This interdisciplinary offering aims to introduce to students the technique and philosophy of prototyping, or hands on-idea development using iterations. The class, open to all disciplines, will focus on interactivity, kinetics and feedback-driven work. Taught by two artists and Exploratorium exhibit developers, it will also provide students with basic demonstrations in electronics, kinetics and other techniques used to enhance interactivity.

Prototyping is usually defined as the process of quickly putting together a working model (a prototype) in order to test various aspects of the design, illustrate ideas or features and gather early user feedback. It is often treated as an integral part of the development process where it is believed to reduce project risk and cost.

In this class we will look at prototyping as an integral part of the creative process, and attention will be focused on the exploration of the idea, rather than on the finished result. Although incremental development is a powerful technique for achieving a satisfying end product, the performative process of development can also reveal unexpected strengths and aspects of an idea: Using this technique, the artist becomes more aware of the innate nature of the piece, is able to gather feedback from users, and can then make an informed choice to proceed with new iterations -or stop and call the work completed.

During the course of the class we will discuss what a prototype is, a few techniques on how to do it, discuss the end value of the prototype as an art piece and how or why to gather user feedback. Lastly we'll peruse how artists have showed prototypes as art pieces or used techniques of prototyping to enhance their art practice.

The ultimate goal of this class is to enhance students' literacy of hands-on idea development, make them comfortable with open-ended experimentation in their own work, and finally to appreciate the inherit value of an experiment, whether or not it emerges as an art piece in it's own right. Students will be encouraged to complete two or three larger projects during the course. Each class will focus on a specific aspect of prototyping and interactivity, and how it can be useful to artists: typically a class will have a lecture or demonstration with some experiments, followed by studio time during which students will work on their own projects aided by the two instructors. Time will also be devoted to technical demonstrations of equipment such as simple electrical circuits, motors, hydraulics, mechanics and lighting as well as interaction tools such as buttons and sensors.

At the end of each class some reading and a simple exercise will be handed out, and students will be expected to have these completed by the start of next class.