Aesthetics
and History of New Media
MA547
MW 2:00-3:45 pm
ATL Lab, 4th floor Walker Building
Instructor: Katrien Jacobs, Visual and Media Arts
Office, 1106,
180 Tremont
Office Hours: M 10 am-1 pm and by appt.
Telephone: 824 8828
Email: Katrien_Jacobs@emerson.edu
This course gives an overview of ideas, movements, and technological/artistic practices which have guided new media aesthetics and art movements throughout the twentieth century. It is a questioning of art in/and/of technology. The course is concerned with both the incorporation of advanced media technologies into traditional art forms (painting, sculpture, language, performance, movement) and the aesthetic experimentation inherent in all products of multimedia, net communications, hypertext, and virtual environments.
Special attention will be given to technological visions of the early avant-garde period, and the 1960s/1970s art movements. We will be guided by concepts of performativity, the genre of performance art, and the pronouncements of artist visionaries such as Antonin Artaud who believed that the languages of new media would not be transparent but "written for idiots and analphabetes." Virtual reality becomes another kind of discourse, a most dizzying play-within-the-play and a critical enterprise for resistant cyborg artists such as Stelarc, Orland and David Cronenberg. Why did they cultivate a post-humanist consciousness?
We will develop a critique of commercialized digital domains and investigate how to locate small pockets of activism within cyberspace - multi-cultural languages, radical philosophical propositions, feminist and queer discourses, punk attitudes, languages of the body, student noise music and Internet experiments which will help us, speak and write, bark and click 2000.
Class Attendance is 100% mandatory. Your active participation in class discussions and in group projects will also be required. If you miss more than three class periods without a valid excuse, this may result in a failing grade.
Two page response papers to course texts, movies, web projects, field trips. Response papers have to be brought to class on the due date (without any exceptions). Students will be asked to provide short and coherent, critical and creative responses to certain questions. You are also encouraged to post your response papers on digital bulletin boards and mailing lists in order to get interesting responses and discussion materials.
Due dates are indicated on week-to-week outline below.
Seminar Paper & Independent research project around one of the artists and/or movements discussed in the class. Students produce an 8 page seminar paper about a topic of their choice
Due week Eight, October 31.
Production or Critical Analysis and in-class presentation of a contemporary digital art project. You can bring in any area of artistic production in a digital, plastic, or performative medium e.g. recording a 'live' music composition or play and rewriting the composition for hypertext, including new elements of graphic design, sound, interactivity.
Fall
1999 The Breasts of Tiresias
Fall 2001 Digital Art Collectives (MA 421)
Fall 2001 Digital Art Collectives (MA 547)
You can work individually, in pairs, or in groups of three. In-class presentations required in Week Thirteen or Fourteen.
Project Dossiers/Productions Due Week Thirteen, December 8.
Response papers
30%
Seminar paper 30%
Digital art project 30%
Attendance and Participation 10%
If you believe that you have a disability that may warrant accommodations in this class, I urge you to register with the Disability Service Coordinator, Dr. Anthony Bashir at 216 Tremont Street, 5th floor (824 Ð8828) so that together we can work to develop methods of addressing needed accommodations in this class.
Readings:
A lot of the assigned readings will be available online (see detailed
information below). Others will be supplied in a course reader and hand-outs
throughout the semester.
Movies:
EXistenZ, David Cronenberg, Alliance Atlantis Communications, 1999.
Ghost in the Shell, Mamory Oshii, Distributed by Manga Entertainment,
1996.
Introductions
9/11 Introducing the course
Look at student website about Guillaume Appolinaire and Surrealism http://pages. emerson.edu/courses/fall99/ma547
9/13 Art in Digital Environments
Readings:
Simon Penny, "Consumer Culture and the Technological Imperative:
The Artist in Dataspace' Pierre Levy, "The Art of Cyberspace"
Assignment:
First response paper due: Read the article by Penny. Describe and analyze
the major idea(s) of the article argue using examples from your own experiences
(2+pages; typewritten/double-spaced)
In Class Video: RTMark, Bringing it to You!
The Net as Museum
9/18 What is art in the Museum?
Fieldtrip to ICA
9/20 The Virtual Museum vs. Net.Art
Assignment:
Write a response to the ICA exhibit.
