‘Design in Safaris’ is an Interaction Design (IxD) course from the lens of wildlife and their sensory phenomena. Throughout the course, we look at sensory systems of various animals ranging from bats, bees, sharks and more. We observe how animals and birds experience or navigate the world. We draw a parallel in the human world and build devices with two primary aims: i) to understand and connect with wildlife, ii) to augment and build new dimensional experiences for humans. The fundamentals of Human-Centered Design provide us with a framework to develop solutions by involving human in all aspects of problem solving. But what if the users of technologies were not humans? How would we design interfaces meant for mental health stimulation of animals? By learning radically different sensory experiences and dialogues from animals, could we also design novel interfaces for humans? This class focusses on fundamentals of interaction by changing the traditional users of our technologies. There will be weekly lectures from zoologists and animal experts. The class will have weekly readings, assignments and projects for students to support their hypothesis. The students are expected to have prior prototyping abilities to rapidly iterate their solutions in this intensive course. We intend to have a mix of students from different disciplines in this class. A select number of students from the class may be chosen to deploy and test their final projects at the San Diego Zoo’s naturalistic setting. The students may also have opportunities to continue working with the Zoo beyond the course.

Can play transform players? Can play be found inside the social forms of daily life? Can game design function as a form of research? Can the design process itself become an object of play? Working with graduate students at Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (KADK), we will explore these and other questions by creating objects 
of play that address the social forms of 
an Scandinavian cultural institution 
(organization TBA). The course will employ creative research strategies derived from social practice art, participatory design, and the iterative design process to consider the role of play in impact games. The course will begin with a series of planning sessions beginning late February, followed by a workshop in Copenhagen from Friday, March 15 through Friday, March 22. The class is co-organized by game theorist Jesper Juul (KADK, http://www.jesperjuul.net), social practice artist Nancy Nowacek (Stevens Institute of Technology, http://nancynowacek.com), and MFADT faculty member John Sharp.

“The end goal is identifying every music maker in the space and their works past and present… accelerating and improving collaboration …” The future of Mycelia is about "decentralised, open governance, looking to nature and viable systems thinking for direction... it's about earning, adapting, sharing… as a self-sustaining organism.” —Imogen Heap “If you want to play it, it's a good guitar. If it does you harm, it's a bad guitar. Some guitars are both good and bad at the same time.’ —Markus Reuter The Limits of Guitar is a collab studio exploring the limits of musical expression and instrument design. In this course, students will test both the physical and virtual limits of sonic production. At its core, the collab asks: what forms of sound, what kinds of [networked] musical instruments, could be uniquely able in our contemporary world to support a radical philosophy of music, going beyond current limits of aesthetics and politics in sound? We will draw on 5+ years of ongoing collaboration with the most renowned guitar and instrument designers in the world, who have joined our Future and Limits of Guitar series. We will also collaborate intensively with leading musicians, including Tanya Kalmanovitch [Mannes, co-lead on the Post Genre Instruments project] and Elliott Sharp [renowned NY guitarist, composer, and CTM Fellow 2014]. Across the semester, a series of guest workshops with instrument designers, builders, coders, and musicians will provide foundation and cutting edge interaction. Hands on workshops with luthiers will take place in studio as well as the Parsons Making Center. Salons, symposia and performances across the spring will include our collab students and their work. The outcome of this collab will run the gamut from new instruments you have designed and built, to new musical forms of expression you have invented and performed, to new sound software platforms you have designed and coded. The semester will conclude with a multi-day conference and performance series. Students and guest faculty in the collab will participate in these events. Musicians and non musicians are welcome! Bring a love for sound in all its forms! The collab is supported by Parsons MFADT; Mannes School of Music; The Making Center; the Provost’s Office Innovations in Education Fund grant; the Center for Transformative Media; as well as outside sponsors including Strandberg Guitars, Positive Grid, and more.

