Michael
Century century@rpi.edu
Office hours Wednesday
12-2 pm and by appointment
There are three essential parts to this seminar: reading,
discussion, and writing. All are
necessary to prepare you for professional careers in the arts, whether along
academic lines or not. Discussion
in class is meant to be open-ended and generous; you are encouraged to question
and speculate, not just react to and expound on the assigned texts. You are especially encouraged to bring
in examples of creative works, either your own or by others which you want to
share. This enrichment of the
historical and theoretical material is fundamental. Writing will be required of
both a formal and informal type.
The formal work will need to conform to the rules of correct academic
prose, whereas the informal writing can be looser and more speculative,
allowing you to develop your ideas through the process of articulation.
Readings are provided in electronic
form, and links to them are given at the class web-page (see above). There is one exception, New media in art, by M. Rush, London,
Thames & Hudson; this is a recommended purchase, but also available on
reserve in Folsom Library.
Assigned
readings range from 50-75 pages/week.
Identify key
artists, movements, works of modern and postmodern music, visual art, and
electronic media
Trace the relationships between
artistic and techno-scientific developments since the late 19th
century
Use library resources and other
research methods to analyze specific art works and theories
Relate historical and theoretical
learning to personal artistic practice in discussion and a formal research
paper
Articulate preliminary conceptual
foundations for the MFA thesis paper
Participation in class discussion (25%)
Students are expected to read required readings each week
so that class discussion is as rich as possible, and preparedness and
participation in these discussions will constitute a quarter of their entire
final mark in this class.
Short
response papers and informal commentaries posted to the course LMS (learning
management system) site (35%). Every week one person will be designated to initiate the
online discussion with a response paper of up to 500 words. The paper must be
posted by the Thursday before the upcoming Monday seminar. The others will
comment these response papers, by adding commentaries or critiques, posing
questions, and pointing to other resources that they think will be helpful to
know about before the seminar.
Final
project: an essay on a topic
related to the material encountered in the course (12 pages, double spaced using 12 point font). (40%)
Abstract is due November 7.
A Range
Conceptual: thorough and coherent, original thinking, moves beyond assignment
bounds. Writing: Excellent writing and grammar skills. Expresses ideas clearly and
effectively; spends time on the work; attention to detail. Participates fully, taking a leadership
role in discussion in class and online community outside of class. Brings new
ideas to class consistently. Listens to others views with respect. Attends
class on time and turns in work on time.
B Range. Conceptual:
Complete assignments with some originality. Writing: Good writing and grammar
skills. Writing is clear and ideas are organized. Participates fully in
discussion. Attends class on time and turns in work on time. Participates in
online comments and engages with others ideas.
C Range Conceptual:
Unoriginal or common sense thinking; doing only what is required; Writing:
Unclear writing, grammatical errors, lack of thoroughness. Inconsistencies in
presentation of work and participation, or does not frequently participate.
Attends class but minimally engages with others work.
D Range Falls
below expectations in most areas. Inconsistencies, sloppiness, inaccuracies,
errors, lack of effort.
F Fails
to meet requirements of Assignment/Not turned in on time.
A
confidential writing and discussion site for Electronic Arts Overview is set up
on the RPI online-course learning management system. You will need to become a registered user of the RPI
LMS. You will do this using your
RCS id and password. The course is
already laid out at the RPI LMS blog site by topic, and for claritys sake and
ease of navigation, you should be careful to post your writing under the topic
week by week. You are all already
entered in the system so all you should need to do is log in and you will see a
link to the course content (Electronic Arts Overview), then click on
Discussion. The link that will get you started is: http://rpilms.rpi.edu/
Relationships
between and students and professors, as well as those between students and
their classmates, are built on trust.
Acts that violate this trust, such as cheating or plagiarism, will
result in a failing grade for this course. The Rensselaer Handbook defines various degrees of
academic dishonesty, plus the responses available to address it. Students should familiarize themselves
with this portion of the handbook.
Williams, R. (1984). Keywords. A vocabulary of culture.
London. Art, Creative, Technology,
Science.
Bennett, T., L. Grossberg, et
al. (2005). New keywords : a revised vocabulary of culture and society.
Malden, MA, Blackwell Pub.
Art, Science, Technology.
Modernity by Terry Smith, at Oxford Art Online (log-in through Folsom library portal)
Rush, Michael (2005). New
media in art. London, Thames & Hudson. [2nd edition]
Read from page 7 – 167.
About $15.00 from Amazon; a copy is on reserve at the Folsom Library.
Manifestos of Futurism, Dada,
Surrealism, Constructivism, Bauhaus, Situationism, from Harrison, C. and P. Wood,
Eds. (1992). Art in Theory 1900-1990.
