UCSB Art 22
Summer 08
Digital Media Arts Strategies
Instructor

Graham Budgett [office hours - before class by appointment]

TA Salman Bakht [office hours - TBA]
Description

T/Th 2.00-4.50pm*
Rincon Lab-Phelps Hall 1518.

[*except: Thursday 08/14/08 - when we can only have the lab from: 3:00 - 4:50pm]

Digital Media Arts Strategies is the entry course to the digital media area of the Art Department, introducing conceptual and technical artistic issues and methods of digital media arts practice. The course consists of suggested readings and research on digital media specific topics plus lab-time where and when students create projects exploring these topics. The class emphasizes the aquisition of knowledge and skills required for image processing, website creation & maintenance, writing & editing HTML, CSS, Javascript [DHTML] and introduces other computer languages/environments such as Flash [Actionscript], Processing [Java-like], etc.

first-day introduction

art22 group email

resources:

• Photoshop CS3 [trial download]
• Photoshop CS3 [VTC video tutorials ]
• Photoshop CS3 [lynda.comvideo tutorial]
web/print differences
bitmap/vector differences
HTML tutorial
CSS tutorial
DHTML tutorial [HTML/CSS/Javascript]
HTML/CSS/JS tutorials/examples
Processing [freeware Java-based authoring environment]
Flash tutorial
Flash Actionscript
• Flash 8 [trial download]
DVD production [DV editing, DVD scripting, DVD-rom]
information design
algorithmic art

• 22 classwork fall0622 classwork winter0722 classwork spring07
22 classwork fall0722 classwork winter0822 classwork spring08

At home:
on PCs use the free coding tool/text-editor jEdit, or similar to writ and edit your code;
on Macs you can also use jEdit, or the free coding tool/text-editor Textwrangler;
both can edit & upload your work via [s]FTP.

On campus:
use bbEdit for coding and the Uweb method for upload.
[Sign-up for your web account with Uweb.]

You should also keep a back-up on a portable USB drive or similar removable media.

WARNING: this site is a work-in-progress, refer to it often for changes.

Grading

Attendance, punctuality, extra lab-time, participation in discussions & critique, contribution of ideas, energy [15%]
Midterm in-class exercise [15%]
Projects [70% evenly split]

 

Suggested
readings

Christiane Paul: Digital Art

[Links to artworks]

Rachel Greene: Internet Art

[Links to artworks]

1: History [Week 1 2 and 3]
Readings Introduction
0.1 A short history of technology and art
0.2 The presentation, collection, and preservation of digital art
Preface
Introduction
0.1 The Internet's History and Pre-History
0.2 The Art-Historical Context for Internet Art
Research Introduction and Selected topics and artworks from the readings. [notes]
Project 1

Beginners

Intermediate

Lab Photoshop, HTML [links, images], CSS.
2: Digital Technology - Media/Tool/Issue? [Week 4 and 5]
In what various ways can one work with Digital Network technologies? Is it a medium, tool or an issue? What does 'medium-specific' mean? What are the specifics of Digital technologies?
Readings

Chapter 1 Digital Technologies as a Tool
1.1 Digital imaging: photography and print
1.2 Sculpture

Chapter 2 Digital Technologies as a Medium
2.1 Forms of digital art
2.2 Installation
2.3 Film, video, and animation
2.4 Internet art and nomadic networks
2.5 Software art
2.6 Virtual reality and augmented reality
2.7 Sound and music

Chapter 1 Early Internet Art
1.1 Participation in Public Spaces 34
1.2 Russian Internet Art Scene
1.3 New Vocabularies
1.4 Travel and Documentary Modes
1.5 Net.art
1.6 Cyberfeminism
1.7 Corporate Aesthetics
1.8 Telepresence

Research Selected topics and artworks from the readings. [notes]
Project 2

Beginners

Intermediate

Lab Photoshop, HTML/CSS, advanced CSS
Discussion

Christiane Paul describes two different ways of working with digital technology. The first one she calls "digital technology as a tool" - using digital technology together with other tools to produce art in any medium, a print, sculpture or performance. The second, "digital technology as a medium", produces art that is experienced through the technology directly, for example virtual reality, net art, interactive installations.


Lab Photoshop, HTML/CSS, advanced CSS
3: Authorship, Body, Narrative, Identity, the Collective. [Week 6 and 7]
What does networked and digital technologies [ranging from artificial intelligence to 'open source'] do to authorship, subject, identity, presence, intention? The blurring of human and machine, artist[s] and audience, the audience and the work.
Readings Chapter 3
3.1 Artificial life
3.2 Artificial intelligence and intelligent agents
3.3 Telepresence, telematics, and telerobotics
3.4 Body and identity
3.6 Beyond the book: text and narrative environments
Chapter 2
2.1 Email-based Communities
2.2 Exhibition Formats and Collective Projects
2.3 Browsers, ASCII, Automation and Error
2.4 Parody, Appropriation and Remixing
2.5 Mapping Authorship
2.6 Hypertext and Textual Aesthetics
2.7 Remodelling Bodies
2.8 New Forms of Distribution
2.9 Sexual Personae
4.4 Forms of Sharing
4.5 Video and Filmic Discourses
Research Selected topics and artworks from the readings. [notes]
Project 3

Beginners can move on to the intermediate projects.

Intermediates should choose between:

DVD scripting - http://www.arts.ucsb.edu/faculty/budgett/DVDprod.html
Processing - http://processing.org/
Flash [actionscript] - https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=flashpro
Javascript - http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp [etc. see previous emails]

...and produce a work around these keywords that describe an area of practice:
database; system; network; interface; user; interaction; narrative

Lab [from] Advanced HTML/CSS, Javascript, Processing, Flash, DVDproduction/interaction, Database.
Midterm

In-class exercise

 

   
4: "Real World"- Networks, Data, Databases, Hactivism [Week 8 and 9]
Readings 3.5 Databases, data visualization, and mapping
3.8 Tactical media, activism, and hacktivism
3.9 Technologies of the future

3.1 Infowar and Tactical Media in Practice
3.2 Turn of the Millennium, War and the Dotcom Crash
3.3 Data Visualization and Databases
3.7 The Crash of 2000
4.1 Voyeurism, Surveillance and Borders
4.2 Wireless 4.3 E-commerce
4.6 Low-fi Aesthetics 4.7 'Art for Networks'

Research Selected topics and artworks from the readings. [notes]
   
Lab [from] Advanced HTML/CSS, Javascript, Processing, Flash, DVDproduction/interaction, Database.
   
5: "Simulation" - Code, Algorithms, Software and Games [Week 9 and 10]
Readings 2.5 Software art
3.7 Gaming
3.4 Games
3.5 Generative and Software Art
3.6 Open Works
Research Selected topics and artworks from the readings. [notes]
Find two interesting projects on runme.org and/or www.generative.net - include links on your site
Lab [from] Advanced HTML/CSS, Javascript, Processing, Flash, DVDproduction/interaction, Database.
   
Final Take-home based on readings. Final Project presentations.