History and Theory of Digital Art -- ARTS 4316/5316

HISTORY AND THEORY OF DIGITAL ART

Syllabus for History and Theory of Digital Art	Professor Mark Amerika Fall 2004 T/TH 3:30 - 4:45 N275 (Experimental Digital Arts Lab) email: Mark.Amerika@Colorado.Edu
In the beginning...
"For the artist, consciousness is more to be explored than to be explained, more to be transformed than understood, more to be reframed than reported." - Roy Ascott, from "The Shamantic Web: art and mind in emergence" as part of the Digital Studies online exhibition	Course Introduction and Survey of Online Exhibitions What is Internet Art? How do we exhibit it? Where do we find it? Begin survey of various Internet art exhibitions relevant to the course including: adaweb Digital Studies: Being in Cyberspace beyond interface turbulence net_condition Desktop Is Whitney Biennial 2000 (where is it?) takesyou.to/manyplaces tate modern SFMOMA's e.space Rhizome's ARTBASE Art Entertainment Network 010101 Histories of Internet Art: Fictions and Factions (HIAFF) First project assignment: develop a research strategy for curating a new section of the net.practice area of the student-run "Histories of Internet Art" (HIAFF) website. Start by looking closely at the current areas developed by former students and then investigate the various online exhibitions linked to from the syllabus. After having conducted a thorough investigation into this emerging art form, locate 5 works of Internet art under a new subject heading (similar to the ones that already exist such as "digital narrative," "hactivism," "gui art," etc.) and begin developing a uniquely designed web "exhibition" that has the following components: an 1200-1500 word curatorial statement that discusses the general developments in digital/internet art as well as the specific developments in your particular area of inquiry. Emphasize the qualities of the selected work that make it a strong selection (visual, conceptual, interactive, performative, literary, programmatic, etc.). Be sure to devote more than half of your statement to reviews of each of the individual works selected for your curated "exhibition" (think of it as if you were "making a case" for the inclusion of this work on our HIAFF web site). This statement can be creatively designed as a multi-linear hypertext, an animated Flash object, a publishable .pdf document, or a scrollable html document. external links to all of the selected works (clicking on these links should open up in a new pop-up window) at least five references and links to online sources (essays, reviews, exhibitions, etc.) that you cite in your curatorial statement to help "make your case" (clicking on these links should also open up a new pop-up window) Besides creating this online "exhibition" and curatorial statement for the web, you will also be making 20 minute presentations of your research and "exhibition" results to the entire class. These presentations should be specific and articulate what it is about the work you are showcasing that makes it an important model for our digital studies and why it should be included in the HIAFF web site. Only the most convincing "exhibitions", statements, and presentations will have a chance of influencing developments on the larger HIAFF web site. These online research projects are due on October 12th. Each day late will result in a one letter grade loss. Send me an email before class with the exact web address of the project. Presentations will take place starting on Tuesday, October 12th. ONGOING BLOG ASSIGNMENT: Do a web search on the recent phenomenon known as "blogs" or web-logs. You are encouraged to create an experimental "blog" although popular spots like blogger.com even let you start building and designing your own "blog" at their website if you want to do it the easy way. Throughout the semester, you will be required to compose a series of 300-400 word entries to your "blog" detailing your responses and thoughts about the various essays, art works, artists, curators, events and discussions you encounter over the course of the semester. Some of these will specific blog assignments, some will be "free" blog entries on topics you choose and that have relevance for the course. Create at least two links from each entry of your "blog" entries to external sites of relevance. Feel free to include digital images, diagrams, animations, and Quicktime movies in your "blogs" in addition to your writing. Keep in mind that these "blogs" should be subjective but can also be playful, fictional (in other voices or from other POVs), or constitute your version of "pure research". Feel free to speculate and offer insights into how the work you are being exposed to this semester is starting to effect your own developing practice as an artist, writer, student, or appreciator of the digital arts. You may want to ask yourself a lot of questions, right in the blog itself, and then set out to answer these questions as best you can. Referring to other blogs with links is common blog practice and thus encouraged. Since these will be online, that means they are "already published" and, as such, are open to the public. Keep that in mind! A few sample blogs to look at: CU Digital Art Graduate students are blogging here and here and here. Some undergrads are blogging on digital art too, especially Matt, Sharon, Tom, Cindy, Silvia, Nathan, and Wes. Norell has a blog site here and archives here and here. Check it all out. Also go here and here, not to mention here and here, here, here, and definitely here.
