Graduate Seminar in Digital Art


Syllabus for Graduate Seminar in Digital Art Professor Mark Amerika
Fall 2002
Thurs 5:00 - 7:30
N-185 and blurr Experimental Teaching Lab
email: Mark.Amerika@Colorado.Edu
Readings  
Introductory Cues A sampling of essays by artists and curators:

Erkki Huhtamo: Seven Misunderstandings of Interactive Art(1996)

Curatorial Statements "Digital Studies: Being in Cyberspace" exhibition(1997)

Joachim Blank: "What is Net Art ;-)?"(1997)

Robert Adrian: "Net Art on Nettime."(1997)

Steve Dietz: "Net Art and Art on the Net"(1998)

Shock of the View: artists, audiences, and museums in the digital age...(1999)

Nathalie Bookchin and Alexei Shulgin: "Introduction to Net Art"(1999)

A Net Art Idea Line(2000)

Assignment for the Fall 2002 semester
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.

Each week throughout the semester, compose a 200-300 word entry to your "blog" detailing your thoughts about the various essays, art works, artists, curators, events and discussions you encounter over the course of the semester. Try and make at least three links from your "blogs" to external sites. Do this for each entry. You should have at least 12 entries by the close of the semester.

Feel free to include digital images, diagrams, animations, and Quicktime movies in your "blogs" in addition to your writing. These value-added multi-media elements are not required, though - the only requirements are at least 12 200-300 word entries.

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. 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.

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:

Here and here and here, not to mention here, here and definitely here.

Viewings  
Digital narrative and net art Giselle Beiguelman: The Book After The Book

Olia Lialina: Agatha Appears

Shelley Jackson: MY BODY

Stuart Moulthrop: Hegirascope

Natalie Bookchin: The Intruder

Annette Weintraub: Sampling Broadway

Matthew Ritchie: The Hard Way

Darcey Steinke: Blindspot

Tina Laporta: Distance

Peter Greenaway: The Tulse Luper Suitcase

David Blair: Waxweb

Mark Amerika: GRAMMATRON, PHON:E:ME and FILMTEXT

Bobby Rabyd: Sunshine 69

Olia Lialina: My boyfriend came back from the war!

TECHNE The University of Colorado at Boulder Fine Art Department is developing a cutting edge curriculum in digital art. One part of this development is the TECHNE practice-based research initiative which includes the student-run "Histories of Internet Art" multi-media net art resource, as well as other online exhibitions, research papers, and live, online happenings or "telematic events". You can find the site here.
More Viewings  
Variable Net Art and Online Portals adaweb - especially Jenny Holzer's "Please Change Beliefs" and Darcy Steinke's "Blindspot" (which was included in the 2000 Whitney Biennial)

Form Art and Easylife

Face Value

Identity Swap Database

Mongrel

Turbulence

"Distance"

Events and Visiting Artists Throughout the Fall semester our Graduate seminar will be actively involved in and enjoying the benefits of both the "Rethinking the Visual" conference / "Mapping Transitions" online exhibition, as well as the TECHNE visiting digital artist series.

From September 12-15, seminar participants will be asked to engage in the "Rethinking the Visual" conference and "Mapping Transitions" online exhibition. Visiting artists, theorists, and curators participating in this event include Mary Flanagan, Lisa Jevbratt, John Klima, Christiane Paul, W.J. T. Mitchell, Joanna Drucker, Rod Coover and Faye Ginsberg.

During the first half of the semester, participants in the TECHNE Visiting Digital Artist Series include:

  • DJ Spooky: October 8th
  • Giselle Beiguleman: October 17th
  • Yael Kanarek: November 7th
  • Alex Galloway: November 14th
  • John Simon: December 5th
  • Mark Tribe: December 12th


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)