Motion capture (mo-cap) is the technique of recording patterns of movement digitally. It is used heavily in filmmaking, animation, video games, as well as in Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality environments. Mo-cap allows movement to be used to animate a 3D model, perform position-tracking for large-scale VR, and more. Using Parsons’ new Motion Capture Studio, we will learn how to use high-end professional motion capture equipment, as well as how to work with the resulting data in several different workflows (both real-time and recorded). Mo-cap results in data that can be mapped in a myriad of ways. This studio aims to expand on the typical applications and mappings of the data in the context of VR and room-scale AR. How can we use the body as a controller/musical instrument? How can we visualize movement data? How can we subvert the output of mo-cap? For example, to create a feedback loop to guide the bodies being tracked? How can we embody and perform as other (not necessarily human) bodies and forms?

How to build Augmented Reality (AR) experiences? While AR is an emerging technology that offers a new type of interaction with the physical environment through digital interfaces, it introduces many questions to the field of design that demand exploration. How can we effectively tell stories about spaces or products in AR? What is the nature of experience and interaction in AR? How can we use AR to warp and excite our lived environments? While seeking answers to core design questions about AR, this course aims to bridge the process of design and development of AR applications. Students will develop AR experiences for mobile by using Unity, and software development kits like Vuforia, ARkit and ARcore. By using different tools and prototyping techniques, they will investigate the nature of storytelling and interaction in AR. In the first half of the semester, students will analyze existing projects, prototype their own AR experiences, and develop their technical skills in Unity and AR platforms. For the second half, students will design AR experiences for specific organizations, brands, or products. They will be expected to apply their knowledge to the development and design of their final projects. The final project will be presented in a critique with AR artists, designers, and developers. Some Unity experience is recommended, but not required.

This course is specifically designed to bring together two types of students: 1) those who have a background in critical reading and writing but no extensive experience in design and 2) those who have a background in design but no extensive experience in writing and publishing. We will begin with a critical survey of the transmission of written communication from Gutenberg to the present to get up to speed, and in the second half of the semester we will discuss contemporary issues that cross design and publishing through an analysis of contemporary books, magazines, and periodicals across both printed and digital platforms, with a particular focus on the relationship between form and content. The seminar will be the underpinning of a hands-on studio course, where students will get a working introduction to typography, image, layout, sequence, and order, with the aim to design and publish in interdisciplinary teams, both printed and digital, by the end of the semester.

Networks and their interfaces dictate how we engage with the world around us. They determine what kind of information we have access to and develop preferences for, how and with whom we communicate, and what we believe. In this course, students will research, design, and develop a peer-to-peer network that allows for an intensive exploration of how interfaces filter our information, guide our social dynamics, and ultimately shape our perceptions and biases.

An algorave, short for “algorithmic rave”, is a live-coded, electronic music event growing in popularity across the globe. Through lectures and workshops, students will learn to live code electronic music and visuals. We'll also learn about art and technology events, live streaming, online distribution, and the greater algorave community. Through a series of iterative, human-centered design and research sprints, we will design and produce our own pop-up algorave event. Engagement with notable guests and stakeholders will address and amplify a number of pertinent themes and concerns. No prior knowledge or experience with music composition or programming is necessary; non-musicians are encouraged to contribute to the studio.

In this Collab Studio, The New School students will collaborate in cross-disciplinary team of public health students from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai to assist Little Sisters of the Assumption Family Health Services (LSA). We will research, prototype, design, and document projects for pilot testing that address the needs of LSA and its constituents. For this Communitology studio, our community partner is Little Sisters of the Assumption Family Health Services (littlesistersfamily.org). LSA serves a largely Mexican immigrant population in East Harlem, confronting issues including poverty, health, housing, food security, education and legal rights. We will focus on the needs of children and families served by LSA; specific problems will be informed by needs assessments. How can we help LSA and their families succeed? Our approach includes variety of tools and techniques drawn from systems thinking, public health models and evidence-based practices, co-design practices, and iterative design processes. Solutions will lead to measurable outcomes. Change the world, starting with East Harlem. The ongoing Communitology Project is a collaboration between Parson’s PETLab and the Public Health program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The project poses a single question: How can we design for health? We define Communitology as the local application of public health knowledge to untangle the knot of community health, wealth and achievement disparities, from cause to consequence, with broad engagement of stakeholders and evaluation of efficacy.