"One might subsume the eliminated element in the term 'aura' and go on to say: that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art." - Walter Benjamin, 1935	Walter Benjamin's seminal essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." The Scientific Perspective: Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think" Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality ZKP 4. Alternative publication focused primarily on net politics and net.art propaganda. Check out the complete nettime for other ZKP publications as well as the complete archive of the nettime email list. Art and the Age of the Digital (transcript of lecture delivered by David Ross, former Director of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) Seven Misunderstandings of Interactive Art The Walker Art Center's Shock of the View program. Notice how this program consists of only online elements, i.e. a discussion list, an area for invited respondents to deal with crucial issues of digital art, and an attempt to critically/historically evaluate art work created in more traditional media in conjunction with art work created in digital media. Here's one alternative "History of Internet Art" timeline with good links.
...there was data...
"What would the Futurists have done with an information superhighway?" - Mark Amerika, from the "Avant-Pop Manifesto"	Presentations of First Project Second and final project assignment: develop a creative and/or critical hypertext web site on a topic relevant to the course. Questions that your project may want to investigate include: What is Internet art and how is it exhibited? Is there a difference between net art and art on the net? At this early stage of I-art history, what are the evolving models of net art being employed by its practitioners? How do the various online exhibitions reviewed in class compare to each other? What are their similarities and/or differences? How does Walter Benjamin's ideas, as well as other early philosophers and critical theorists, prophesize the development of new media art forms like those associated with the Internet? How does Internet art compare to other works of art from other media? Use concrete examples comparing work from one discipline/artist/era to those works of Internet art investigated in class. For example, how does experimental writing or conceptual art inform hypertext production? Or, how does video art or installation art relate to browser art? Are there any connections to be found when comparing Modern art movements like Dadaism with some of the net art work created by European and Russian net artists? If yes, is that this form of net art retro? Is it intentionally satirical? Is there an ongoing Rival Tradition in art that "goes against tradition" and if so, what value might that Rival Tradition bring to art history? Etc. How does Internet differ from other forms of art? What are the implications of creating art work specfically for the Internet that create a new set of challenges for more institutional art settings like museums and galleries? Is this work being collected? If yes, by who? And how? What are the larger political and economic implications of art on the net? Other topics of interest would include "gender and technology," "the digital divide," the bridging of the "two cultures" (science and the humanities) in digital art, and "the blurring of art forms in cyberspace (visual, literary, conceptual, performace, etc.)". Develop a uniquely designed hypertext site that has the following components: at least 25 interlinked documents that are part of a well-conceived multi-linear navigational structure where each page has at least two relevant links embedded in the page (one of the links on each page can be to an external site but this link must open in a "pop-up" window) images, screenshots, diagrams, etc. that help the reader "visualize" what it is you are writing about at least five quotes from external sources (i.e. critical reviews, new media theories, quotes from artists from interviews or artist's statements, etc.). OPTIONAL: create a collaborative project with one or two other members of the class. If you decide to do a collaborative project, the project needs to reflect the work of numerous collaborators. These projects can be creative hypertexts, animations, digital narratives, theoretical performances, etc. If you choose this route, you must send an email proposal to Professor Amerika and get his approval by November 2nd. Links to some student projects: Joel Swanson, Edentity Kate Gannon, Remi & Gus (the adventures of) Matt Carter, SEECODE Cindy McCann, where she ends - i begin Halsey Chait, Lost Laboratory Kyris Ang (with Ma Shaoling), H.y.p.e.r-t.r.a.v.e.l Dylan Brooks, Self-Interview Leah Gose, Digital Narrative Wes Willet, Dissection of the Specimen Hypermedia projects are due on April 13th at 3:30 p.m.
...and this data was code for what?
Rip Mix Burn	Moblogs. VJs. Mash-ups. Zines. . P2P. iBods? Students with disabilities who qualify for academic accommodations must provide a letter from Disability Services (DS) and discuss specific needs with the professor, preferably during the first two weeks of class. DS determines accommodations based on documented disabilities (303-492-8671, Willard 322, www.colorado.edu/sacs/disabilityservices)