since the advent of the computer. Students will learn about the diverse history of code-based work, starting with the early stages of ergodic literature and cybernetics to current algorithm based artwork and design. Discussions will lead to the examination of these systems, analyzing its importance in the development of digital technologies, its currently invisible role in society, and its current usage in art and design.
Exploring how the computer and code has influenced art, literature, music and design, students will learn the basic premise for algorithmic coding, generative creation, and emergent strategies. The main goal of the course is to help students develop a working methodology for integrating systems based strategies into their own practice. This course will go over basic coding using Processing, however students are strongly encouraged to bring in and use other physical or digital tools in the generation of their work.
People to be referenced: Gertrude Stein, Hannah Weiner, Racter, David Antin, Tan Lin, Joseph Netchval, Espen Aarseth, Jack Burnham, Norbert Wiener, Nicolas Schoffer, Sol le Witt, Roy Ascott, Jean Tinguely, Hans Haacke, and more...

"To project: To throw forth, to make a plan or scheme."
Objectives: This course is meant as a way to learn Autodesk Maya (and some basic video editing) by imagining and developing personal art projects whose scale, placement or materiality makes them seemingly impossible to build: Huge Video Installations, Public Art on the Moon, Appropriation, Intervention and Land Art pieces are the kind of artworks we aim to develop in this class; And our aim is to evaluate them for what they are: Projections.
Methodology: The course creative objective is sustained by a rigorous introduction to Autodesk Maya that touches on the main tools necessary to successfully visualize and share the art projects proposed. Furthermore, weekly sessions of reading and discussion plus other activities such as a 'scouting trip' (where we look for locations to develop projects), ground the 3D Tools and procedures available in Maya and other software suites that we will use (Premiere, After Effects, MatchMover) towards concepts rooted contemporary art and visual culture.
Ultimately, Projected is a Studio for creating artworks that -as of today, and as an art studentseem impossible, highly unlikely, absurd or just daunting; But become feasible once the traditional constrains of our material reality are suspended by the possibilities of a virtual environment.

While video games have steadily grown more ubiquitous, they often escape the kind of analytical and artistic attention directed at other new media. But video games can offer artists a wealth of opportunities and generative content, from designing games to mining existing ones for material. This studio course aims to locate video games in a critical framework while encouraging artists to experiment with this medium. The course has three interrelated, concurrent components: Make, Play, Think. Students will make work that engages the thematic and material conditions of the video game, while learning digital tools such as the programming language Processing and the animation software Adobe After Effects. Students will play canonical (and not-so-canonical) games, examining both gameplay and narrative elements and sharing their experiences with their classmates. Students will think about the critical and social context in which games operate, reading texts in critical game studies and media theory by Alexander R. Galloway, Lev Manovich, Ian Bogost, Vilem Flusser and others, and reflecting on the work of artists such as Brody Condon, Eddo Stern, and Eva and Franco Mattes. Each week will consist of making, playing and thinking in relation to a specific condition of video games; among them action, subjectivity, space and time.

The human body is a site for electronic measurement and surveillance for many purposes. Medicine, security, and law enforcement are the major players but many other fileds including sports, bio-feedback therapies, and a nascent field called affective computing also benefit from the use of electronic biometric tools.

The human body is also a site for electrical stimulation, again mostly by the medical profession but also for purposes of psychotherapy and meditation, torture - and its strangely related twin - erotic pursuits. Artists invesigating their own bodies as sites for artwork have a rich and long tradition dating from the 1960's with ritualistic, conceptual, and feminist experiments by Schwartzkogler, Burden, Acconci, Chicago, Schneeman, and Finley, to name only a few. More recently, the concept of cyborg influences the body art in the work of such artists as Orlan, Stelarc, Steve Mann, and Arthyr Elsenaar. We take a look at some of this tradition and also explore the new tools (and data sources) to see what they have to offer artists. This includes relatively cheap and available sensors for such human parameters as heartbeat, muscle tone, skin resistance, and breath. We examine technologies such as muscle stimulation and possibly, turning images into electrical potentials, to be sensed by through the skin (and recognized as images!), which already has been done by both scientists and artists. If funds permit, eye tracking and/or brainwave sensors, which tend to be more expensive and sophisticated, could be investigated. Readings include selections from Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish, Rosalind Picard's Affective Computing, and Uncle Abdul's Juice: Electricity for Pleasure and Pain.
Elective; graduate level
Open to senior, fifth-year, space permitting.

