Assignments

Assignment statements are indexed here.

“Looking Outwards” Assignments

At regular intervals throughout the semester, you will be asked to browse blogs and other sources to discover and report on three projects that you haven’t seen before. Full details about “Looking Outwards” deliverables are at http://golancourses.net/2013/assignments/looking-outwards/.

Project 0: Introduction

The purpose of this assignment is to ensure that all students are equipped with the primary communication and sharing tools we will use in the course (WordPress, Twitter, and Github). Students will familiarize themselves with, and introduce themselves on, the course website.

  • All components are due at the beginning of class on Monday, January 14.
  • Login and browse our course website, and update your course profile;
  • Get accounts on Twitter and Github (if you don’t already have them);
  • Create a blog post introducing yourself and one of your prior projects.
  • Full details at http://golancourses.net/2013/assignments/project-0/

Project 1: Upkit Intensive

Full details about this assignment are at http://golancourses.net/2013/assignments/project-1/.
This is a 5-part project that requires the following:

  • Several “Looking Outwards” blog posts, on specified topics
  • Exercises with Processing, OSC, and openFrameworks
  • An exposure to an unfamiliar hardware/software SDK, the Sifteo cubelets.

Project 2: Visualization / Generation

Students have their choice of developing either (A) an information visualization, or (B) a system which uses a computational simulation to generate form. Full details will appear at http://golancourses.net/2013/assignments/project-2/.

  • Information Visualization: This version of the project is concerned with the comprehensive process of visualizing real-world information. You will identify some information of interest and develop software and other procedures to acquire, parse, filter, mine, represent, refine, and interact with your data — while keeping in mind essential questions about what information is worth visualizing, what makes it worth visualizing, and how your visualization functions to produce new knowledge and make an impact in culture.
  • Generation / Simulation: This version of the project concerned with rule-based morphosynthesis. Software makes possible the simulation, rather than mere representation, of the principles which structure and animate the natural world around us. In this project you will model an organic system by developing an interplay of simulated forces. Your task is akin to the godlike job of creating new life — such as an interactive and sensate creature, a dynamic flock or swarm, an artificial cell-culture, a novel plant, an organic terrain, an intelligent interlocutor, etcetera.

Project 3: Interaction/Augmentation

  • Full details will appear at http://golancourses.net/2013/assignments/project-3/
  • A project concerned with augmenting human action and/or perception, this is an exploration of interactive feedback in the context of high-bandwidth, continuous and real-time human signals — whether gesture, speech, body movement, or any other measurable property or behavior. You will develop, e.g. a gesture processor, a drawing program, a transformative mirror, an audiovisual instrument, or some other system which allows a participant to experience themselves and the world in a new way.

Project 4: Final Project (Capstone)