57043 New Media Aesthetics

Handbook description

This subject introduces students to contemporary concerns in new media aesthetics through presentation of works and readings. The main focus is multimedia but other hybrid works such as sound/performance/multimedia installation are also considered. Interface design, use of sound, and the ways that new forms are being and can be developed are addressed critically and theoretically. Students examine their own work (including in production) and other works to tease out why certain forms are being reproduced and what creative developments in new media aesthetics are possible.

Subject objectives/outcomes

1. To enable students to develop skills in critically engaging with and analysing new media works.
2. To introduce students to contemporary concerns in new media through presentation of new media works and readings.
3. To introduce students to new media industry issues, within the landscape of media production in general.
4. To address theoretical issues through in-depth discussion of case studies.
5. To encourage students to engage with issues of aesthetics in their own production work.

Contribution to graduate profile

Students completing this subject:

• have some knowledge of aesthetics and new media industry issues, within the landscape of media production general
• have had the opportunity to develop some conceptual skills and critical thinking in relation to various areas of media production
• are able to develop and critically revise their own work.

Teaching and learning strategies

• Weekly seminars and flexible learning
• An extensive audition/viewing program of new media works
• Reading and analysis of texts
• Student presentation of seminar papers and participation in workshops
• Student online activities and projects
• Major project, such as an essay or net.art project.

Content

• Introduction to questions of new media and aesthetics
• Digital aesthetics: affects and the senses
• Precursors to new media art
• Interactive cinema
• Hypertext
• Questioning Technology and Art
• Net art + CD Rom art + electronic art
• Locative media
• