Module: CCO4009-20 Creative Coding

Level: 4

Credit Value: 20

Module Tutor: Ron Herrema

Module Tutor Contact Details: r.herrema@bathspa.ac.uk

1. Brief description and aims of module:

Creative Coding is a practice that uses code for artistic or creative expression. This can cover a wide variety of media including generative art, animation, data visualisation, games, apps, robotics, music, interactive art, immersive experiences – and many more. Creative Coders are frequently engaged in online community building, the open-source movement, and campaigns for an open and equitable internet. Communities of creative coders have developed free tools that are used globally by makers including Processing, P5.js, Pure Data and openFrameworks. Throughout your Creative Computing degree, you will engage with creative coding tools and communities making your own contributions through your research and developing creative practice.

In this module you explore the context of your own emerging design practice through diving into the field of creative coding. You will research the designers of creative coding tools, the artists and makers using them, and the communities linking creative coders globally. You will gain hands on experience of being a creative coder through learning new languages and techniques from online creative coder communities and your creative coding tutors. Through making a research-informed creative coding piece or experiments collection we hope you will begin to feel at home within creative computing communities and gain a wider understanding of the context in which Creative Computing sits.

2.Outline syllabus

Topics covered in Creative Coding include:

•  Computational art

•  Open-source movement

•  Internet equality

•  Online community building

•  Creative coding languages

•  Key artists and makers in creative coding

•  Understanding Creative Computing in wider cultural contexts

3.Teaching and learning activities

Class Hours:

Seminars on key themes in creative coding provide opportunities to develop knowledge through tutor guided discussion and debate. In-class work includes research tasks, group discussion and practical experimentation with creative coding tools as a mode of practice- based research.

Independent Learning:

You are required to pursue, through independent research, your own topic of interest – eventually focusing on a creative coding practitioner or collective and the tools they use or have developed in their practice. You will need to dedicate independent study time to this investigation using both online and library resources.

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: Creative coder case study (1,500 words)

• % Weighting: 40%

Assessment Item 2:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: Creative Coding portfolio, with accompanying annotations

• % Weighting: 60%