Week 1
Welcome to Creative Coding 1
(MART 120)

Overview of the Course

This course is designed to teach code so that it can become a tool for art and creativity.

The goal is to begin a journey in which the creative and technical possibilities of the computer become a tool in your palate. These tools will become an extension of you, something you think through, express yourself through, and can contribute to the world through. Ultimately, this course is designed to offer you a deeper understanding of the essential possibilities of computation. The course focuses on the fundamentals of programming the computer (variables, conditionals, iteration, functions, and objects) while also touching on a few advanced topics, and relating this all back to the creative and expressive possibilities of media art. The JavaScript-based ‘p5.js’, programming framework will be utilized within this class. The course will conclude, with your design, development, and implementation of a final project of your choosing.

This is exclusively an on-line course. As such, you will be expected to engage with all content through the main site. You will be assessed through regular project-based assignments, writings, and community engagement.

What to Expect

This course will force you to learn and adapt to new technologies, while also thinking about design, and content creation. Some weeks will lean more technical in nature, while others will lean more creative-based.

Just as the content focus will shift, so to will the work amount. Some weeks, especially those when new topics are being introduced, have a heavier workload. The goal of this is to make you practice with these new technologies and techniques. Other weeks will slow down and allow you to practice at a more exploratory pace.

You should plan;

• 3 hours a week to work through the course website content (what you are doing now).
• 3-9 hours a week to work on concepts, code assignments, studying, and practicing.

This is an intense course and will take a lot of time. You are learning a new language that is not like any other you have studied before. This takes immersion.

I WOULD HIGHLY ENCOURAGE YOU TO DO TWO THINGS TO SET YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS;

1. Form a study group!
   • Use the GitHub Issues-Forum (more to come on this later this week) to find people to meet with in-person or virtually once a week. And then work together!
2. Schedule in time for this class to your weekly planner. Just schedule in the time now, protect it, and then use it for this class.

Class Goals

There are 4 high-level goals for this course;

1. Learn how to problem solve. (More specifically, how to break a problem down into sub-problems that are easier to solve by themselves)
2. Adapt to constantly changing technological paradigms by learning how to learn. (Skills acquisition.)
3. Combine technical and artistic practices through inquiry and iteration.
4. Adopt and use professional practices.

Overview the Rest of This Week

The rest of this week will introduce the following;

• Information about instructors
• The Syllabus
• What is computational media?
• GitHub accounts and issues forum