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Aalto University – School of Arts, Design and Architecture
Department of Media
Aalto Media Lab
Schedule
Week 1
- Session 001 – Intro & Processing Basics
- Session 002 – Drawing With Code
- Session 003 – If This Then That
- Session 004 – Text & Images
Week 2
- Session 005 – Arrays and Loops, Installing Libraries
- Session 006 – Sound, Loops Continued
- Session 007 – PGraphics, 2D Transformations (Project Proposal Deadline)
- Session 008 – Functions, Object Oriented Programming (OOP), Classes
Week 3
- Session 009 – Work on Your Project/Tutoring
- Session 010 – Work on Your Project/Tutoring
- Session 011 – Work on Your Project/Tutoring
- Session 012 – Final Presentations of Your Projects
What this course is about?
- Beginner-friendly course for learning how to use code as a creative medium.
- Learning how programming works on a basic level.
- Understanding that you can do a lot with just a little bit of knowledge, lots of trial and error, and a bucketful of patience.
- Thinking about the possibilities and limitations of programming as a form of art.
- Learning how to find information and help.
- Understanding that there are existing libraries that allow you as an artist or designer to focus on the creative side of coding without having to build everything from scratch.
- You will be working on your own project where you implement the things we learn during the course. The project can be an interactive installation, generative artwork, simple game, data visualization etc. Pretty much anything goes as long as it implements programming in a creative fashion.
What this course is not about?
- This is not a computer science course. We will be writing code, but on a level that is not so terribly concerned what is the most efficient way. If it works for the desired outcome, it works.
- You will not become a software developer just by sitting through this three-week course. Learning programming is a new way of thinking and a new language. It requires long-term practice.
- Also do not expect to get all the information you need during the lectures. You have to spend time outside the classroom to really understand how things work. You will not learn how to write code by just passively listening.
- We use a specific programming language (Processing), but it is not really about mastering that specific language. More important is to learn the logic of programming and give you the confidence to add it to your set of tools.
- It is not about browsing Facebook while I try to explain how a for loop works. If you are bored, please use your time going through more advanced topics or example code. A teacher’s secret: You would be surprised how accurately I can tell what you are doing on your computer just from the look on your face.
Workload:
3–5 ECTS = 80–134 hours
- Lectures: 24 hours
- Tutored assignments: 12h
- Time for reflection and self study: 36 hours
- 8–62 hours of independent work. (The student keeps track of the time they use on the final project and the assignments.)
Suggested Reading & Resources
- Processing Website
- Processing Examples (very useful example sketches)
- Processing Tutorials
- OpenProcessing
- Knuth: Computer Programming as an Art (CACM, December 1974)
- Daniel Shiffman/Coding Train: Processing Video Tutorials
- Daniel Shiffman: Learning Processing example code
- Daniel Shiffman: The Nature of Code (The entire book online for free)