History and Theory of Digital Art

See university statements here.

History and Theory of Digital Art	Professor Mark Amerika Spring 2011 Tuesday/Thursday 3:30 - 4:45 VAC 1B23 (Digital Art Seminar Room) email: Mark.Amerika@Colorado.Edu Office Hours: By appointment
What It Is	As part of our goal to seek other perspectives that will help us explore these exciting areas of study, we will engage ourselves with a provocative mix of readings, screenings, web-surfings, metro-region exhibitions, and in-class visitors throughout the semester. Visiting artists and exhibitions in the Boulder/Denver area this semester include: January 20: CU Faculty Show (CU Museum exhibition opening) * January 27: Illya Szilak (in-class) * February 10: Jeremy Yuille (in-class) * February 15: Norie Neumark (in-class) * February 16: Steina (Denver Art Museum) March 10: Blink! (Denver Art Museum exhibition opening) * March 16: Charles Sandison (Denver Art Museum) March 29: Shana Moulton (VAC auditorium) * April 12: William Basinski (Communikey) * April 20: Alan Rath (Denver Art Museum) The schedule below is a "loose itinerary" of subjects we will visit on the way toward further artistic and intellectual stimulation. Be prepared for our schedule to occasionally go through changes, especially as we confirm dates for visiting artists. Here is a tentative schedule of weekly events: January 11/13: Roll Call + Syllabus Reading + Course Introduction + Overview of Student-Built Website Readings for next week: Walter Benjamin: "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." (pdf or html) Vannevar Bush: "As We May Think" January 18/20: Discussion of opening readings (including your blog entries) + introduction to key concepts and examples of early digital art January 20th: CU Faculty Show exhibition opening January 25/27 & February 1/3/8: Early net art, electronic literature, and the exhibition / publication context Confirmed visiting artist for January 27: Illya Szilak Introduction to Net Art and Survey of Online Exhibitions What is electronic literature? How is published/distributed? What is Internet art? How do we exhibit it? Where do we find it? Begin survey of various works of online/digital narrative. 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 & 2002 tate modern SFMOMA's e.space Rhizome's ARTBASE Art Entertainment Network 010101 Histories of Internet Art: Fictions and Factions (HIAFF) Readings: Introduction to Net Art (1994-1999) Fluidities and Oppositions among Curators, Filter Feeders, and Future Artists February 10 & 15 Confirmed visiting artist: February 10: Jeremy Yuille (in-class) February 15: Norie Neumark (in-class) February 16: Steina (Denver Art Museum) February 17/22/24 Presentations of collaborative "Net Artist" reports. February 24: Ryan Trecartin: James Franco interview with Ryan Trecartin The Video Artist Ryan Trecartin's Nonlinear Reality, and Welcome to It Wayne's World (2003) 8:05 K-Corea INC.K (2009) 33:05 Art Fag City interview with Ryan Trecartin about riverthe.net riverthe.net Confirmed visiting artists for March: March 11: Isaac Julien (ATLAS 100) March 16: Charles Sandison (Denver Art Museum) March 29: Shana Moulton (VAC auditorium) March 1: Trecartin + Web 2.0 art 1) Hyper-X: Blog Art Exhibition 2) Screenfull 3) Triptych TV 4) Blogroll 5) Thru-You Readings for March 8: Paul Miller's (DJ Spooky aka That Subliminal Kid) book Rhythm Science March 8: Discuss Paul Miller's (DJ Spooky aka That Subliminal Kid) book Rhythm Science and investigation of digital sound art. Demo the Professor VJ Playlist. March 10: Group meetings Note: March 10th is the preview opening of Blink! Light, Sound, and the Moving Image at the Denver Art Museum. You are invited to be my guest and attend the celebratory party starting at 7:00. March 15: Continue sound art + final group meetings March 16: Mid-term projects due at 5:00. Mid-term project assignment can be found here. March 17: Informal midterm discussion and foodie scene March 22 & 24: SPRING BREAK Reading for April 5: Ken Wark: The Hacker Manifesto March 29 & March 31: Hactivism / Culture Jamming / Remix / Mash-up Confirmed visiting artist: March 29: Shana Moulton (VAC auditorium) Discuss Obidike, RTMARK, USDAT and view works related to hactivism / culture jamming Screen The Yes Men on March 31 April 5 & 7: Discuss The Yes Men Discuss Wark's "Hacker Manifesto" Continue look into remix as hactivism. You can find your final project assignment here. April 12 - 26: Video art/performance. Video blogging Live A/V Performance. Mobile Phone Video Art. Digitally-expanded Forms of Cinema. Image Écriture. Art-apps. and more... Confirmed visiting artist: April 12: William Basinski (Communikey) Confirmed visiting artist: April 20: Alan Rath (Denver Art Museum)
Tagging the Present
Bling Bling Blogging	This course requires that you maintain and regularly post entries to class-specific blog. If you do not know what a blog is or have never started one before, look it up on Wikipedia. You can get started at a popular spot like blogger.com which lets you start building and designing your own "blog" at their website if you want to do it the easy way. Each week throughout the semester, YOU ARE REQUIRED to compose an entry to your "blog" detailing your thoughts about the various readings, art works, artists, theories, screenings, events, and classroom discussions you encounter over the course of the semester. Try and make at least two links to external sites from each of your main entries to help document your online research. Quote from these sites if possible. Each entry should be 400-500 words unless otherwise noted. Feel free to embed digital images, YouTube or Quicktime movies, and any other useful media in your "blogs" in addition to your writing. If you have the inclination and/or are interested in proactively researching the phenomenon known as "video blogging" (where you script or improvise your reactions to the course material, videotape the response, and edit it into a video blog entry), feel free to discuss that with me before proceeding. Keep in mind that these "blogs" need to be well-thought out subjective responses to various issues covered throughout the semester. You are also encouraged to express your own spontaneous artist theories that reveal your own personal writing style. Feel free to speculate and offer insights into how the work you are being exposed to this semester is starting to affect your own developing practice as an artist, writer, teacher, theorist, interdisciplinary media practitioner, performer, etc. Since these will be online, that means they are "always already published" and, as such, are open to the public. Keep that in mind! *NOTE: Your weekly blogs are due at noon on Tuesday before* class.** LINKS: You can check out Professor Steve Shaviro's blog here. To keep up with the latest in interdisciplinary media art practice, two blogs stand out: here and here too. Definitely view some of the episodes at this video blog site (and while you're at it, this one too). The theoretical concept of a video blog was first developed here. If you look for it, you will find A LOT of blog art out there. For example, this exhibition at Alt-X.