A Practical Guide to the Tools Used by ITP 30 Participants

ITP 30 Show is a digital stage where graduates of New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program reveal what they built during a year of experimental practice. The online showcase gathers a wide range of creative projects under one roof, and the tools behind them often travel well beyond the Manhattan campus where they were first prototyped.

Readers browsing from Sydney, Melbourne, or a quiet studio in Hobart will find familiar creative habits echoed in the work. Many projects rely on the same open-source stacks used in Australian media labs, university art schools, and the small studios that line streets like Gertrude Street in Fitzroy. The community spirit of late-night troubleshooting sessions, fuelled by flat whites, mirrors what you would find in any co-working space in Surry Hills or Fortitude Valley.

A few practical realities shape how Australian viewers engage with the work. The National Broadband Network offers reliable connections for streaming high-resolution video, although rural users in outback Queensland sometimes lean on mobile data. Time zone differences mean live events often fall late at night for east coast audiences, and many participants publish written walkthroughs so the ideas can be absorbed the next morning.

Across the showcase, the tools themselves are less about brand loyalty and more about what helps a strange idea become a working prototype. The following sections walk through the hardware, software, and writing platforms that consistently appear across ITP 30 projects.

Hardware Foundations

Microcontrollers sit at the heart of many physical computing projects. Arduino boards remain a favourite for students who want to wire sensors, motors, and lights together without too steep a learning curve. Raspberry Pi units appear in projects that need more processing power, such as small cameras running on-device recognition.

Several participants experiment with custom printed circuit boards designed in KiCad, while others solder breakout boards at community spaces reminiscent of Brisbane's Bot Shop or Melbourne's hackerspaces. Power considerations matter, and a few designers spec components that run on the 230-volt mains standard used across Australian homes.

Software for Generative and Interactive Work

For visual and audio experiments, p5.js and Processing remain the connective tissue of the cohort. These JavaScript-based environments let participants sketch interactive pieces quickly, which is why they show up in everything from motion-reactive posters to small browser-based games. TouchDesigner and Max/MSP appear in projects that lean toward live performance or installation work.

Three-dimensional modelling is handled in Blender, an open-source choice that keeps costs down and matches the budget-conscious approach favoured by many Australian arts organisations. For real-time rendering, Unity is the most common pick, while some participants prefer Godot for its lighter footprint.

Web and Documentation Platforms

Most projects are documented online through a mix of static sites and journal platforms. Many participants build personal portfolios with the Eleventy static site generator, which produces clean, fast-loading pages that respect visitors on slower connections, including those in remote parts of the Northern Territory. Others favour Notion for collaborative drafting.

The ITP 30 catalog itself is published as a web-native experience, with high-resolution images and short essays that load progressively. For repositories, GitHub is the default, and a few cohort members use GitLab when privacy settings need to be tighter, an option worth considering for Australian artists working on Australia Council commissions.

Collaborative and Project Management Tools

Group work at ITP is rarely a solo endeavour. Discord servers hum with daily check-ins and late-night voice chats, while Slack channels anchor the more formal program communications. For visual reference, Miro boards hold mood boards and rough diagrams that get refined into proper schematics later.

Time management leans on shared calendars and lightweight task boards, with Trello and Notion databases appearing most often. These tools translate well to Australian studios, where creative teams are spread across cities and often bridge different time zones between Sydney, Adelaide, and Perth.

Writing and Catalog Production

The catalog essays are written and edited with the kind of care you would expect from a small publishing house. Many participants draft in Google Docs so peers and mentors can leave inline comments, then move to a dedicated editor for final polish. Reference management is handled with Zotero, which keeps citations tidy.

For those interested in the editorial journey behind the catalog, the catalog essay process breaks down how a single technical write-up takes shape from first outline to final proof. Local writers will recognise the rhythm of feedback cycles and copy edits that turn a shared document into a printed page.

Machine Learning and Pattern Generation

A growing slice of the cohort uses machine learning tools to generate visual patterns, often as part of larger interactive systems. RunwayML and Hugging Face Spaces provide accessible entry points, while more technical participants fine-tune models in Python notebooks hosted on Google Colab. The results tend to be layered into other tools such as TouchDesigner or p5.js.

One particularly clear walkthrough of this approach appears in the pattern generation journal, which shows how a small dataset can be turned into an evolving generative artwork. Australian readers working at the intersection of data visualisation and fine art will find the techniques easy to adapt to local research projects, especially when paired with open datasets from the Bureau of Meteorology or the ABS.

Showcasing and Community Distribution

Once a project is ready, the cohort publishes it across several channels at once. Personal websites host the canonical version, while Instagram and Vimeo carry the short trailers that catch attention on the way to a Melbourne tram or a Sydney commute. Vimeo is especially popular for embedding high-quality video without compression artefacts.

For anyone wanting to learn more or propose a collaboration, the contact the team page lists the organisers and their preferred channels. Community events often pair with local meetups, and Australian creative technologists regularly host satellite viewings in cities like Adelaide and Perth, which keeps the conversation going long after the New York showcase ends.

If you have read this far, consider opening one of the project pages this week, watching a short video, and writing a short note to the maker. Tools change, but the habit of engaging directly with the work is the part that travels the furthest.