PSAM 2802

Photo Processes: Emerging Technologies

Spring 2026 / Shabtai Pinchevsky


pinchevs@newschool.edu

Course Description

In this Photo Processes course, we will explore how contemporary technologies—from 3D imaging to generative AI—change what photographs do in the world. By looking at emerging photographic practices across experimental capture, surveillance technologies, and machine vision, you will gain the skills to make and question how images mediate our identities, relationships, and everyday experiences. Through lectures, workshops, readings, and critique, you will build a technical and critical skill set for experimenting with technologies such as 3D imaging and photogrammetry, image datasets, image‑based simulations, and accessible generative AI workflows. No technical background is required. This course emphasizes experimentation and play to engage in the image systems that influence how we're seen, categorized, and governed.

Resources

Tools & Tutorials | Readings | My Are:na Collection

Content

Schedule

Week Date Content Due
1 1/26 Asynchronous Week

🧩 Please follow along on the asynchronous week 01 plan!

2 2/2 Computation & Algorithm
3 2/9 Computational Images

🧩 Assignment 1

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BREAK

4 2/23 ☃️🧣⛷️🧤

☃️🧣⛷️🧤

5 3/2 Operational Images (Input Layer)

📙 Reading 1

6 3/9 Generative Images (Output Layer)

🧩 Assignment 2

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BREAK

7 3/23 Infrastructure

🚀 Project 1 report
📙 Reading 2

8 3/30 Generative AI Tools
9 4/6 Volumetric Photography

🚀 Project 1

10 4/13 The Virtual and the Real
11 4/20 Volumetric ML Practices

🧩 Assignment 3
📙 Reading 3

12 4/27 Virtual Spaces: Explorations
  • Lecture: World Building as Artistic Practice
  • Workshop: Spline

🧩 Assignment 4

13 5/4 Virtual Spaces: Design
  • Students' presentation on Project 2 plans
  • Lecture: Exploring and Documenting Virtual Worlds
  • Workshop: User interaction in Spline

📙 Reading 4
🚀 Project 2 Proposal

14 5/11 Studio Time
15 5/13-14? Final Presentations

🚀 Project 2

PSAM 2802 / Photo Processes: Emerging Technologies / Spring 2026