How does contemporary culture unfold in space? How do we use the land to political,economic, and aesthetic ends? Can databases respond to ecological crises, or urban planning incorporate personal data? Does the street have feelings? Does cartography create reality?
This studio course explores experimental spatial practices via lectures and discussions, hands-on workshops, and studio projects. We look at the the map as a powerful tool for producing the world, examine historical precedents for art that intersects with geography (Surrealists, Situationists, Land Art), and engage critically with contemporary digital media as it relates to place.
Students in this course read theoretical literature including Lefebvre, Certeau, and Benjamin. We work with methods and technologies that include walking, listening,GPS devices, web mapping, environmental sensor systems, acoustic mapping, mobile applications, and DIY aerial photography with a focus on open-source tools. While no specific technical experience is required, we make use of Python, Processing, Javascript, and Arduino programming. In their final projects, students create original work that maps immeasurable, ineffable, and invisible territories along with concrete, material realities.
No specific technical experience necessary.
Elective; graduate level
Open to senior, fifth-year, space permitting.

This course supports the exploration of theoretical, social, material, technical and contextual research and concerns in new media arts practice during the first year of the first year of the D + M MFA program. It is a combined studio and seminar forum for Digital + Media first-year students. Participants become familiar with a vocabulary of multiple practices within digital media and, through a rigorous, hands-on approach, develop a thorough understanding of computational media as it applies to her/his individual creative practice. Students are introduced to a core set of methodologies and technologies from basic electronics and programming to interaction design to installation, and are encouraged to break comfort zones and practice through experimentation. Students conceptualize and discuss their studio-based work and their ongoing practice. Readings in critical cultural theory, media art theory, philosophy, semiotics and other areas further ground the conceptual approach of students in the Digital + Media department. The course is a mix of individual meetings, a required lecture and workshop series and group critiques. Some guest lecturers and visiting critics may also become involved with this class in terms of critical/research aspects. With a focus on studio experimentation and production, students will conceptualize and discuss their works-in-progress while beginning to work with new materials and systems in combination with a broad range media. Each student will practice articulating their ongoing studio art process and work, and will contribute to the dialogue concerning the research and work of their classmates.
Graduate major requirement; Digital + Media majors only
Registration by Digital + Media department, course not available via web registration
Open to first-year graduate

We are living in a data-driven world and data can tell us stories about our lives. The aim of this class is to introduce different ways of seeing things through data and computational processes. In the realm of art, design and technology, we will explore diverse ways to represent data through both analog and digital means and domains. We will discuss the full process of data mapping and visualization with various mediums. We will investigate different types of data sets and format categories (text/number, sound/image, linear/nonlinear, spatial/non-spatial) with both analog and digital mediums. Students will complete a series of short projects and one final project. Students will learn Nodebox 3, which is based on Python. By deconstructing and rearranging data, each student will practice how to creatively use data as a narrative tool for his/her concepts. The course will be comprised of studio time, collaborative workshops, viewing sessions, and discussions based on references and readings introduced in the course. Key issues: Decision making in visualization; Finding patterns and setting up rules; Translating data into information; Choice of aesthetics and medium. No prior programming experiences is required.
Graduate only. Open to senior, fifth-year, space permitting.
All digital + media electives are by instructor permission.
Elective graduate level

