Media Studio: Imaging and Interactivity
RPI: ARTS-1020
Fall 2006

Information

Course Description

Instructors

Students

 

Assignments

Emotion Sketches

Pixel Art

Self Portrait

Environmental Landscape

Personal Logo

Nanotech bot

BioArt Net

Stop Action Animation

Super Hero

Final Project

Course Description:
Media Studio: Imaging and Interactivity is an introductory studio arts course in digital photography, web design and interactive multimedia for creative expression. Inquiry and experimentation are encouraged as students develop basic skills through a series of short studies and a student directed final project.

Projects reflect equal attention to student’s conceptual, technical and artistic development. Screenings, related readings and discussions of influential themes help give background to the history and theory of contemporary artistic practice in a highly technological and scientific culture.

The course includes a lecture and a studio lab. Lectures provide an overview of digital arts and related cultural issues which inform the required projects. Studio labs consist of skills development workshops and critiques.

Students are also required to read, think and write critical responses on essays concerning ethical, artistic and sociological issues of contemporary society such as the influence of the military in new media and the role of artists in the emerging field of nanotechnology.

Readings include:
New Media from Borges to HTML
By Lev Manovich

Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture
by Marita Sturken, Lisa Cartwright:

On Photography

By Susan Sontag

The Nanomeme Syndrome: Blurring of fact & fiction in the construction of a new science
by Jim Gimzewski and Victoria Vesna

Nanotechnology: Issues
by Rudy Baum

Theaters of War: The Military-Entertainment Complex
By Tim Lenoir and Henry Lowood

4 credit hours
Fall semester 2006
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)