In the Occupy Earth collaborative studio, we will create works of “mixed reality,” constructing new forms of virtual and physical hybrids to explore polarized discussion of the ecologies, climates, and environments we now face as an earth-bound species in the 21st century. We use the term “mixed reality” to link emerging technologies such as virtual and augmented reality to the physical and sensory realities that pervade our cultural and political lives. The first half of the course will pair design exercises investigating alternate sensory perception, spatial narrative, and mutable environments with technical instruction combining projection mapping (MadMapper), 3D scanning and augmented interaction (Kinect), and prototyping virtual spaces in Unity. The final project will involve designing layered mixed reality spaces to convey how disruption or intervention to the surrounding environment can impact a character, species, and culture. The course will be conducted in collaboration with students at the Media Lab at University of Aalto in Helsinki. It will involve a final public presentation of work either in NYC or Helsinki, and the possibility of travel.

This fall 2018 collab will explore the emerging space of AI and AGI deployed on blockchain systems, and will develop projects through design research, concept, proof of concept, code, and visualization. The course will start with a 3-4 week intensive to establish what is generally at stake in AI development across disciplines. Projects will then be designed in a ‘collab studio’ context, and prototype what the applications, interfaces, functions, clients, and economies can be in the near term [5-7 years] as blockchain based AI ecosystems and economies emerge. We have a remarkable opportunity as our outside sponsors/partners are OpenCog and SingularityNET. We will have a hands on workshop we will host with the sponsors partway through the semester, led by Ben Goertzel and his associates. This workshop will conclude with a one day conference bringing luminaries in AI, AGI, and blockchain systems together. The collaboration builds on a longer term set of projects and events developed by Ed Keller and Ben Goertzel, hosted by CTM & The New School, including the 2016 Future of Mind symposium [https://futureofmind.wordpress.com/ ]; the 2016 Human Level AI conferences which Goertzel and the AGI Society organized [http://agi-conf.org/hlai2016/ ]; and the 2011 Transhumanism Meets Design conference, co-chaired by Keller and Natasha Vita More.

We’ve all heard about machine learning, but as artists and designers what can we actually do with it? This course will help students identify and experiment with real-world applications (in their personal practice and otherwise) of machine learning techniques. The first half of the semester will be spent learning about Python and experimenting with machine learning toolkits such as Tensorflow, Keras, Torch, and Theano to learn the basics, and identify possible applications of machine learning to creative practice. During the second half of the course groups will work to create more in-depth projects using data or media we borrow from available public or corporate sources (CCTV cameras, YouTube, Google Search, CCTV (Telivision-- China). This will be a very hands-on course-- no prior experience is necessary with machine learning, but participants should understand that there is a high learning curve to much of the material and the workload will be substantial. Some scripting or coding will be required— this is a great course for someone who wants to learn Python. What is the payback? You will gain skills in one of the hottest domains around, and you will become rich and famous.

These are unique types of studio courses, pairing teams of students with industry partners to undertake real-world projects. Descriptions for fall 2016 offerings will be posted soon.

This course will work with Tongji University (Shanghai) to do projects with the Parsons Optitrack MoCap facility (see http://optitrack.com/), as well as Perception Neuron (an alternative motion tracking technology: see https://neuronmocap.com/) to choreograph, control, and add visuals and sound to dance performances in NY and Shanghai. Each performance will be controlled by teams at the other location. Based upon the infamous "Fly on the Wall” Collab Studio between Parsons DT and Tongji that exploded on the world scene Fall 2013, participants will learn the basics of motion capture technology and experiment wildly with it over several short projects. A final longer project will lead to performances involving actual dancers at The New School and the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Specific focus will be placed on collaborating with teams from Tongji, and producing work that does not "live in one place". A final dance performance is slated to take place during the Parsons China Trip (May 2019) in Shanghai. No prior experience is necessary: students should have interest in performance, global collaboration, motion capture, programming, and dance. Travel is not required but highly recommended. This will be an intense, demanding studio and no laziness will be accepted.