An Anthology of Changing Ideas. Oxford, Blackwell. Futurism 145-149 Dada 248-255 De Stijl
278-279 Surrealism (Breton) 432-439 Bauhaus, 338-343, Constructivism 265-268 Situationism
693-70
Slow
Media Manifesto, 2010 http://en.slow-media.net/manifesto
Benjamin, Walter. (1936 (1969)).
The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction.
Illuminations. H. Arendt. New York, Schocken: 217-251.
Mitchell, W. J. T.
The Work of Art in the Age of
Biocybernetic Reproduction, Modernism/modernity - Volume 10, Number
3, September 2003, pp. 481-500
Ways of Seeing, by John Berger,
first episode, view in 4 parts on
Youtube
Eco, Umberto. (1959 (1989)). The Poetics of the Open Work
Rokeby, David. (1995). Transforming Mirrors: Subjectivity and Control in Interactive
Media.
Critical Isses in Electronic Media. S. Penny. Albany, N.Y., SUNY. 133-158
Dinkla, Soke. (1996). From Participation to
Interaction. Toward the Origin of
Interactive Art.
Clicking In. Hot links to digital culture. Ed. L. H. Leeson. Seattle, Bay
Press. 279-90
Porter, Roy, Introduction to Rewriting the Self: Histories
from the Renaissance to the Present. London and New York:
Routledge, 1997.
Foucault, Michel. (1979
(1984)). What is an Author?
Kelty, Christopher (2008). Two Bits: The Cultural
Significance of Free Software,
page 1-18
Social media: Clay Shirkey lecture on his 2008 book -- "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations"
Theses on Web 2.0 (Lovink, Rossiter, Ippolita) The Digital Given: 10 Web 2.0 Theses
Compilation of short texts
by: Varse The Liberation of Sound, Cage The Future of Music: Credo, Nyman
Toward a Definition of Experimental Music, Bailey Free Improvisation,
McClary Structures of Time in Late Twentieth-century Culture, Reich Music as
a Gradual Process
Oliveros – Quantum Improvisation: the Cybernetic Presence
Ong, Walter. Orality, Literacy and Modern
Media.
Communication in History. Crowley and Heyer (1994), Longman Addison
Wesley. 64-70.
Salter, Chris. "The Question of Thresholds: Immersion, Absorption, and Dissolution in the Environments of Audio-Vision ." Sonic Acts XIII. Amsterdam, 2010.
Christoph Cox From Music to Sound: Being as Time in the Sonic Arts
Bruce
Sterling (2008). The Life
and Death of Media, in Sound Matters: Sampling Music
and Digital Culture, MIT Press.
Kern, S. (1986). The Nature of Time, The culture of time and space.
Cambridge, Harvard University Press. Pp 10-35
Zielinski,
S. (2005). Introduction, Deep time of the media : toward an
archaeology of hearing and seeing by technical means. Cambridge, Mass., MIT
Press.
Adam, B. (2006). "Time." Theory Culture Society 23(2-3).
Smith, Terry. "Contemporary Art and Contemporaneity." Critical Inquiry 32 (2006).
McLuhan , M. – McLuhans Wake
– DVD on reserve in Folsom library
Haraway, Donna. (1985). A Manifesto for Cyborgs.
New York, Routledge.
Plant, Sadie. "The Future Looms. Weaving Women and Cybernetics." Clicking In. Hot Links to Digital Culture. Ed. Lynn Hershman Leeson. Seattle: Bay Press, 1996.
Donna Haraway Wired magazine interview
Ede, Sian, (2000). The Scientists Mind: the
Artists Temperament,
in Strange and Charmed. Science
and the Contemporary Visual Arts. London, The Gulbenkian Foundation.
Vesna, Victoria. (2001). Toward a Third Culture: Being In
Between,
Leonardo, 34(2).
Da Costa, Beatriz. and Katia
Philip (2008). Introduction, Tactical biopolitics : art,
activism, and technoscience. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
Born, Georgina, and Andrew Barry
(2010). Art-Science: From Public Understanding to Public
Experiment. Journal of Cultural Economy, Vol
3, No. 1
Theodor W. Adorno and Max
Horkheimer (1944) "The
Culture Industry: Enlightenment as
Mass Deception"
from Dialectic of Enlightenment www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm
Lovink , G., Garcia, D. (1997) ABCs
of Tactical Media,
at www.nettime.org http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors2/garcia-lovinktext.html
Chris Anderson (2006) The
Theory of the Long Tail. Refutation
of LongTail theory
(2009)
Felix Stalder, Autonomy and Control in the Era of Post-Privacy, nettime, July 2010
Castells, Manuel. Excerpts from Chapter one, Communication in the digital age, Communication Power. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Individual
meetings on your final project (mandatory)
No Class or Assignments, work on final project