This seminar includes intensive group writing sessions. Individual meetings also will be conducted to support each student in assembling a comprehensive written thesis. Centrally our task together is to understand and evaluate actual studio work and to communicate this clearly and effectively within a comprehensive document. To accomplish this we will address: thesis rationale, development of concepts, source material, context relevant philosophical, aesthetic and theoretical issues as well as working process. Structure, layout, documentation, and the mechanics of formatting will also be explored in depth.
Graduate major requirement; Digital + Media majors only
Registration by Digital + Media department, course not available via web registration
Open to second-year graduate

As critical phenomenology, the aim of this course is to influence two acts, how to see and how to critique digital media, as extension of unresolved conceptual and aesthetic problems and as catapult for entirely original practice and possibility. The approach is the 'theoretical crit' that students write each week in response to readings, methods, problems, and works closely explored. As in contemporary art, new media's objects and theories are becoming increasingly interdependent. Thus, rather than using theory to evaluate artwork, we examine both work and theory, coming to contemporary, formal, critical, and instrumental voice through which to respond to assumptions and aspirations of each.
Graduate major requirement; Digital + Media majors only
Registration by Digital + Media department, course not available via web registration
Open to first-year graduate students

This class will serve as an interface between the new technologies of digital media, and the old technologies of optics. New digital technologies will be given alternative possibilities with the addition of specific projection apparatus (in terms of both projection optics and projection surfaces), plays with reflection (such as the construction of anamorphic cylinders, zoetropes, and other optical devices), and in the fabrication of project specific lenses. Given the hands-on nature of the glass department, the actual making and/or subversion of traditional optics is possible. The class will encourage collaborative work between students of varying experience levels and will foster the incorporation and dialogue between students of the two differing areas of expertise.
Elective, Open to senior, fifth-year, graduate
Also offered as GLASS 7009. Register in the course for which credit is desired

How have we become habituated to and inhabitants of new media, and what are the effects of this voluntary and involuntary habituation? Focusing on the relationship between new media and affects?environmentally-provoked, non-conscious responses, central to the formation of individual / group perception--this course investigates new media networks as structures created through constant human and non-human actions. Enrollment limited to 20. This course is for Graduates only. Students in the course will meet in the primary meeting Mondays 3:00-5:20pm, as well as for film screenings Monday evenings 5:30-8:00pm. Co-taught by Kelly Dobson in D+M at RISD and Wendy Chun in MCM at Brown, where the course is listed as HMAN29701 and will begin one week late for Brown students, and one week early for RISD students. Please check the Brown calendar for more information. Graduate Elective

Installation Sight & Sound is a studio course where students may create installations, performances, or site-specific works that incorporate screenprinting techniques as a primary medium. Students are encouraged to create experiences that transform the gallery setting or exist outside it. The course is open to students of every disciple and allows for cross-media experimentation. Print will be used and viewed as a drawing and sculptural tool that can be combined with your other technical/digital knowledge and experience. Students will be challenged to explore and invent new ways of utilizing Printmaking in their work, and will be encouraged to transform and reutilize space through interdisciplinary experimentation, and to begin to think about surfaces other than walls for the display of work. In the first half of the semester, students will conduct research, experiment with a variety of screenprinting techniques, offer short presentations of past work, and collaborate on midterm projects. In the second half of the semester, students will form final project proposals, and then work collaboratively or individually on a self-directed final.
Major elective
Also offered as PRINT-4520.
Registration by Printmaking department; course is not available via web registration.

