Syllabus « Digital Art History LSU Blog

Syllabus

ART 4420 Sec. 01 - Professor Ryan

Spring 2008

Meets Tue-Th. 4:30-6:00 201 Art Bldg. Office: 205 DB 578-8813

Digital Art History: An Introduction

We are drawn to a new medium of representation because we are patterm makers who are thinking beyond our old tools . . . We are drawn to this medium because we need it to understand the world and our place in it. . . . We are moving toward a world of ubiquitous computing.

Janet H. Murray, “Inventing the Medium”

History and Theory of Digital Art provides an historical and theoretical overview of digital art forms and practices. The term digital art is used as umbrella terminology for related phenomena also going under rubrics like computational art and, simply, new media art. Digital representation, hypertextuality, game art, software art, internet art, locational media, and tactical media, and virtual media are some of the aesthetic practices that fall under this umbrella terminology. The course will also address major themes and key issues of digital art, from the inward-focused concern with concern with the medium itself as content, to expansive, multi-disciplinary open-source narrative and performative structures, an finally to internet activist art. Students will gain a general knowledge of the field and its position relative to more traditional art media, as well as the nature of the evolution of artistic practices in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

TEXTS

Christiane Paul, Digital Art. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2003.

Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort, eds. The New Media Reader. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.

Note: other readings either held in Middleton or free online will be assigned from time to time throughout the semester.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

25% class projects

25% blog contributions

25% midterm exam

25% final exam

Attendance: Attendance in every class meeting is required. If any student is absent more than once, they need to meet with professor. More than twice they will be asked to drop the course.

BLACKBOARD AND BLOG

The course will use Blackboard as means of posting readings, when possible, and useful additional material and links,and as an extension of our classroom, where additional communication and discussions can be held. During the course the Blackboard site will be supplemented by a class blog.

COURSE SCHEDULE*

Additional detail concerning course content and assignments will be provided as we go along.

Jan. 15 Class 1 Introduction: Digital Media Art: What is it and when is it art?

Jan. 17 Class 2 Digital art’s relationship to the “art world”

Jan. 22 Class 3 Historical overview of computer technolog

Jan. 24 Class 4 Post WWII: Electronic Media Art

Jan. 29 Class 5 Digital media as tools for artmaking

Jan. 31 Class 6 Digital technology as medium 1: Installation, film, video

Feb. 5 No Class Mardi Gras

Feb. 7 Class 7 Digital technology as medium 1: Installation, film, video

Feb. 11 Class 8 Digital technology as medium 2: Internet, nomadic networks, and networked

Feb. 14 Class 9 Special topic: Wearable Technology Art

Feb. 19-21 No Class College Art Association

Feb. 26 Class 10 Digital technology as medium 3: Software Art

Feb. 28 Class 11 Digital technology as medium 4: Immersiveness and VR

Mar. 4 Class 12 MIDTERM

Mar. 6 Class 13 Digital technology as medium 5: Music & sound

Mar. 11 Class 14 Themes of digital art 1: Artificial life, artificial intelligence, and IA’s

Mar. 13 Class 15 Themes of digital art 2: Telepresence, telematics

Mar. 18-20 No class Spring Break

Mar. 25 Class 16 Themes of digital art 3: Body and identity

Mar. 27 Class 17 Themes of digital art 4: Databases and mapping

Mar. 31 Class 18 Themes of digital art 5: Text and narrative environments

Apr. 2 Class 19 Themes of digital art 6: Gaming as art

Apr. 7 Class 20 Themes of digital art 6: Gaming as art (cont.)

Apr. 9 Class 21 Themes of digital art 7: Tactical media

Apr. 14 Class 22 Themes of digital art 7: Tactical media (cont.)

Apr. 16 Class 23 Themes of digital art 7: Tactical media (cont.)

Apr. 21 Class 24 Emerging forms 1: Locative media

Apr. 23 Class 25 Emerging forms 2: Bio-Tech art

Apr. 28 Class 26 Emerging forms 3

Apr. 30 Class 27 TBA

START-UP READINGS

Ascott, Roy. Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness. Ed. By Edward A. Shanken. Berkeley, Univ. of Cal. Press, 2003.

N7433.8 .A83 2003 and Electronic Resource

Baumgärtel, Tilman, ed. Net.Art.2.0: Neue Materialien zur Netzkunst. Nuremburg, Verlag fur Moderne Kunst, 2005. N7433.8 .B384 2001

Druckrey, Timothy, ed. Ars Electronica: Facing the Future: A Survey of Two Decades. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. Electronic Resource

Galloway, Alexander. Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004 TK5105.59 .G35 2004 and Electronic Resource

Grau, Oliver. Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion. Trans. By Gloria Custance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. N7436.5 .G7313 2003 and Electronic Resource

Greene, Rachel. Internet Art. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2004. N7433.8 .G74 2004

Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Became Post Human: Virtual Bodies in cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: Univ .of Chicago Press, 1999. Q335 .H394 1999

Lovejoy, Margo. Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age. London: Routledge, 2004. Electronic Resource

Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001. P96 .T42 M35 2001

Packer, Randall, and Ken Jordan, eds. Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001. (No holdings in Middleton.

Paul, Christiane. Digital Art. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2003. N7433.8 .P38 2003

Penny, Simon. Critical Issues in Electronic Media. Ed. by Simon Penny. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1995. N 6494 V53 C75 1995 and Electronic Resource

Popper, Frank. Art of the Electronic Age. New York, Thames&Hudson, 1993. (No Holdings in Middleton)

Bruce Wands. Art of the Digital Age. New York, Thames & Hudson, 2006. N7433.8 W365 2006

Wardrip-Fruin, Noah, and Nick Montfort, eds. The New Media Reader. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003

Wilson, Stephen. Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002. N72.S3 W55 2002 and Electronic Resource

FICTION

Gibson, William. Neuromancer (Remembering Tomorrow). New York, Ace Books, [1994]. Originally published in 1984. Online at: < http://lib.ru/GIBSON/neuromancer.txt >

Stephenson, Neil. Snow Crash. New York: Bantam, 1992.

MORE ONLINE RESOURCES

Ars Electronica

http://www.aec.at/en/index.asp

Bitforms (commercial gallery for digital art), NYC

http://www.bitforms.com/

Bitstreams (2001 Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC)

http://www.whitney.org/bitstreams/

Crumb Phase 3 New Media Curating

http://www.newmedia.sunderland.ac.uk/crumb/phase3/main_frame.html

Database of Virtual Art

http://virtualart.hu-berlin.de/common/searchWork.do?keywordId=164