PSAM
5600

Currents

Parsons School of Design: School of Art, Media, and Tech

Non-Liberal Arts
Undergraduate Course
Graduate Course
Degree Students
Currents: Hopepunk & RunwayML
Fall 2025
Taught By: Sven Travis
Section: A

CRN: 4333

Credits: 3

Are you tired of the grim and the dark? Let’s change things up! Hopepunk emphasizes optimism, kindness, and resilience in the face of adversity. This course will take advantage of the leading-edge machine learning tool RunwayML to produce works of radical optimism, resistance through kindness, and the weaponization of kindness. By the end of this course the world will be a better place! RunwayML has been embraced by major design agencies and film studios to produce imagery, special effects, and animation for a wide range of projects. The first half of this course will focus on weekly assignments and experimenting with different elements of Runway. We will read examples of hopepunk by authors such as N.K. Jemisin, Becky Chambers, Ryka Aoki, and Emily St. John Mandel. Students will explore and experiment with RunwayML, applying it to their own work and to hopepunk-related assignments. During the second half of the semester students will undertake longer projects of their choosing. Students will be provided with unlimited accounts for RunwayML. This course is open to all New School students, with priority to Parsons Design and Technology students. No prior experience is needed, though enthusiasm for AI and making the world a better place is helpful.

Open to: All University graduate students, and undergraduate juniors and seniors. Some seats have been reserved for MFA and BFA Design & Technology students.
Prerequisites: No Prerequisites
Co-Requisites: No Co-requisites

College: Parsons School of Design (PS)

Department: School of Art, Media, and Tech (AMT)

Campus: New York City (GV)

Course Format: Studio (S)

Modality: In-Person

Max Enrollment: 15

Repeat Limit: 8

Add/Drop Deadline: September 9, 2025 (Tuesday)

Online Withdrawal Deadline: November 17, 2025 (Monday)

Seats Available: Yes

* Seats available but reserved for a specific population.

Status: Open*

* Status information is updated every few minutes. The status of this course may have changed since the last update. Open seats may have restrictions that will prevent some students from registering. Updated: 12:32am EDT 3/12/2025

Meeting Info:
Days: Tuesday
Times: 9:00am - 11:40am
Building: TBD
Room: TBD
Date Range: 8/27/2025 - 12/15/2025
Currents: Speaking Shaders
Fall 2025
Taught By: Jason Li
Section: B

CRN: 18222

Credits: 3

Speaking Shaders is an intermediate, digital development intensive course to teach the essentials of shader programming. This course is designed as two phases. In the first phase, students will code shaders that make images. This will go over the foundations of using fragment, vertex, and compute shaders to create imagery for screens. Students will practice shaders through topics like texture sampling, noise, lighting, procedural coloring, and more. In the second phase, students will work the other direction: translating images into shader graphics. For each week in this phase, we will develop and share custom shaders to meet the needs of our artistic direction, establishing a repertoire of techniques and strategies that can be used in all kinds of real time interactive engines. Through both sides, we will develop the taste and familiarity for shaders and images that we see in the world, and enable ourselves to speak the language of shaders. Coding is necessary for this course. Students must be comfortable reading and debugging code samples as well as actively seeking assistance when needed.

Open to: All University graduate students, and undergraduate juniors and seniors. Some seats have been reserved for MFA and BFA Design & Technology students.
Prerequisites: No Prerequisites
Co-Requisites: No Co-requisites

College: Parsons School of Design (PS)

Department: School of Art, Media, and Tech (AMT)

Campus: New York City (GV)

Course Format: Studio (S)

Modality: In-Person

Max Enrollment: 15

Repeat Limit: 8

Add/Drop Deadline: September 9, 2025 (Tuesday)

Online Withdrawal Deadline: November 17, 2025 (Monday)

Seats Available: Yes

* Seats available but reserved for a specific population.

