Multimedia content is prevailing in our everyday life. The abilities to create, edit and publish multimedia content are essential to visual art students in the contemporary art and design context. This course provides the fundamental concepts and skills to integrate various digital media forms into coherent multimedia content through the process of multimedia authoring. The deliverables from this initial focus on multimedia authoring may articulate as information displays, motion graphics and/or interactive installations.

Having acquired foundational skills in multimedia authoring, students will apply those skills and knowledge to the production of physical media. In traditional multimedia, the content is mainly delivered through digital screen display and accessed through conventional keyboard, mouse and touch screen device. As the technologies recede more into the background and further integrate with our physical environment, it will be necessary for visual art students to design and fabricate the multimedia user interfaces with innovative physical forms. The course provides the fundamental concepts and skills for students to integrate physical materials such as sensors, motors, and lighting devices into their interactive multimedia projects. The deliverables by the end of the course may articulate as interactive devices, multimedia installations, and gestural interfaces.

Students will acquire knowledge of the history and development of interactive multimedia, device art and physical media design in the context of contemporary art and design. The course will introduce the use of graphical programming tools such as Pure Data or Touch Designer that the students can employ to develop interactive media content, without going through the steep learning curve of mastering traditional text based programming languages. Students will then use these programming tools to design and produce interactive devices with the use of electronic components and micro-controllers that respond to the environment or human interaction.