with interdisciplinary artist Laura Splan
Hunter College
Integrated Media Arts Program (IMA)
New York, NY
Spring 2022
February 26–March 5, 2022
Saturdays, 10:30am—6:00pm
Room 544 Hunter North (IMA Grad Lab)
This course examines the role of data in contemporary art. Students are introduced to artists using data as material and data collection as creative process. Relevant readings, websites, and videos from a range of disciplines (i.e. science, technology, art) are referenced to understand: the role of data in the computational imagination and procedural aesthetics, how meaning is constructed from sets of information, and how the construction and representation of data sets determine the meaning itself. Creative project assignments include explorations of abstraction and visualization, bias and veracity, reduction and recursion, as well as rematerialization and embodiment. Course exercises introduce biometric data collection tools including open-source facial recognition software as well as electromyography data collection from muscle movement using an Arduino microcontroller. Students have access to a shared EMG microcontroller for use for their projects but may execute project assignments in any media with any data collection methods.
