These courses are special topical electives, often taught in new or experimental subjects, and rotate frequently.

Digital Divination is a project-based making and exploratory seminar-style course that examines and plays with the relationship between technology and ritual. It introduces histories and current ways technological artifacts serve or carry value as talismans, particularly in non-western and post-colonial contexts, and furthermore, how rituals themselves can be seen as forms of computation in their ability to transmit information and create and/or maintain networks. Class members will also explore their own relationship to the tools they use in cultural and daily practices. Through building on discussions and technical workshops in physical computing/internet-of-things (IOT) (with Arduino and Raspberry Pi) and machine learning (python-based libraries/tools such as Tensorflow and OpenCV), students will produce their own rituals (either movement-based/gestural, or object-based) in order to engage with critical questions around the intersection of rituals and technology.

The February 2019 cover story of Wired magazine features the concept of the ‘Mirrorworld’, a digital copy of everything in the real world; a place where we communicate with each other and communicate with machines, and where machines communicate with each other. This is a new way of seeing for us but it is the native environment of robots and algorithms. Adapting to this new reality will require a combination of new tools and methods of interaction. It will make us rethink design and problem solving, art and utility. The Mirrorworld does not yet exist but it is being built. Within ten years every street, lamppost, car and room will have its digital twin and new companies and platforms will emerge to overlay this information on the real world. Microscopic cameras will scan everything 24/7 to build 3D maps, big data will become exponentially bigger, and text will be relegated to the slow lane in relation to gaze, voice and gesture commands. In this course students will imagine, build and prototype an element, experience or artistic rendering of how this world will operate. Students will investigate the near future from the perspective of the here and now, designing prototypes for function and utility in augmented spaces, experiential environments, new interactions or connections between humans and objects. Technologies to be explored will include virtual, augmented and mixed reality, AI and IoT, 3D models and animation, data visualization and sonification.

Through a close historical analysis of branding systems, set design, fashion, language and character construction, students will investigate the manner in which black and brown identities appear in popular film, television and music. We will compare the visual complexities surrounding cultural representations in shows such as: The Jeffersons, A Different World, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and Insecure while also identifying how these shows can be a source of inspiration to make future design. We will unpack the ways popular media can guide our visual and material choices and provide a basis for our conceptual thinking towards social critique. This is a hands-on-studio course that will include projects that investigate imagery, typography, color and pattern developed for print, digital and auditory spaces. Students will be encouraged to develop work across media and explore new tools, methods, and techniques in the creation of digital and print-based outputs. As we proceed throughout the semester, we will propose a number of related questions: What images and styles are recurring on screen? What language is used (ie. slang, code-switching, bilingual)? What are the differences in sitcoms versus serious dramas? How can sound be used to reinforce aspects of representation? How do we adapt our findings and references into communicable design pieces? What do we simplify? How do we add meaning? How do we amuse? How do we edit? How do we provide commentary or a point of view? How do we emphasize or speculate on our understanding of black and brown identities?

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.

This course is designed to empower designers with non-quantitative backgrounds with a core framework understanding concepts in mathematics that are useful to a wide variety of design practices. Mathematics provide the underlying framework for many disciplines, from creative coding and data-driven artwork to game design and computer graphics. However, math is seldom taught as a tool for creative expression. This course is designed to remedy that by providing a toolkit of mathematical concepts, with an emphasis on their direct applicability to design and creative coding. Working first in Processing and then using Unity, students will gain experience implementing concepts directly in code, and build a toolbox of functions to draw from in future work. Topics covered include vector mathematics and trigonometry, matrix operations and linear algebra, probability, noise and fractals.

In this course, students will explore immersive prototyping methods for envisioning and testing objects and services that propose preferable relationships with society, technology, and the environment. Students will design participatory engagements where community members are challenged to envision social tests that could radically reimagine the way we engage with local economies, social rituals, and technological shifts. These visions take shape as future products, structures, and experiences. Collaboratively constructed futures provide alternatives to the narratives that have been colonized by powerful political groups and Hollywood producers. The outcomes allow participants to momentarily “live” in the future, and to help us navigate toward preferable worlds, instead of futures that have been pre-designed for us.

This course will introduce students to the subject of machine learning and its applications in the field of design, particularly for creating interactive web applications that enable the semantic exploration of datasets. Students will gain a top-level understanding of the history and current state of machine learning, as well as an understanding of the frontiers of data organization for image, text, and audio. Additionally, this course will explore the philosophical and moral implications of emerging machine learning technologies and their impact on society at large. Valid outcomes from the course may be tools, products, or art, and may focus on practical or conceptual/critical applications. This is a hands on technical course using Python, Javascript, HTML, and CSS. Students will be expected to keep up with the technical demands independently.

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?