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Creative Coding

person working on visual at imacCreative Coding is an approach to programming computers in which the primary goal is to create an aesthetic or expressive experience. Students in this area of study think about computers and operating systems not as closed tools with fixed sets of available functions, but rather as open canvases with new possibilities for imagination, interaction, and self-expression. As a result, what emerges is a new kind of creativity – one that is inherently highly collaborative and interconnected with an engaged online community of people who make libraries, write tutorials, and provide feedback to each other.

Students in this area create websites, adaptive visual displays, art installations, procedural animations, interactive stories, projection mapping, data visualizations, playable media, sound art, music and theater performances, and product prototypes. Students learn how to ideate and conceptualize original creative works in the medium of software, develop computational literacy, and critically engage with historic and contemporary practices in new media arts. They develop skills in computational thinking, procedural thinking, simulation, and the design of algorithms. Recent courses offered in this area include Intro to Interactive Computing, Data Visualization, Interactive Music Programming, and Dynamic Web Applications. Development environments include Processing, P5.js, Max/MSP, Pure Data, openFrameworks, and Unity.

Courses Offered:

  • IMM 120 – INTRODUCTION TO INTERACTIVE COMPUTING
  • IMM 130 – DESIGN FUNDAMENTALS FOR THE WEB
  • IMM 220 – PHYSICAL COMPUTING
  • IMM 230 – DYNAMIC WEB APPLICATIONS
  • IMM 350 – INTERACTIVE MUSIC PROGRAMMING
  • IMM 470 – MOBILE COMPUTING
  • IMM 399 – INTERNSHIP IN CREATIVE CODING
  • DCT 390 – LEARNING ASSISTANT IN CREATIVE CODING