Software is mind control - get some.       -- I.O.D. artist collective

Interactive artists manipulate their audiences. How, why, and how successfully this is done becomes part of the aesthetic. Success may also depend on the development of a sophisticated audience. Many art forms require the audience's suspension of disbelief. I would argue that interactive forms may sometimes require the participants to suspend their own will. 

 -- Josephine Anstey, Virtual Reality (C.A.V.E.  artist)

In 1962, the first computer game was invented by some hackers at MIT...Why was "Spacewar" the 'natural' thing to build with this new technology? Why not a pie chart or an automated kaleidoscope or a desktop? Its designers identified *action* as the key ingredient and conceived "Spacewar" as a game that could provide a good balance between thinking and doing for its players... Its interesting potential lay not in its ability to perform calculations but in its capacity to represent action in which humans could participate.

-- Brenda Laurel, Computers As Theatre

The poet is "preeminently the maker of the plot, the framework - not necessarily of everything that takes place within that framework...creates a situation wherein he invites other persons and the world in general to be co-creators with him! He does not wish to be a dictator but a loyal co-initiator within the free society of equals which he hopes his work will bring about."

- Jackson MacLow's post-WWII aesthetic of the 'open work',
cited by Matthew Fuller in essay, "The Impossibility of Interface"

Games are important and meaningful when, and only when, they do what other, more traditional forms of collective experience do - provide a space for the building of friendship and community.

- Daniel Oppenheimer, "Game Theory", The Valley Advocate newspaper, 11.24.05

description

This studio course focuses on the creation of interfaces and the design of interactivity as cultural and aesthetic form. The course emphasizes individual projects and one collaborative project in computer-based Interactive Multimedia production. Participants will extend their individual experimentation with time-based processes and development of media production skills (2-D animation, video and audio production skills introduced in ARS 162, 263) - developed in the context of interactive multimedia production for performance, installation, CD-ROM or Internet. Critical examination and discussion of contemporary examples of new media art will augment this studio course. Prerequisite: ARS 162 and permission of the instructor.

objectives

You will be completing 3 multimedia projects (with relevant exercises buiding up to those projects). You will also be participating in an ongoing conversation about the potentials and problematics of digital systems and processes for telling stories, for "gaming", for emotionally engaging a viewer/interactor, for critically engaging the cultural politics of electronic media (generally) and software (specifically).

What are some of the questions to be raised through our investigations this semester? Here are a few. What is the relationship between story and game? How are they different, if at all? Is there such a thing as critical play? What is its relationship to art? Does a compelling experience of interactive media art depend upon a viewer/interactor's feeling of immersion? Is there a necessary, productive tension between interactive experience and immersive experience? How is the feeling of agency (interaction with effects) meaningful when interactivity itself necessarily requires constraints, producing an illusion of agency? What models do the histories of cinema offer us in relation to interactive media? What new forms of game-stories are emerging that resist the dominance of big-budget video game entertainment in favor of a more diverse, broader-ranging interplay of aesthetic and cultural agendas and histories of play?

This semester our studio work will involve the development of skills and critical strategies related to the following:

  • Interface conceptualization and design.
  • Orchestration of audio-visual elements using a multimedia "authoring" environment.
  • Simple coding using ActionScript (for Flash). Other authoring environments (Director or Processing) may be introduced as the time in the semester allows.
  • Continuation of digital imaging and animation techniques toward creation of narrative or game space ("diagetic" or "generative" worlds).
  • Introduction of relevant audio and video techniques (for those who are continuing from ARS162).

required textbooks (2)

  • Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan (editors), First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004 )
    price approximately 28 dollars. (also on reserve in Hillyer Library)
     
  • Colin Moock, ActionScript for Flash MX Pocket Reference (Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly, 2003)
    Price: approximately 10 dollars. (We will discuss this purchase in class.)

required on-line resource

  • You are required to obtain a free subscription to Net Art News (sent out as emails from the Rhizome website).

other resources

  • On-line (web) or photocopied materials may be assigned during the semester.
  • See print bibliography for book recommendations.
  • Note that numerous technical reference books are available in the DDS Lab (Seeyle B-3) on Macromedia Director, Flash, Blender 3D, Final Cut Pro, Dreamweaver, etc., for your work outside class.
  • See citations page for ongoing additions of electronic media and web-based recommendations.

From on-campus you can access the following two member organizations for free. Both are relevant to our studies this semester.

  • Rhizome at www.rhizome.org - Rhizome is an artist-run, on-line, not-for-profit organization based in NYC. It features net art projects, reviews, news, announcements, etc. Access to this website is free to non-members on Fridays, but is otherwise restricted to "members" (those who pay an annual fee). Smith has an institutional membership so that while on-campus you can access it without restriction.
  • Leonardo Electronic Almanac at mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/LEA2002/LEA/index.htm - This is an online extension of the academic monthly print journal (also recommended), Leonardo - Journal of Art, Science, and Technology. Its academic feel and scholarly style reflect its institutional ties and resources. However, the contributions are from new media artists, composers, sonic artists, and collaborating engineers and scientists.

supplies and hard-drive for media storage

Expect to spend from $20 to $40 on media materials for this course.

Supplies include such items as recordable media, idea notebook, production props,batteries, A-V cables, etc. For audio recording you will need to have your own set of headphones (approximately $5-10), plus a stereo mini cable may be required. You will also need at least 2 recordable (non-rewritable) DVDs (for final portfolio - as will be discussed further in class).

Each participant in the class will be loaned a portable hard-drive for the duration of the semester. This loan will be handled through through Media Services. Details will be discussed in class.

attendance

Attendance is required for every class meeting and for the full class period. In addition to non-attendance, unexcused absences include: arriving late to class, leaving class early. Unexcused absences will result in a lower grade proportionate to the number of days absent. The 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 this semester 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 (in-class and online) and exercises. Earn up to 20 points total.
  • The work you produce will consist of 3 main assignments. Earn up to 80 points total.

The quality of the work you produce this semester will be evaluated based upon your demonstrated ability:

  1. to take risks.
  2. to engage conceptual or representational issues issues with compelling focus and clarity.
  3. to begin to formulate verbally the conceptual or representational issues at stake.
  4. to make unusual and unexpected associations within the matrix of visual ideas that comprise your work.
  5. to draw from, and also to test and transgress the boundaries of your own individual experience - that is, to look beyond yourself through the creative process.
  6. to produce 'open-ended work'. (By 'open-ended work' is meant projects which suggest, by and through their visual strategies, further questions and directions to explore).

Your final grade is based on these broad criteria, You will not be receiving a grade on each individual assignment. Evaluation during the semester (prior to the final grade) will include intensive critiques and may include a mid-semester progress report involving an approximate grade assessment.