In this advanced level art and design course, students will explore the creative potential of code as an artistic medium in its own right. Through a series of projects and exercises, students will develop their coding practice in a way that complements their ongoing studio practice and gain a deeper understanding of the unique opportunities and challenges of working with code as an artistic medium.
Building on the foundational skills and concepts learned in CTC-1000 Introduction to Coding or an equivalent coding course, students will dive deeper into coding as an artistic medium, exploring advanced techniques for generative art, interactive installations, and other forms of digital media. They will be introduced to a range of tools and frameworks for creative coding, such as Processing, p5.js, and openFrameworks. Students will also examine the historical and cultural context of code as a medium, including the role of technology in shaping contemporary art and design practices. Through readings and discussions, they will explore the implications of code as a means of expression.

Open to Undergraduate Students.

Elective

Studio: Design promotes multidisciplinary studio experimentation across an array of media and processes. Students explore the organization of visual and other sensory elements in order to understand perceptual attributes and the production of meaning. Using various methods of expression, students may create objects, spaces, and experiences that demonstrate their analysis of composition, color, narrative, motion, systems, and cultural signification. Assignments allow for inquiries into scientific, social, cultural, historical, philosophical, technological, and political topics. Critical and experimental utilization of design principles, which underpin all of the arts, are emphasized. Students are guided through progressive investigations, in which the act of seeing is amplified by the study of physiological and cognitive factors that generate perception. Examined subjects are taken through stages of representation, abstraction, and/or symbolic interpretation to reveal essential communicative properties.

Enrollment is limited to first-year undergraduate students.

Major Requirement | BFA

n this class, we will use a range of contemporary technologies to explore the unique ways in which different organisms experience the world. Through microscopy, photography, 3D scanning, 3D modeling, AR, VR, and machine learning, we will gain insights into the sensory perceptions and mental models of other species.
 
Imagine you had an eye on each foot. What would the world look like from that vantage point? What kind of picture would your brain make as your 2 feet crossed each other and pointed in opposite directions? We can do more than imagine, and strap some cameras to our feet and use software to synthesize a new kind of picture. Can an experiment like this help us understand how starfish see the world? After all starfish have eyes on the ends of all five of their legs. 
 
We will also learn about recent discoveries in the field of animal senses, such as the ability of plants to hear the sound of water, pollinators to see colors beyond human perception, and birds to sense magnetic fields. This will help us understand the concept of "umwelt," which refers to the unique ways in which organisms experience the world.
 
Through readings, lectures, field trips and student projects, this class will be a critical re-imagining of contemporary technologies and a radical re-thinking of more-than-human senses.The goal of the class and student projects is to spark curiosity, wonder, kinship, and most importantly a sense of humility for our place in a vast and complex world, a large part of which lies beyond human senses. How could we imagine radical new ways of perceiving our planet? And in doing so, how might we decenter humans’ umwelt, and become more attuned and open to more than human ways of seeing the world?

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective