COURSE DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES
Guy Debord, a French critical thinker, wrote:
The spectator's alienation from and submission to the contemplated object (which is the outcome of his unthinking activity) works like this: the more he contemplates, the less he lives; the more readily he recognizes his own needs in the images of need proposed by the dominant system, the less he understands his own existence and his own desires. The spectacle's externality with respect to the acting subject is demonstrated by the fact that the individual's own gestures are no longer his own, but rather those of someone who represents them to him.
The Society of the Spectacle, 1967

The concept that we live in a highly mediated society in which the majority of the population are passive consumers is no longer new. However critical perspectives informed by historical knowledge of the rise of mediation in Western culture remains novel. The intent of this course is to present an overview of the convergence of media, communication technologies, art, design and culture to begin to construct a historical and theoretical foundation for creative digital production. Through a combination of reading, screening, research and production the course seeks to achieve the following goals:

• Gain an informed historical vision of the developments that have brought us to where we are concerning telecommunication technologies and new media.
• Develop a further understanding of how culture and technology are interwoven and how it is that these two elements of human experience effect one another.
• Develop a critical perspective about the tools that are been used in the Digital/Media Arts and how these tools are applied to culture at large.
• An introduction to various artists using electronic media, video, robotics and net.art.

• Weekly readings will be accompanied by brief weekly "write ups" (15% of final grade) and discussion (15% of final grade). Bring a hard copy of your write ups to each class to reference and hand in.
  
• Each student will be required to do one research presentation (25% of final grade) on a selected artist that has somehow effected change in the interpretation of what art is through a new media/medium. The requirements of the presentation are:
  
  1. The presentation must contextualize the work of the artist/inventor by describing the period s/he was/is working in including any major socio-political events or technological breakthroughs as well as the lineage of work the individual belongs to.
  
  
  2. Present at least three major works by the individual.
  
  
  3. Establish your own critique of the individual's work and a synthesis of how the person's work contributed to where we are at now insofar as artistic production or technology Your critique and synthesis should lead the class into discussion, so prepare questions pertaining to the presentation that the class should address.
  
  
  4. Each presentation should be approximately 20 minutes long and must be accompanied by an online version that the class may refer to.
  
  
• The semester will be kicked off by an experimental brief project inspired by E.M. Forester's "Machine Stops," the first reading for the class. The first project is due Sept.22nd (the fourth class). The project may take the form of a video, animation, printed graphics, web site, interactive program, etc, the medium is your choice, as will be all projects in this class.


• Following the brief initial project, each student has the following choices for semester long projects:


1. The semester long readings are broken up into three sections, each section is introduced by a work of fiction, the first being "Machine Stops." Just as the initial brief project is informed by the first fiction, each student may elect to do two other projects informed by the fictions that are part of the semester's reading: "Robot Dreams" by Isaac Asimov and "The Nine Billion Names of God" by Arthur Clarke; and a selection from William Gibson.


2. One semester long project that will be due for review half way through the semester and a finalized version due on Finals Week. If the student elects to do a single, semester long project a proposal and calendar is due, Sept. 29th. Although I will present ideas as to what the project may be, it is up to you to decide what direction you wish to take and to develop your own creative vision. Your project may be highly experimental, abstract or straightforward, but most importantly it should evolve throughout the semester. Project progress will be reviewed October 13 and again November 10, the final due date will be our Final Exam scheduled date. You may execute your project using any media or software that you wish, but by the end of the semester your project must be presented in a finished and unified format, such as a video tape, web site, CD-ROM or DVD.


• One class trip will be held during the semester to the American Museum of the Moving Image, we'll shoot for Saturday, October 2nd.

• The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels


• Illuminations, Walter Benjamin: Essays and Reflections, edited and with an introduction by Hannah Arendt


• Radiotext(e), edited by Neil Strauss


• Multimedia From Wagner to Virtual Reality Edited by Randall Packer and Ken Jordan


• The Body and the Lens: Photography 1839 to the Present (Perspectives) by John Pultz


• Illuminating Video: An Essential Guide to Video Art, edited by Doug Hall and Sally Jo Fifer


• Electronic Culture, Technology and Visual Representation Edited by Timothy Druckery, from Aperture Press, 1996


• The New Media Reader, edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort, MIT Press, 2003

Supplemental Reading
Communication History

On the History of the Telegraph

On the History of the Telegraph

On the History of the Telephone

On the History of Radio

On the History of Television

Early Mechanical Calculation

On the History of the Computer

a few genres of net.art

non-linear narrative:
World of Awe

Interactive Photomontage

visual experimentation:
Surrealist Tendencies

artist portfolio:
Interactive Drawing

Design and Painting

database driven projects:
Political
They Rule
Exxon Secrets

online exhibitions
Whitney Museum

SF MOMA

Guggenheim

UK Video Projects

art and technology
Art and Technology

web design
volumeone

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