Status: Open*

* Status information is updated every few minutes. The status of this course may have changed since the last update. Open seats may have restrictions that will prevent some students from registering. Updated: 12:32am EDT 3/12/2025

Meeting Info:
Days: Thursday
Times: 7:00pm - 9:40pm
Building: TBD
Room: TBD
Date Range: 8/27/2025 - 12/15/2025
Currents: Materiality of ML
Fall 2025
Taught By: Shirley Leung
Section: C

CRN: 18223

Credits: 3

The Materiality of Machine Learning focuses on utilizing the systematic study of algorithms and turning them into a functioning model that can be implemented and actualized in the “real” – physical world. This course will be focusing on introducing students to different types of machine learning models, learning various algorithms and models that can uncover complex patterns, utilizing ready-made software, and learning how to implement them into a physical production method. Students will work in a variety of media depending on their own backgrounds and interests. In this course, students will learn how to interact with text, images, and 3D-based machine learning models and subsequently bring these created work into the physical world.

Open to: All University graduate students, and undergraduate juniors and seniors. Some seats have been reserved for MFA and BFA Design & Technology students.
Prerequisites: No Prerequisites
Co-Requisites: No Co-requisites

College: Parsons School of Design (PS)

Department: School of Art, Media, and Tech (AMT)

Campus: New York City (GV)

Course Format: Studio (S)

Modality: In-Person

Max Enrollment: 15

Repeat Limit: 8

Add/Drop Deadline: September 9, 2025 (Tuesday)

Online Withdrawal Deadline: November 17, 2025 (Monday)

Seats Available: Yes

* Seats available but reserved for a specific population.

Status: Open*

* Status information is updated every few minutes. The status of this course may have changed since the last update. Open seats may have restrictions that will prevent some students from registering. Updated: 12:32am EDT 3/12/2025

Meeting Info:
Days: Wednesday
Times: 7:00pm - 9:40pm
Building: TBD
Room: TBD
Date Range: 8/27/2025 - 12/15/2025
Currents: Poetics of Matter
Spring 2025
Taught By: Harpreet Sareen
Section: A

CRN: 7288

Credits: 3

Physical matter and materiality are central to the deeply emotive experiences of our everyday lives. From ephemeral materials like bubbles, sand, or rice paper to vibrations and particles traveling through various media, these elements and their transformative processes can be used to craft new narratives. Art and design rooted in fundamental phenomena, rather than relying on commercial technologies, have the power not only to capture pure moments and poetic translations but also to foster new, open dialogues and relationships with the world around us. In this course, Poetics of Matter, students will engage in weekly hands-on experiments to explore unique physical phenomena, complemented by generative pencil-based sketching. This approach shifts the focus from technology-led design to design-led technology. Students will investigate how understanding novel physical processes can serve as both a medium for creative expression and an inspiration for new forms of computing that transcend conventional digital logic. Conducted in a studio format, the course includes collaboration with a sketching expert from IDEO to explore generative design techniques, weekly instructor-led demonstrations (e.g: self-pouring liquids, anti-bubbles, edible electronics), field visits, and lectures from media artists around the world who work with unique materials. By encouraging students to challenge the limitations of digital-exclusive computation, this course empowers them to explore the inherent modes of computation found in nature. Poetics of Matter is additionally valuable for students entering their thesis years, providing a high volume idea generation and a collaborative space for rapid testing and iteration.

Open to: All University grad students, and upper level undergrads. Some seats have been reserved for MFA DT students.
Prerequisites: No Prerequisites
Co-Requisites: No Co-requisites

College: Parsons School of Design (PS)

Department: School of Art, Media, and Tech (AMT)

Campus: New York City (GV)

Course Format: Studio (S)

Modality: In-Person

Max Enrollment: 18

Repeat Limit: 8

Add/Drop Deadline: February 3, 2025 (Monday)

Online Withdrawal Deadline: April 15, 2025 (Tuesday)

Seats Available: Yes

Status: Closed*

* Status information is updated every few minutes. The status of this course may have changed since the last update. Open seats may have restrictions that will prevent some students from registering. Updated: 12:32am EDT 3/12/2025

Meeting Info:
Days: Tuesday
Times: 12:10pm - 2:50pm
Building: Parsons 2 W 13th
Room: 511
Date Range: 1/21/2025 - 5/6/2025