"When a viewer looks at our work, we are inside his computer. There is this hacker slogan: 'We love your computer.'   We also get inside people's computers. And we are honored to be in somebody's computer. You are very close to a person when you are on his desktop. I think the computer is a device to get into someone's mind."

-- Dirk Paesman of JODI, net artist collaborative

"Find an arcade at the airport, at the mall. You are in transit. Interrupt the information flow. Put yourself on the screen. See something else. If you go on the screen, a little bit of the machine will stay inside of you. If you play the game you will need to replenish your energy..."

-- Sally McKay, on the media art of Kristen Lucas

"Art has the unique license to portray human subjectivity - including its fundamental new dimension of being 'immersed in data.'"

-- Lev Manovich, author of The Language of New Media

"Globalization has created a new theater that bursts the boundaries of the theater of everyday life."

-- Critical Art Ensemble, from Digital Resistance: Explorations in Tactical Media (p.103)

description

An introduction to visual experience through a study of basic principles of design. All course work will be developed and completed using the functions of a computer graphics work station.

objectives

We will explore the intersection of aesthetic form and cultural ideas through experimentation with digital image-making techniques. This experimentation will form the basis of a broader inquiry. For example, what is the relationship between images and the tools that we use to make them? Can digital or computer-based tools be seen more expansively as components of a new medium, one with its own unique attributes and possibilities? How does the computer's indifferent, automated processes mediate and unsettle our relationship to images - our relationship as image-makers, as designers, and as viewers who engage (and are moved or provoked by) those images? Even more crucially, how does the globalized connectivity of the World Wide Web, along with related new communications technologies and cultural practices, change the ways we make images, use images, and understand them?

The course will emphasize image-making possibilities integral to electronic networks and to electronic-mediated interactivity. In order to accomplish this, we need to begin with introductory "coding" - conventions of signs and syntax which are integral to human-computer interactions and to all computer-mediated production, including image-making. We will create a foundation of understanding with the simplest scripting language: HTML, and extend this experimentation using CSS and DHTML. This will form the basis of hypermedia/web design (using Dreamweaver). Web design, for us, will be part of a broader consideration of forms of "audience address" and communication networks as "public space". We will translate visual ideas into raster-based and structured graphics using relevant tools (e.g., digital cameras, scanners) and software (Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash). Finally, as the length of the semester allows, we will expand our engagement with the affective life of the image through time-based composition (animation) and simple interactivity using Flash.

The material of this course will include:

  • Visual communicaton: formal elements, composition in 2 dimensions, expressive and generative strategies within the computer environment
  • Exposure to a range of concepts relevant to digital media processes: 'graphic user interface', database, simulation, 'locative media', etc.
  • Basic history and concepts of computing, the Internet and digital culture
  • Web-based media production including a practical and basic understanding of code - using HTML, CSS, and DHTML.
  • Digital image gathering and conversion processes using scanners and cameras
  • 2-D bitmap ('raster') image processing using relevant software
  • Structured graphics ('vector', 'object-oriented' graphics) using relevant software
  • Designing in motion: basics of animation (as time in the course allows)

required textbook and related materials

  • Rachel Greene , Internet Art (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2004). Price: $17

Note that additional study materials will be available, either linked from the course website or on reserve at the Hillyer Art Library (along with supplemental electronic references available through the Library's website). A free subscription to receive emails for Net Art News, from Rhizome.org, is also required.

required web account

You are required to obtain a free, student web account, which will allow you to create your own personal website as well as to display work produced for this class. (This website will be yours for the entire time that you are at Smith until you graduate.) Details about getting this account will be discussed in class.

supply expenses

Expect to possibly spend up to $20 on media materials for this course (in addition to textbook).

Supplies could include such items as recordable media, idea notebook, production props, etc. Recordable media will include two recordable CD-ROMs or DVDs (for final portfolio and final storage of files),

media equipment access

Each participant in the class will be loaned a portable hard-drive for the duration of the semester. This loan will be handled through The Center for Media Production (formerly referred to as Media Services). Each participant will also be able to access other equipment for specific assignments, on a short-term (24-48hr) loan basis, through the Center. Details will be discussed in class.

attendance

Attendance is required for every class meeting and for the full class period. Unexcused absences include: non-attendance, arriving late to class, leaving class early. Unexcused absences will result in a lower grade proportionate to the number of days absent. Final grade will be reduced by a full letter grade for every unexcused absence beyond three.

One or more outside events may be assigned during the semester. There will be flexibility for those who have commitments that conflict with such events.

special needs

Please let the instructor know if, due to a difference or disability, you need special accomodations in this course. The information you share with her is confidential. Such arrangements will help the instructor facilitate, for the benefit of everyone, the full participation of every person in the course.

grading

The grade you earn during this course will be based both upon the quality of the work you make and the quality of your contribution to the collective knowledge and experience of the class as a whole. Note also that you must turn in assigned projects ON TIME to be eligible for a grade of "A" in this course.

  • Your contributions to the collective experience of the class will be based upon:

    -- your attendance, participation in class discussions and weblog assignment... up to 25 points total;

    -- one mid-semester report... up to 15 points total.

  • The work you produce will consist of a sequence of approximately 5 thematic assignments with related exercises, plus one final project. All these will be posted on the web and also submitted as a cdrom portfolio at the end of the semester
     
    --up to 60 points total.

  • Participation in an end-of-semester exhibition may be required.

The quality of the work you produce will be evaluated based upon your demonstrated ability, increasingly across the duration of the semester,:

    1. to take risks.
    2. to engage design problems with compelling focus and clarity.
    3. to make unusual and unexpected associations within the matrix of visual ideas that emerge in the process of working through each assignment.
    4. to begin to use relevant concepts to articulate formal, structural, and representational issues.

While your final grade is based on these broad criteria, your individual project presentations will be evaluated based on the objectives detailed in each assignment. Note, however, that you will not be receiving a grade on each individual assignment. Evaluation during the semester (prior to the final grade) will include critiques and will include a progress report (sometime near mid-semester) involving an approximate grade assessment.