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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.