Special Subject: Art, Culture, and Technology — Introduction to Interactive, Participatory, and Generative Art Making (Fall 2023)

Instructor

Gearóid Dolan

Units

U / G

Lab Fee

Per-term $75 fee after Add Date; SMACT students are exempt

Credit

0-3-6 U / 0-3-3 G

Schedule

F 2-5

Location

E15-054

Introduction to Interactive, Participatory and Generative Art Making introduces the basics of creating art projects that interact with participants and/or environment using a variety of code and hardware based solutions.

Divided into 3 sections, this course starts with Max/MSP/Jitter which is a graphical object based coding environment: users do not write the code, they assemble virtual objects and define their relationships to create the end product, which can be exported as an app and distributed to others or be a standalone project running locally. Virtual buttons, switches, timers, counters and many other modules, and the ability to communicate with other devices, make Max one of the best way to created virtual and physical spaces with interactive A/V components without having to write code and as such is used extensively by musicians, interactive installation artists, VJs and more worldwide.

The second sections introduces code writing and the physical components of micro-computing using Ardiuno technology, which allows, amongst other possibilities, the connection of a wide variety of input sensors whose data can then be interpreted and used by virtual or physical outputs to create interaction. Outputs can be anything from lights, speakers, motors to communicating with Max or Processing or P5.js etc and getting them to further interpret and drive interaction. Processing and P5.js will also be included as alternative code environments.

The third section takes it online and introduces the basics of web based interactivity using CSS and Javascript, providing interactive animation and all the types of interactivity based on mouse and touch based input for screens and mobile devices.

Each section builds on the previous to build up confidence dealing with code without having to learn code writing from scratch. Basic templates of code will be provided as building blocks, allowing the student to work on just the interactive elements. Student final projects may use any, or any combination, of the above technologies.