Readings:
Transcription of Lecture by David Ross, San Jose State University, 2 March
1999, netcast on Switch, Switch Interview Issue, Vol. 5, No 1.
http://switch.sjsu.edu/web/v5n1/ross/index.html
In class Look at Walker Art Collection/ Franklin Furnace/Claudio Prati's net dance archive
Cronenberg and the Matrix
9/25
In Class Screening Existenz, David Cronenberg, Alliance Atlantis
Communications,
9/27
Assignment: Write a response paper to Existenz, contrasting the movie
with The Matrix, answering three of the following questions:
-What is your most spontaneous reaction to the movie ExistenZ?
-Which one is the more intelligent movie Ð The Matrix or ExistenZ?
-Which movie offers a more liberating vision of digital technologies?
-Would you like to be "fitted" in order to play VR games such as 'ExistenZ' or would you be part of the 'realist underground'?
-How does VR role Ðplaying compare to MUD/MOO role-playing?
-Are you familiar with webcam characters such as the protagonist of THE TRUMAN SHOW?
Reading:
Allucquere Rosanne Stone, "In the Language of Vampire Speak."
Early Avant-Garde Stagings (1)
10/2 Futurism
Reading: F. T. Marinetti: "The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism"
Assignment: Write a response paper to the Futurist Manifesto.
10/4 Digital Noise - Sampling
Reading: Joel Schalit and Joel Stern, "Sample My Privates: the Politics of New Media and Copyright Law."
In-Class: Look at MA 545 Sampling Sound Projects. Discussion about copyright legislation and digital sampling.
Early Avant-Garde Stagings (2)
10/13
Reading: Sophie Treadwell, Machinal
10/15 Machinal in digital environments
Assignment: Response paper: Write a contemporary adaptation of one of the scenes of Machinal using cyborgs as characters
Assignment: One page Proposal for midterm paper due. Think of an artist or artist movement which in your opinion has been influential to digital aesthetics: webdesign, web based art, streaming audio/video, 3D animation, net activism, chatrooms, webcams etc. Argue how and why the chosen artworks are relevant to the study of contemporary art in digital environments.
The Cyborg as Artist
10/16 Stelarc
Assignment: Look at the homepage of Stelarc: http://www.merlin.com.au/stelarc/
Reading; 'Extended-Body: An Interview with Stelarc"
10/18 Orlan
Reading: Anne Balsamo, "On the Cutting Edge"
Assignment: Write a response paper to the work of either Stelarc or Orlan.
Video Art
10/23 Historical Video Art
Reading
John G. Hanhardt: "De-Collage/Collage: Notes Toward a Reeaxamination
of the Origins of Video Art"
In Class Screening: Nam June Paik GuadalCanal requiem: A Tribute To John Cage
10/25 Case Study Peter Callas
Scott McGuire "Electrical storms: High Speed Historiography in the Video Art of Peter Callas."
In Class Screening: video art by Peter Callas
Cyberfeminism
10/31 Cyberfeminist art
Reading: Rosi Braidotti, "Cyberfeminism with a Difference". http://www.let.ruu.nl/womens_studies/rosi/cyberfem.htm
Assignment: MIDTERM PAPER DUE
11/1 Francesca Da Rimini
In Class: Read responses to Digital Davis Conference+ Show Rana's Cyborg art site)
Performance art/Ethnography
11/6 The 1960s/1970s Artists
In Class Video: Joseph Beuys and the Coyote Reading: Heiner Stachelhaus: 'The Expanded Concept of Art"
11/8
In Class Video: Guillermo Gomez-Pena A Couple in the Cage: A Guatinaui Odyssey, Coco Fusco and Paula Heredia Readings: Coco Fusco: "The Other History of Intercultural Performance" Gilles Deleuze and http://www.telefonica.es/fat/egomez.html#paper
Assignment: Write a response paper to the work of either Joseph Beuys or Guillermo Gomez-Pena.
Digital Photography
11/13 Digital
vs. Darkroom photography
Reading Don Slater, "Domestic Photography and Digital Culture"
11/15 In-Class Workshop Digital Photography
Web Aesthetics
11/20 Web Aesthetics Discussion
11/22 THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY
Digital Art and Copyright/censorship
11/27
Reading: John Perry Barlow "Censorship 2000"
Assignment: Write a response paper to Barlow's article
11/29 Cybersex and pornography debates
In Class presentations
12/4 Beta Presentation Group A
12/6 Beta Presentation group B
In Class Presentations
12/11 Presentations Group A
12/13 Presentaions Group B
