The increasing access to our personal data will have unprecedented implications for our future lives. As designers we are often tasked with transforming these data into new services that will improve our everyday convenience. Recent national and international situations have highlighted some of the issues around biases and other flaws that are currently being encoded into our systems of tomorrow. This class challenges students to think not only about the potential benefits of data but also to explore their social consequences and by doing this, re-thinking their own role beyond creating the in- and outputs for tomorrow’s algorithmic black boxes.As a foundation, it teaches students the most important ‘traditional’ design methods from human centered design to more speculative methods and quick prototyping and guides the students through a series of assignments. These assignments make use of these methodologies to gain a practical understanding of their benefits, but also where they fall short when applied to new contexts of data-driven algorithmic systems. Students explore how these design methods can be re-appropriated to develop processes that help identify social issues that occur in our data-driven lives. Students learn how to visualize these future frictions and develop insights that can inform concrete design approaches to help mitigate them. Through these methods, the course aims to redefine our role as designers in the multi-disciplinary teams we work in, to lead with a unique perspective and advocacy for the ethical application of these technologies.

The students will be focusing on telling stories through tactile and tangible technology. We will be creating interactive objects with a focus on wearables design. In this course, the students will be experimenting with textile design, physical computing and the internet of things. Projects can range from commercial usage as well as experimentation and performance. We will be also introducing students from the MFA textile department to help and collaborate with MFA DT students with integrating textile with technology to introduce multi-sensory textures.

It’s 2030: local news organizations have gone extinct; national news organizations are deemed untrustworthy by large swaths of the public; and social media has only grown messier, more clamorous, more polarized, and easier to hack. Propaganda—masquerading as news—flourishes. Given this backdrop, how can product designers and media technologists produce and distribute information that is accurate and independent of faction, and that audiences will find both useful and credible? In this class, students will imagine, build, and prototype the media systems and products of the future, using the science and technology of today to speculate about the possible scenarios of tomorrow.

This course consists of a series of three workshops, which explore contemporary positions in Communication Design, taught by specialists / working professionals from industry. Each workshop is 5 weeks long and examines a specific topic in detail. Topics include (but are not limited to) type in space; digital typography and prototyping; and design systems. Further details of the individual workshops will be posted soon. Students are expected to engage in all three workshops and must be present for the duration of the semester.

In the current era of short attention spans and bite-sized news, designers need to come up with increasingly clever ways to get through to users. In this class, students will learn how motion graphics can be an effective medium for information design, creating animations that translate complex ideas into simple, even delightful, experiences.

This class provides technical and production support for ongoing Unity projects, with a particular interest in supporting Thesis projects. Students will work with faculty and classmates to identify areas in which they need support around the production of an ongoing work. Class sessions will be used for a variety of activities, including hands-on tutorials, one-on-one meetings with the professor, and peer-led “Dorkshop”-style learning. Enrollment is by permission only. Please reach out to John Sharp (sharpj@newschool.edu) including a description of the ongoing project you would like to work on, and whether or not it is your Thesis project.

This course is designed to teach both technical and artistic aspects of Projection Mapping to create experiential art installation work. Experiential Art is an immersive and engaging form of art which connects viewers to the artwork by creating interaction and relationship between the artwork and viewers. Increasingly more and more artists are working together with various institutions such as museums as well as companies to create experiential marketing campaigns and a brand activation. Projection Mapping is one of the most popular media to produce experiential installation in which the basic idea is to make buildings, the walls or objects come alive in light, color, and motion by projecting moving images onto them and used for various medium including museum installation, storefront display, product presentation, fashion show, music concert, large-scale outdoor installation, Street and Guerrilla marketing, an interactive kiosk and theater performance. The main focus of the course is not only to acquire the necessary technical skills to produce any Projection Mapping work but also to learn how to use the media effectively to bring their concepts to reality and to create the experiential and immersive installation. By the end of the course, students will learn 2D and 3D projection mapping techniques by using MadMapper and Modul8, and to operate necessary hardware to create projection mapping installation work as well as mobile live projection on the street. The students can also combine with their other technical knowledge such as OpenFrameWorks, Processing, and Unity3D to create interactive installation work.

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). This course will explore motion capture in relation to performativity. Mo-cap results in data that can be mapped in a myriad of ways. We will form an experimental performance laboratory to expand on the typical applications and mappings of the technique. How can we use the body as a controller/musical instrument? How can we create and interpret movement-data through visualization? 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? Outputs can include but are not limited to animations, games, VR experiences.

Currents: Motion Design for Interactions will provide advanced understanding of Motion as a design principle to enrich experience of audience in an active space. Students will choose one domain from four options: web, VR, AR, interactive installation, and form into groups to explore relevant tools and build projects from the ground up. They will be guided through the process of critical thinking, rapid prototyping, and technical implementation.

When we play, we suspend judgement and logic and enter a "magic bubble" where giggling is a goal. In this course, we define "toys" as "interfaces for open-ended play experiences". With this in mind, this course focuses on prototyping wireless electronic toys. The class is structured into 3 parts: In the 1st third of class we learn the ins-and-outs of Arduino 101, a bluetooth verison of Arduino. We'll develop a project that links students’ mobile phones with these Arduino's. This will give us a chance to create durable and wireless enclosures, as well as understand the best-practices in programming and powering them. The 2nd third of class will further our knowledge with a bio-feedback project. This instructor-defined project demonstrate novel approaches to prototyping & user-engementent. We discuss the differences between prototyping for art versus prototyping for industry. As we gain more tactile knowledge, they create their second wireless toy prototype. The third part of class is a student-led project. Students will ideate and create their own wireless toys. The instructor will help students create their idea and prototype. We will discuss entrepreneurial considerations for launching toy products. The final project will be be presented in a critique with toy industry experts. Some Arduino programing experience is recommended, but not required. Sewing or hot-glue gun experience recommended, but not required.

Humans have long created stories of superhuman/supernatural entities and have sought their guidance through rituals. Now, through artificial and machine intelligence, humans have created inhuman entities with superhuman capabilities. And we seek successfully or unsuccessfully to communicate with them and invoke their power for wisdom or profit. We have created new forms of ritual using technology. We have substituted the traditional sacred space with a virtual one. And we commune with one another and with these new divine beings in the digital realm. We have in essence created new mythologies. New Mythologies will explore the interaction between traditional mythologies and technology and how through this interaction new mythologies and rituals arise. The course will combine an overview of traditional mythologies and rituals with an exploration of artificial/machine intelligence (e.g. neural networks and deep learning such as TensorFlow) as well as new media artists’ use of technology as a means of interpreting and creating mythologies and rituals. Through readings, discussions and brief writing assignments, we will also investigate the role these new technologies and mythologies play in our ever-changing socio-political climate and in digital colonialism. Though students will have small exercises throughout the semester, these exercises will be directed toward completing one project as a final. Students may make use of any relevant technologies in order to convey a concept of these new technologies’ influence on our ideas of the divine.

Are you a designer who wants to make a real impact in the world, beyond a client’s bottom line? This class will introduce you to the basics of journalistic ethos and practice, including reporting, identifying stories, engaging with communities, and verifying information. In journalism, the public is your client. How does this mindset change what you make and how you think about the news products you design? The class isn’t about training you to become a journalist; it’s about learning to bring ethics, rigor, and a commitment to the truth to your work, no matter what you do. The final project will involve creating a sophisticated piece of journalism that utilizes these concepts but is not necessarily bound to traditional journalistic forms.