Penn State University –
School of Visual Arts
Fall 2016
ART 211Y: Introduction
to Digital Art and Design Criticism
Professor: Eduardo Navas
(ean13@psu.edu)
Mondays & Wednesdays 6:00
PM – 7:15 PM
Office Hours: Mondays and
Wedsnesdays , 10 AM – 11 AM, 206 Arts Cottage
Course Description
Art
211Y focuses on developing a critical, theoretical, and historical
understanding of media art and
design. Participants will learn to do research and write effectively on
contemporary media art and design practice, while also developing a project of
their own in response to the material discussed throughout the class.
Participants will attain an intimate understanding of how image, sound and text
are redefined by emerging media and deployed in material and virtual space to
communicate ideas. To achieve this, participants will
examine the conventions, language, practices, and aesthetics used by media
artists and designers in direct relation to the social and cultural
implications that creative production has in society, politics, philosophy,
economics, race, gender, and technological development.
The class is specifically focused on
developing conceptual skills that will enable students to create engaging
experiences with greater depth and intellectual rigor when using still images,
video footage, text, sound, code, and any form of binary information. The main purpose
of the class is to prepare students to learn how to perform effective research
for the successful production of advanced projects according to their own interests
in future classes as well as beyond the classroom.
Emphasis of Class:
The
class will focus on international media art and design. To accomplish this,
students will make use of online resources and databases including Rhizome.org,
Turbulence.org, Furtherfield.org, Digicult.it, and Media Arts Net, among
others. Participants will go over selected works from these online resources to
learn about the history and cultural questions that inform contemporary media
art and design practice. Participants will also implement cultural analytic
methodologies in order to analyze works effectively. This means that students
will learn data visualization to apply them to major projects and class presentations.
The class will use three texts, Keywords:
A Vocabulary of Culture and Society
by Raymond Williams, Mythologies by Roland Barthes, and Media Art Histories edited by Oliver
Grau. We will be studying in depth the writing approaches by the authors in
order to attain a concrete understanding of the research and writing process
that each of them went through for their respective publications. Participants
will apply their understanding of the authors¹ writing processes to their own
research, writing and project development.
Class Structure
Class
sections for the most part will be divided as follows: One of the days in the
week (mostly Wednesdays) will consist of discussion and lectures on material
being researched for assignments. The other day of class (mostly Mondays) will
be a day of work and research; it may also be a day of brief review to make
sure students are up to date on all material covered to that point in class.
These days will fluctuate in relation to the schedule of classes around
holidays. Students will be enhancing their writing, research as well as
technical skills according to their respective projects. Students will meet
with the instructor individually as needed. The students will turn in a total
of three projects.
Project
1: Analysis of new media art/design project
Project
2: Analysis of second new media art/design project
Project
3: Production of new media art/design project (by students)
Details
on each project will be announced at least two weeks prior to the due date.
Learning Outcomes:
A Note on Plagiarism
Plagiarism
will not be tolerated. A student who commits plagiarism will be reported to the
office of the visual arts. The student¹s behavior will be taken very seriously
and dealt with according to the guidelines provided by Penn State University
– School of Visual Arts. To avoid plagiarism, please cite your sources
when appropriate.
Academic Integrity Statement
University
Policies and Rules Guidelines states that academic integrity is the pursuit of scholarly
activity in an open, honest and responsible manner. Academic integrity is a
basic guiding principle for all academic activity at The Pennsylvania State
University, and all members of the University community are expected to act in
accordance with this principle. Consistent with this expectation, the
University's Code of Conduct states that all students should act with personal
integrity, respect other students' dignity, rights and property, and help
create and maintain an environment in which all can succeed through the fruits
of their efforts. Academic integrity includes a commitment not to engage in or
tolerate acts of falsification, misrepresentation or deception. Such acts of
dishonesty violate the fundamental ethical principles of the University
community and compromise the worth of work completed by others.
Academic dishonesty includes but is not limited to acts such as
cheating on exams or assignments; plagiarizing the words or ideas of another;
fabricating information or citations; facilitating acts of academic dishonesty
by others; claiming authorship of work done by another person; submitting work
completed in previous classes; and/or submitting the same work to multiple
classes in which a student is enrolled simultaneously.
Accessibility Statement
Penn
State welcomes students with disabilities into the University's educational
programs. Every Penn State campus has an office for students with disabilities.
The Office for Disability Services (ODS) Web site provides contact information
for every Penn State campus: http://equity.psu.edu/ods/dcl. For
further information, please visit the Office for Disability Services Web site: http://equity.psu.edu/ods.
In
order to receive consideration for reasonable accommodations, you must contact
the appropriate disability services office at the campus where you are
officially enrolled, participate in an intake interview, and provide
documentation: http://equity.psu.edu/ods/guidelines.
If the documentation supports your request for reasonable accommodations, your
campus¹s disability services office will provide you with an accommodation
letter. Please share this letter with your instructors and discuss the
accommodations with them as early in your courses as possible. You must follow
this process for every semester that you request accommodations.
Safety Information
Students in the School of Visual Arts may
find themselves working in the shop or in their studios or classrooms using a
variety of power and hand held equipment, which may cause injury. Students
should use the shop only after having received an orientation in the use of
such equipment and when supervised by faculty or shop personnel. Should any
injuries occur, in the shop, studios, or classrooms in the School of Visual
Arts please report them to Matt Olson, Shop Supervisor, Room 108-A Visual Arts
Building, Phone: 814-865-3962, email: mjo5165@psu.edu.
Required Books
Available
at the PSU Bookstore:
Barthes,
Roland. Mythologies. New York: Hill
and Wang, 2012.
Oliver
Grau, Ed. Media Art Histories.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2007.
Williams,
Raymond. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture
and Society. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2015.
Online Resources:
We
will be analyzing work by contemporary artists. Many of them will be found in
the following online resources (in no particular order):
http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/Artport
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/mediaartnet/
Recommended Books
You
are not required to buy the following books. They are included because they
will be useful in helping you engage with contemporary new media and digital
art:
Rush,
Michael. New Media in Art. New York:
Thames & Hudson, 1999.
Paul,
Christiane. Digital Art. New York:
Thames & Hudson, 2015.
Requirements
Please
note that final grades are dependent upon consistent performance in all course
requirements.
Grading
Total 100%
Grade Scale
Attendance
Semester Schedule
Lectures
on history and theory will shift according to the students¹ needs to gain
practical knowledge from week to week.
Week 1:
Monday, August 22, 2016
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Week 2:
Monday, August 29, 2016
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Week 3:
Monday, September 5, 2016
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Week 4:
Monday, September 12, 2016
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Week 5:
Monday, September 19, 2016
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Week 6:
Monday, September 26, 2016
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Week 7:
Monday, October 3, 2016
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Week 8:
Monday, October 10, 2016
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Week 9:
Monday, October 17, 2016
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Week 10:
Monday, October 24, 2016
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
Week 11:
Monday, October 31, 2016
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Week 12:
Monday, November 7, 2016
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Week 13:
Monday, November 14, 2016
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Due: Proposal for Final project
Week 14:
Monday, November 21 2016
Thanksgiving
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Thanksgiving
Week 15:
Monday, November 28, 2016
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Week 16:
Monday, December 5, 2016
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Week 17:
December 12, 2016