This course will be a creative research journey, culminating in the creation of a small-scale (3'x 4' x 6') immersive experience space, which represents the manifestation of a student?s interest. Total immersion occurs when all four types of immersion; tactile, strategic, narrative and spatial are realized in a single experience. This course will be a creative tactile journey with the ultimate goal of constructing exactly that. Although the works produced will draw upon the differing interests of each student, initial inspiration will focus on topics such as science fiction, current social and political trends, mixed media installation art, scientific landscapes, architecture of authority, environments of control, emerging military technologies, robotic environments, war, behavioral engineering.
The course will take the following route: 1) concept manifestation, 2) exploration of this concept through sketching with 3D software (which allows for exploration of a bigger concept free of social, spatial, material, hardware constraints), introductions will be given in Modo, Maya, Rhino, CAD + online tutorial resources for self development 3) physically sketching and experimenting with integrated technologies, devices, media, 4) final project production. Projects are expected to run through several iterations in the 3D physical prototyping/sketching phase in order to strategically identify the medium and form that best suits their proposed environment. Hence the third phase will take up 60% of the course time. Through your work, you will develop skills in refining, testing, simplifying, building as a system, editing and dealing with glitches through experimentation, the realities of working with social, technical and spatial constraints yet still retaining a conceptually strong artwork, narrative interaction, user experience, exploring the concept of digital + media + environments.
Collaborations will be heavily encouraged due to the nature of this project and the spatial constraints.
Graduate level. Open to senior, fifth-year, space permitting.

This class is a practical hand-on exploration of physically interactive electronics for the artist/designer. Students will learn how to interface objects and installations with the viewers body and ambient stimuli such as motion, light, sound, or intangible data. Integration with traditional and experimental materials will be covered, along with how low-cost and environmentally progressive strategies such as hacking and re-using existing technologies. Starting with the basics using the open-source Arduino platform, the class will move through electrical theory, circuit design, microcontroller programming, sensors, and complex output including motors, video, and intercommunication between objects. Along side this rigorous technical focus will be discussion and critique of the conceptual basis and real-world experience of students work. Engagement with art historical and theoretical context will also be encouraged.
Estimated cost of materials: $200.00
Elective; graduate level
Open to senior, fifth-year, space permitting.

This course supports the practical, conceptual, theoretical and historical development of the M.F.A. thesis (exhibition and written document). Students are required to work independently and in individual consultation with their thesis committee to develop and finalize the thesis exhibition and written document for presentation at the end of the year. The exhibition and written thesis should articulate one's personal studio art / design practice in an historically and theoretically informed context. Formal group critiques are required at the midterm and end of the semester. A major final critique with visiting critics is held in the context of the final MFA Exhibition. The accompanying written thesis is expected to be of publishable quality and is also placed within the public sphere through electronic publication and filing with the RISD Library.

Final submissions for this course include the presentation of a final exhibition, submission of the final written thesis, and timely completion of work for preliminary deadlines throughout the semester (draft theses, exhibition plans and press materials). Please see Digital + Media Thesis Timeline for a clear sequence of required deadlines. Please refer to the Digital + Media Thesis Guidelines and Policies for clarification of the goals and expectations of the RISD D+M MFA.
Graduate major requirement; Digital + Media majors only
Registration by Digital + Media department, course not available via web registration
Open to second-year graduate
This class is 6 credits in the Spring, enrolled with the Thesis Chair.

This class explores the impact of computer based 3d modeling, with special attention to the history of illusionistic representation on the one hand, and generative and algorithmic approaches to form on the other.
How have special effects, video games, architectural renderings, or simulations such as Google Earth changed the way we engage space, or are they simply a continuation of perspectival illusions created in the Renaissance? How can artists and designers use or hack these digital mediums in their own work? How do algorithmic approaches to form differ from mimetic or illusionistic approaches to form?
The course will look at various 3d modeling techniques as well as different methods of outputting or presenting 3D models, including rendering images, creating animations, or using fabrication techniques such as lasercutters and rp machines to produce physical models. The main goal of the course is to help students develop a working methodology for integrating 3d modeling into their own practice. The course will not focus on any single software, but will examine a wide range of media and computer software that can be used or hacked by students, from Google Earth, to video game engines, and from xtranormal.com to Maya and 3ds Max, from simple tools to scripting and programming 3d form. The course is open to both beginners and students with experience in 3D modeling
Elective; graduate level
Open to senior, fifth-year, space permitting.