LCC 6310 - Computation as Expressive Medium

Instructor: Ali Mazalek
Email: mazalek@gatech.edu
Office: Skiles 339

TA: Micah Horvat
Email: mhorvat3@mail.gatech.edu

Lecture:
Tuesdays 9:35-10:55 in Skiles 346 (IDT lab)
Thursdays 9:35-10:55 in Skiles 343

Office Hours: Email for appointments

Lab:
Fridays 9:05-10:55 in Skiles 346 (IDT lab). Micah will run these labs.

Lab hours: TBA

Description

The goal of this course is to learn Java programming in the context of an art and design practice, that is, to understand computation as an expressive medium. We will juxtapose reading and discussion of seminal articles in computational media (from the New Media Reader) with Java programming projects designed to exercise specific technical skills as well as encourage conceptual explorations in computational art and design. Anyone working in new media will eventually be involved on interdisciplinary projects in which the ability to program will be a strong asset, if not a necessity. Even if in your future career as an artist or designer programming is not a large part of your practice, this course will empower you to communicate confidently with programmers, and thus deepen your interdisciplinary collaborations. And perhaps a few of you will become fascinated with the expressive possibilities opened up by programming, and will choose to make computation one of your primary media.

Expectations

[ Participation & Readings ]

10%

In class preparedness and participation is expected. Readings should be prepared for the class in which the related discussion is scheduled. Students will be selected to present readings and propose relevant discussion questions each week.

[ Assignments ]

30%

There will be six small weekly assignments worth 5% each, designed to exercise specific programming and software design skills.

[ Projects ]

60%

There are six projects worth 10% each. Each of the projects will explore an expressive possibility of computational systems and exercise specific Java programming skills. With each project we will read and discuss a number of seminal readings in new media where the conceptual explorations in the readings intersect with the project. Each student is required to show one of his or her projects at the IDT demo day at the end of the semester.

[ Helpful Citizen ]

10% extra credit

Students earn up to 10% extra credit for being good citizens (e.g. helping maintain an orderly lab space, helping maintain orderly and functional lab machines, helping solve technical problems, promoting a sense of community among classmates, etc.)

Texts

(Required) Wardrip-Fruin & Montfort (Eds.), The New Media Reader. (available at the Georgia Tech bookstore)

(Optional) Greenberg, Processing: Creative Coding and Computational Art (available here)