Course Schedule (subject to change)

Week 01 (2026/09/02)

• Introductions
• Review Syllabus
• Creative coding tools and philosophies
• Setting up dev environment
• Scripting and The DOM
• Assignments:
  • Setting up dev environment, creating a repo
  • Creative Coding is…
• Reading:
  • Matthew Fuller, “Software Studies: A Lexicon” (Intro & chapter on Code)

Week 02 (2026/9/9)

• review HTML & DOM, homework questions
• p5.js basics
  • coordinate system
  • transformations
  • drawing primitives
• Assignment: Process Drawing
• Reading:
  • Sol LeWitt, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art” (1967)
  • optional LeWitt, “Sentences on Conceptual Art” (1969)

Week 03 (2026/09/16)

• Iteration, conditionals
• Assignment: Iteration part 1
• Reading:
  • A. Michael Noll, “The Beginnings of Computer Art in the United States: A Memoir” (Leonardo 27(1), 1994)
  • Frieder Nake, “There Should Be No Computer Art” (1971)

Week 04 (2026/09/23)

• Perlin Noise, plotters, randomness, libraries
• Assignment: iterative plotting
• Reading:
  • Randomness, from Montfort, Nick & Baudoin, Patsy & Bell, John & Bogost, Ian & Douglass, Jeremy & Marino, Mark & Mateas, Michael & Reas, Casey & Sample, Mark & Vawter, Noah. (2012). 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1));:GOTO 10. 10.7551/mitpress/9040.001.0001.

Week 05 (2026/09/30)

• Time
• Arrays and more repetition
• Assignment: Clocks
• Reading:
  • A Brief History of (Modern) Time Ian P. Beacock, Archived from the Atlantic
  • A Minor History Of / Time without Clocks Joshua Foer, Cabinet Magazine

Week 06 (2026/10/7)

• more about arrays
• Parameters
• review of everything so far
• Assignment: continue with your clocks
• Reading:
  • Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction, Bret Victor

Week 07 (2026/10/21)

• Objects
• projection mapping
• Assignment: Projection mapping
• Reading:
  • The Poetics of Augmented Space, Lev Manovitch

Week 08 (2026/10/28)

• cameras
• video
• images
• Assignment: Self-portrait
• Reading:
  • “In Defense of the Poor Image” by Hito Steyerl

Week 09 (2026/11/04)

• ML5.js
• gestural interaction
• Assignment: gestural control
• Reading:
  • Rokeby “Transforming Mirrors”

Week 10 (2026/11/11)

• Audio Input and Visualization
• Assignment: Sound visualization
• Reading:
  • Alexander, Amy, and Nick Collins. “Live Audiovisuals.”

Week 11 (2026/11/18)

• Pulling data from other sources (API intro)
• Assignment: Data Viz
• Reading: W. E. B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits (Intro and Plates) by Britt Rusert and Whitney Battle-Baptiste

Week 12 (2026/11/25)

• Machine learning systems
• Teachable Machine
• Assignment: Working with models
• Reading:
  • Excavating AI By Kate Crawford and Trevor Paglen

Week 13 (2026/12/02)

• Generating text with LLMs via APIs
• Assignment: Working with models
• Reading:
  • Ted Chiang, “ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web” (The New Yorker, Feb 2023)
  • Allison Parrish, “Language models can only write poetry”

Week 14 (2026/12/09)

• Final Project: Workshop

Week 15 (2026/12/16)

• Final Project Presentations

---