Syllabus

The City College of New York

MFA in Digital & Interdisciplinary Art Practice

Medium Workshop: Physical Computing

Art B2050, Fall 2013

3 hrs/wk; 3 cr.

Instructor: Laura Lippincott
Website: http://artb2050.blogspot.com

Email: laura.g.lippincott@gmail.com

Course Description

A survey of modern electromechanical construction. Lessons interweave hardware, firmware, software and networking. Specific focus on paper and cardboard prototyping.

Course Learning Outcomes

• Diagram and wire digital and analog circuits
• Design simple machines and electromechanical systems
• Program visualizers and interpreters
• Diagnose and debug hardware and software
• Pair program and group critique

Teaching Methods & Approaches

Each class will begin with a homework critique. We will offer each other compliments, criticism, and questions. We will apply the reading whenever possible. This is followed by a short slideshow of art history and philosophy. After a break, the remainder of the class will be a practical lab session accompanied by explanatory slides.

Course Requirements  

• No pre-requisites; all skill levels welcome
• Attend class every Wednesdays from 6-9pm, post homework every Tuesday at 6pm
• Help shape the curriculum through pre-emptive feedback
• Maintain a blog with at least one post per assignment, follow the blogs of classmates
• Maintain a binder with readings, sketches, handouts and diagrams
• Share work online and in class, participate in discussion online and in class
• Come to every class prepared with a completed assignment, paper for notes, and all components
• Receive proportional grade penalties for tardiness or absenteeism

Grading Rubric

Each assignment is evaluated on a 10 point scale. Points will be apportioned for form, function, clarity, etc. Specific criteria will be included with each posted assignment.

Readings (in chronological order)

• Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Idea, 1819
• p. 448-451 of Philosophies of Art & Beauty, ed. Albert Hofstadter
• Kotaro, Takamura. A Green Sun, 1910
• p. 19-23 of 100 Artist Manifestos, 2011
• Huizinga, Johan. Play-Forms in Art
• p. 158-172 of Homo Ludens, 1938
• Turing, Alan. Computing Machinery and Intelligence
• p. 433-460 of Mind Issue 59, 1950
• McLuhan, Marshall. Automation: Learning for a Living
• p. 346-360 of Understanding Media, 1964
• Baudrillarde, Jean. The Metafunctional and Dysfunctional System
• p. 115-144 of The System of Objects, 1968
• Borges, Jorge Luis. The Library of Babel
• p. 51-58 of Labyrinths, 1962
• Bloch, Ernst. On Fine Arts in the Machine Age
• p. 200-206 of The Utopian Function of Art and Literature, 1964
• Alexander, Christopher. The multiplicity of living patterns
• p. 123-137 of The Timeless Way of Building, 1979
• Feynman, Richard. Introduction
• p. 3-35 of QED, 1985
• Reynolds, Craig. Flocks, Herds, and Schools: A Distributed Behavioral Model
• p. 25-34 of Computer Graphics Issue 21(4), July 1987
• Goldberg, Ken. The Unique Phenomenon of a Distance
• p. 2-20 of The Robot in the Garden, 2000
• Tufte, Edward. Graphical Excellence
• excerpts from p. 13-52 of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2001
• Wall, Jeff. In His Own Words
• selected by SFMoMA http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2007/jeffwall/

Grade Breakdown

Class participation: 30%

Assignments: 60%

Final project: 10%

Academic Integrity

The CCNY policy on academic integrity will be followed in this course. The document can be found through the CCNY website by clicking on “Current Students” then “Academic Services” then “Policy on Academic Integrity.” All students must read the details regarding plagiarism and cheating in order to be familiar with the rules of the college. Cases where academic integrity is compromised will be prosecuted according to these rules.  In addition, the Policy of Academic Integrity can be found in the Graduate Bulletin.

Calendar

	Tutorial	Lab	Assignment	Reading
Week 1 8/28/13	Introduction and review of syllabus	Fill out intake form and sketch dream project	Make a self-portrait mandala	Kotaro
Week 2 9/11/13	Narratives of machines in art; functionality of semiconductors	Build a series of circuits, select one to wire into your mandala	Compose a sequence of beeps to represent twelve emotional states	Feynman
Week 3 9/18/13	Mechanical art; simple machines	As a group, build a dumbwaiter	Build a puppet from cardboard and string [Makerfaire 9/21]	McLuhan
Week 4 9/25/13	Digital modeling and animating	Imagine a planetary system	Build an orrery with justified physics	Baudrillarde
Week 5 10/2/13	Sensory perception in art and neurology	As a group, gather data about an unknown viewer in a known space	Visualize a system with drawing or collage	Tufte
Week 6 10/9/13	Visualizing with screens	Implement visualizer assignment in Processing	Paper prototype a 4-knob mixer	Huizinga
Week 7 10/16/13	Tangible User Interfaces	Make mixer knobs with Sculpey	Photograph a 360° panorama	Alexander
Week 8 10/23/13	Cameras as subjects; camera functionality	As a group, rig a set of cameras for time-lapse of DIAP	Analyze DIAP footage for patterns of behavior	Reynolds
Week 9 10/30/13	Animals as subjects; group dynamics	Model a flocking algorithm in Processing	Prepare a report on a flocking or schooling animal	Borges
Week 10 11/6/13	3D Printing	Design a printable set of objects	Collect a large set of text and images for pattern analysis	Turing
Week 11 11/13/13	Guest lecture: Tom Lippincott on Machine Learning with Python	Analyze your dataset; add Arduino input or output	Invent a character and backstory; bring materials for sewing	Goldberg
Week 12 11/20/13	Puppets and avatars	Sew a puppet of your character with sensors and/or motors	Make a video of your puppet in the world	Wall
Week 13 12/4/13	2 versions of Metropolis	As a group, model a metropolis in cardboard	Help remodel the metropolis in Minecraft	Bloch
Week 14 12/11/13	Roundtable on Utopia	As a group, make metropolis a utopia	Implement your dream project	Schopenhauer
Week 15 12/18/13	Final Critique