CO_128_F2501

Crafting interactive narratives for art & design

Theme

Intro

At the intersection of art, technology, and human interaction, in this module, we will explore the expansive world of interactive multimedia art and try to uncover the potential of visual storytelling mixed with interactive experiences. We will explore together how interactions have evolved over time and how we can adapt them to convey stories. We will research and analyse past and present projects and apply our findings to our own work.

The workshop is a combination of hands-on exercises, technical instruction, artistic research, and collaborative discussions. We will work on projects encapsulating core principles of interactive art, in a structured learning environment. The process-driven approach allows to refine our vision through iterative exploration.

Content

• Week01
• Week02
• Week03 - TBA
• Week04 - TBA
• Week05 - TBA
• Week06 - TBA

Class

Learning objectives:

• Build a narrative and convey an artistic vision using interactive tool
• Explore the synergies between art and technology
• Develop skills in conceptualizing, designing and executing multi channels experiences
• Foster collaboration, critical thinking, and creative problem-solving in the realm of multimedia art
• Learn how to integrate audio, video, graphincs and spatial elements to form a narrative
• Develop your skills using TouchDesigner as a tool for interactive multimedia projects

Goals:

• Learn how to craft a unique narrative from initial ideas + research.
• Conceptualise and develop immersive interactive installation.
• Acquire skills needed to create physical, interactive, design projects.

Evaluation criteria:

• Attendance, participation and engagement in each others’ projects (1/3)
• Research, Documentation (1/3)
• Project(s) (1/3)

Deliverables:

• Presentation(s) + Documentation(s) + Source(s)

Academic integrity

(Copied from Golan Levin’s 2020 CMU class)

Use of free and open source code

Credit is perhaps the most important form of currency in the economies of commons-based peer production and open-source media arts. You are expected to cite the source of any code you use. Please note the following expectations and guidelines:

Use Libraries. In your Projects, the use of general, reusable libraries is strongly encouraged. The people who developed and contributed these components to the community worked hard, often for no pay; acknowledge them by citing their name and linking to their repository.

Be Careful. It sometimes happens that an artist places the entire source code for their sketch or artwork online, as a resource from which others can learn. The assignments professors give in new-media arts courses are often similar; you may discover the work of a student in some other class or school, who has posted code for a project which responds to a similar assignment. You should probably avoid this code. At the very least, you should be very, very careful about approaching such code for possible re-use. If it is necessary to do so, it is best to extract components that solve a specific technical problem, rather than those parts which operate to create a unique experience. Your challenge, if and/or when you work with others’ code, is to make it your own. It should be clear that forking an artwork from someone’s page on GitHub, Glitch, OpenProcessing, etc., and simply changing the colors would be disgracefully lazy. Doing so without proper citation would be plagiarism.

Informal colaborations

Our course places a very high value on civic responsibility that includes, but is not limited to, helping others learn. In this course, we strongly encourage you to give help (or ask others for help) in using various toolkits, algorithms, libraries, or other facilities. Please note the following expectations:

• In this class, it’s OK to give and receive help. In fact, it’s better than OK! But students who receive help from someone else are obliged to acknowledge that person in their project report, clarifying the nature of the help that was received.
• We are all teachers. Students with advanced skills are expected to help others, yet refrain from doing another’s work for them. You can usually tell when you’re about to cross the line: Ask yourself whether you are teaching someone to fish, or merely giving them the fish.
• When in doubt: give credit to the people who have helped you.

Formal colaborations

The assignments in this course are primarily intended to be executed by individuals. That said, I am in favor of students collaborating if such collaborations arise organically and can be conducted safely. Please note the following expectations:

• Use proper social distancing. In light of the ongoing the COVID-19 pandemic, please respect University and other health guidelines regarding personal distance. Do not share computer keyboards, sit at least 6 feet apart, etcetera.
• Notify the Professor. It’s helpful for me to know who is working with whom. Students who wish to collaborate should jointly inform the professor as early as possible.
• Only pairs. Unless permission is explicitly granted by the Professor, collaborations in this course are restricted to pairs of students.
• Describe who did what. Written reports for collaborative projects should describe how your effort was distributed.
• Only known collaborators. Your project collaborator, if you have one, must be in this class. You may not collaborate with people from outside the course (e.g. your housemate).
• Avoid co-dependency. You may not collaborate with the same person (i.e. submit an assignment jointly) on more than two projects.