Please note that the schedule is highly subject to change. Because we are such a small group, and engaging with so many types of material and content at once, we will adjust or alter course components as it seems fit for our group.
Please check back frequently! The schedule will be updated weekly.
Unit 1: 1/5-1/10
What are media?/ What is the medium?
- 1/5 Introduction, Syllabus, Class Policies
- 1/10 Readings Due (for Discussion):
- Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, “The Medium is the Message,” p. 7-21
- Mark BN Hansen, “New Media”, in Critical Terms for Media Studies, p. 172-185.
- Suggested (not required): W.J.T. Mitchell, “Image” in Critical Terms for Media Studies, p. 35-48
- key terms/ collaborative notes for readings
- Artist Presentations, Lecture
- Assignment 1
Unit 2: 1/12-1/31
Critical making and new media art
- Artist Presentations from Unit 1
- 1/12 Assignment 1 due
- Group critique : 3 volunteers
- Lecture: finish slides from last time
- Tutorial: Basic Audio/Video Editing & Export
- download Max/MSP
- 1/17: MLK Day, No Class
- 1/19 Readings Due:
- Garnet Hertz, “What is Critical Making?”https://current.ecuad.ca/what-is-critical-making
- Critical Art Ensemble, “Electronic Civil Disobedience” p. 7-33.
- Suggested (not required): Georgina Born, “Science, Technology, and the Music Research Vanguard” in Rationalizing Culture, 180-221
- Assignment 1 Group critique: 3 volunteers
- Artist Presentations, Lecture, discussion
- key terms/ collaborative notes for readings
- Assignment 2
- 1/24 Assignment 2 Due
- Artist Presentations , discussion cont.
- Assignment 3
- 1/26 Max/MSP demo.
- 1/31 Assignment 3 Due.
Unit 3: 2/2-2/14
Computation, interactivity and the senses
- 2/2 Readings Due:
- Mark Tribe, “Introduction” from New Media Art
- Mindy Seu, “The Poetry of Tools,” https://www.are.na/blog/the-poetry-of-tools
- Michael Connor, “What’s Post-Internet got to do with Net Art?”
- Artist Presentations
- Lecture, discussion
- Assignment 4: Blog Post
- 2/7 discussion cont, Assignment 4 due, Artist Presentations, Max/MSP demo
- 2/9 Readings Due:
- Jenny Odell, “Whither Tactical Media?”
- Casey Reas and Chandler McWilliams, “What is code?” in Form and Code in design, art, and architecture
- Peer responses due
- 2/14 Max/MSP demo cont.
- 2/14 Midterm Proposal due
Unit 4: 2/16-2/28
Protocol & Control
Protocol & Control
- 2/21 Max demo, come prepared with questions about your midterm prototype patches
- 2/23 Group Critiques on midterm project patch
- 2/28 Readings Due:
- Alex Galloway, “Tactical Media” in Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization, p. 174-207.
- Trevor Paglen, “Invisible Images (Your Pictures are Looking at You)”, https://thenewinquiry.com/invisible-images-your-pictures-are-looking-at-you/
- Suggested: Blanchette, “A Material History of Bits”
- Lecture, discussion
- 2/28 Artist Presentations ,Max/MSP Demo cont.
3/2 Midterm Assignments Due: Group Critique
3/7-3/11 Spring Break
Unit 5: 3/14-3/16
Critical Fabulation
- 3/14
- Plan for rest of semester
- Max demo
- 3/16
- Readings Due:
- Saidiya Hartman, “Venus in Two Acts.”
- Listen to: Stephanie Dinkins on “Afro-now-ism” on e-flux
- Supplementary read : Dinkins “Afro-now-ism” on Noema
- Artist Presentations: Sign up by commenting here
- Readings Due:
- 3/17
- Alexander G. Weheliye guest lecture: “Good Days: R&B Music and Critical Fabulation in the Now”, 4:30PM, Smith Warehouse Bay 4
Unit 6: 3/21-3/25
Protocol and web3: the question of decentralization
- 3/21
- Readings Due:
- Alex Galloway, “Introduction” in Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization
- Dominico Quaranta, “Truthless Trust”
- Moxie Marlinspike, “My first impressions of web3”
- Suggested: Dean Kissick, “The Downward Spiral: Popular Things”
- Suggested: Vice, ‘We’re All Speculating’: Inside the Wildly Hyped Metaverse Real Estate Rush”
- Artist Presentations
- Readings Due:
- 3/23
- Required Reading: Barbrook and Cameron, “The California Ideology”
- Suggested Further Readings:
- Fred Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism
- David Golumbia, “Cyberlibertarianism: The Extremist Foundations of ‘Digital Freedom‘”
- David Golumbia, The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism
- Catlow et al., Artists Re:thinking the Blockchain
- See: Furtherfield, New World Order exhibition
- Artist List: Sign up here
- Peer Reviews Due
Unit 7: 3/28-4/1
The question of the “human”: algorithms, AI, and race
- 3/28
- Max demo
- 3/30
- Max group assignment
- 4/4
- Readings Due:
- Ramon Amaro, “As if”
- Joanna Zylinska, AI Art: Machine Visions and Warped Dreams, chpts 4, 6 and 7.
- See: “AI: More than Human” exhibition
- Readings Due:
- 4/6
- 4/8
- Ramon Amaro guest lecture: TBA, 4:30PM Smith Warehouse Bay 4
Work on final projects: 4/6-4/20
Final Project Group Critique: Friday 4/29, 9AM-12PM
Final Project Written Peer Critiques Due TBA
