The city is our classroom. What do you notice?

Students take the role of street and event photographers, moving between a gallery and the neighborhood around it. They look for the scene in each photograph, then combine their observations with captions, drawings and three haikus. Handwriting returns to the digital page as an image.

1. Photograph the street, the exhibition and the experience of moving between them.
2. Select twelve images and develop captions, poems and visual transformations.
3. Sequence a sixteen-page zine, using Photoshop and Illustrator to bring the material together.

The work

A sixteen-page digital zine combining twelve photographs, captions, three haikus and a cover.

The inquiry

Observation becomes authorship. Editing, typography and page sequence give a student’s everyday environment a form they can share.

A historical photograph becomes the beginning of somebody else’s film.

Students select ten photographs from the Syeus Mottel archive, then respond through transformed images, moving-image backgrounds, narration and an audio artwork. The final piece draws on science fiction, with possibilities including time travel, Afrofuturism, planetary exploration and climate fiction.

1. Read ten archival images and make new images in response, using Photoshop, Illustrator or the generative tools permitted in this assignment.
2. Develop original or researched footage and a narrator’s voice, then compose or transform a score.
3. Sequence the photographs and new material into a three-to-five-minute film, using layers, keyframes and effects.

The work

A three-to-five-minute audiovisual artwork, screened with the class.

The inquiry

The archive enters a conversation with the student’s imagination. Research, historical context and the distinction between a source image and a speculative response remain part of the work.

The Image Is a Seed / the wider archive project

AI and the Archive / the conference presentation

Where are your parents and grandparents from, and what images can you find of those places?

Students research family geography alongside their current neighborhood. They collect footage that resonates with their memories and can add video they have recorded themselves. The research becomes an abstract video artwork through multiple image channels, opacity, keyframes and special effects.

1. Research places connected to family history and everyday life.
2. Combine found and original footage through layering and transformation.
3. Record short musical passages with a web synthesizer and edit the sound with the image.

The work

A three-minute video artwork with a constructed soundtrack.

The inquiry

Cultural history becomes material for an individual point of view. The project connects research with the practical decisions of montage, rhythm and sound.

What would this record sound like?

An unfamiliar record cover becomes a prompt for an original song. Students make the music they imagine belongs to its visual world, using synthesis, sampled material and audio editing.

1. Choose one of the album covers provided for the project.
2. Interpret its visual character through instruments, textures and rhythm.
3. Build and edit the piece using web synthesizers and Pro Tools.

The work

An original sound composition made in response to an album cover.

The inquiry

An image can direct listening without prescribing notes. The exercise joins interpretation with recording, editing and the construction of a musical form.

What changes when the soundtrack feels the opposite of the scene?

Students choose a film scene with a strong emotional character and compose a score that pushes against it. A comic sequence can become sad, or a dramatic scene can acquire a different kind of tension.

1. Identify the scene’s existing emotional cues.
2. Compose and edit a contrasting soundtrack.
3. Play the new pairing and discuss how the sound changes the reading of the image.

The work

A three-minute film scene with a newly composed, emotionally contrasting score.

The inquiry

Sound becomes an argument about what an image means. Students hear the effects of timing, texture and editorial intention.

What does a contemporary tribute page look like?

The personal enthusiasm of the 1990s web becomes a starting point for research and design. Students create a fan page for a subject close to them, developing a visual language that extends through a connected set of pages.

1. Research a person, group or subject and decide what makes the tribute personal.
2. Design a homepage and five connected pages for biography, images, writing, a timeline and links.
3. Build prototype interactions, a signature type treatment and a coherent system of navigation.

The work

A navigable website prototype with a homepage and five child pages.

The inquiry

Enthusiasm becomes research. Visual hierarchy, image description, responsive thinking and navigation become part of how a story is told.

How should your artwork be encountered on the web?

Students bring a library of their own work and material developed through an exhibition visit into an interactive website or mobile application. The project carries an earlier collage and research process into the design of an experience.

1. Assemble and reconsider an existing library of artworks and exhibition research.
2. Use Figma to develop the interface, layout and visual language.
3. Build interactive components and test the transitions between views, including exploratory use of design plugins.

The work

An interactive website or mobile-app prototype.

The inquiry

A portfolio becomes a space for decisions about audience, sequence and interaction. The design must express a purpose for the material it contains.

Can a familiar social-media format carry your own cultural argument?

Students choose a topic in culture, aesthetics, politics or personal experience and develop ten short videos. The sequence moves from an introduction through new information to a conclusion, with visual references reaching across historical periods and into an imagined future.

1. Research the topic and develop a sequence of ten square-format videos.
2. Combine kinetic text, illustrated and photographic animation, GIFs, an animated narrator, footage and sound.
3. Use After Effects to compose the elements into a coherent visual and temporal language.

The work

Ten 1080 × 1080 videos, each up to fifteen seconds.

The inquiry

The assignment joins message, visual history and production craft. Students learn how a format’s constraints can become a structure for their own argument.

How can an argument be made through media?

Students work individually and collaboratively on video essays and audio/video podcasts that connect media history with contemporary questions. Subjects include representation in public broadcasting, remix and meaning, collective practice and the power of digital platforms.

1. Develop a research question and identify the images, sounds and written sources that bear on it.
2. Compose an argument through narration, quotation, editing and collaboration.
3. Present the work and reflect on research choices, the production process and the contributions of the group.

The work

Research-based video essays or audio/video podcasts, followed by a reflective media project.

The inquiry

Making media becomes a way of analyzing it. Sources, editorial voice and the relationship with an audience are visible parts of the argument.