This page contains materials
intended to facilitate class discussion
(excerpts from readings, outlines of issues,
links to resources, etc.). The materials
are not necessarily the same as the instructor's
teaching notes and are not designed to represent
a full exposition or argument. This page
is subject to revision as the instructor
finalizes preparation. (Last revised
12/3/03
)
This page is a staging ground for student
presentations and projects in the course:
"A massive
collaborative hypercomic that was
originally created for the wall
of the ICA as part of the Comica
festival. This web adaptation marks
the debut of [a] new flash-based
zooming infinite canvas delivery
system, The Tarquin Engine."
"Works of digital
and Internet art, performance, installation,
conceptual, and other variable media
art, represent some of the most
compelling and significant artistic
creations of our time. . . .
[T]hey also present significant
obstacles to accurate documentation,
access, and preservation."
A report on the Poetry Speaks,
a book and CD-ROM set that collects
sound recordings of poets reading
their works from the nineteenth
century on. Theoretical reference
points for considering the relation
between the poetry and its new media
(a succession of media culminating
in digitally remastered sound files)
include: Walter Benjamin on "aura,"
Walter Ong on "orality."
Citation: Poetry Speaks: Poetry Speaks:
Hear Great Poets Read Their Work
from Tennyson to Plath, ed.
Elise Paschen and Rebekah Presson
Mosby (Naperville, Ill.: Sourcebooks
MediaFusion, 2001). xiv, 336 p.
: ill. ; 28 cm. + 3 sound discs
(4 3/4 in.)
A report on the early text adventure
game as a "fantasy of the command
line"--i.e., a "ruined"
representation of the standard, Unix-style
shell and command line interface of
the time.
A report on online art and photography
as seen from the point of view of
art collecting; special focus on
Brennecke's Hyperphotos and
Bennett's Human-IntoFace
sites. (See
discussion thread)
www.fraenkelgallery.com
(photography gallery, San Francisco;
see esp. their current exhibition:
The Eye Club)
Jesse Costantino Phish Setlist Sites
A report on the Phish band's "setlist"
database sites maintained by the
band and by fans. The report centers
on the popular exploration of database
and stastical structures as an independent
aesthetic form, as what amounts
to a "skin" or "interface"
that belies the usual distinction
between underlying data structure
and superficial skin. (See
discussion thread)
A report on the "use of new
media as a technical tool in performance,"
"as part of plot and/or marketing
(example: Patrick Marber's Closer),"
and as fully integrted with theater
("theatre as new media").
Focus on the works of Patrick Marber's
Closer, Robert Lepage's Ex
Machina and Far Side of the
Moon, and such sites as Anamorphoses.
I had a scouting report planned
for this week that I think you and
the class would find pretty interesting.
It is an exhibit titled n01sehttp://www.media.demon.co.uk/noise/
It includes contributions from
people like Bruce Sterling and Umberto
Ecco, and from their intro:
"How do data and information
differ?
What is pattern and how do we recognise
it?
Where is the threshold between random
and order?
A multi-site multimedia exhibition
in Cambridge with 'realtime' links
to London, organised around three
key themes in "digitality":
Universal Language
Pattern Recognition
Data Synæsthetics"
