Super Art + Design Challenge Wednesdays
Super Art + Design Challenge Wednesdays provided Q2L students with an engaging learning experience during early-release Wednesdays. The Institute of Play and Eyebeam Art and Technology Center collaborated to design three December-only workshops where students explored remixing video, creating electronic soundscapes and the mechanics of 3-D paper folding.
Workshops began with a short artist presentation then were followed by hands-on exercises and short "design challenges"in which students explored new tools, techniques and themes. A team of volunteers from Eyebeam and Parsons' Design and Technology program helped facilitate the workshops and shared their own areas of expertise.
SUPER ART + DESIGN CHALLENGE WORKSHOPS
December 2: YouTube Remix Mania
Jeff Crouse, Eyebeam Senior Fellow, and interactive software designer, will talk about the art of the remix. Students will turn a critical eye towards media messages and create video remixes of their YouTube favorites.
December 9: Electronic Soundscape Design
Sound designer Hans-Christoph Steiner will explore the relationship between sound and the world around us by leading students through the basics of sound design environment, Pure Data. By the end of the day, students will be creating their own soundscapes and controlling electronic sounds using their computer mouse.
December 16: Superhero Costume Design Using Crazy-Cool Paper-Folding Techniques
FairytaleFashion.org creator and Fashion designer, Diana Eng, will work with students to explore the mechanical engineering behind deployable structures using paper-folding to create outfits for superheros.
WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
All workshops will follow a similar format:
1:30–2:00pm
Quiet, self-directed homework time.
2:00–2:30pm Artist Presentations
Artists show work and present some of the big ideas and inspirations for their creative practice.
Skills practiced: listening, critical thinking, formulating and posing questions.
2:30–4:30pm Make It Work!
A hands-on workshop in which artists introduce students to different tools and techniques, working with students to explore the building blocks of their practice, such as editing video, creating electronic sounds and building three-dimensional objects. The artists present a series of short exercises or "challenges," and students work in small groups to complete them.
Skills practiced: digital-tool use, problem-solving, collaboration, teamwork, tinkering, design, iteration and innovation.
4:30–5:30pm Mission Complete
Students present their work to the group and receive feedback from the artist.
Skills practiced: critical-thinking, oral presentation and communication, critique.
ABOUT EYEBEAM
Eyebeam is the leading not-for-profit art and technology center in the United States. Founded in 1996 and incorporated in 1997, Eyebeam was conceived as a non-profit art and technology center dedicated to exposing broad and diverse audiences to new technologies and media arts, while simultaneously establishing and demonstrating new media as a significant genre of cultural production.
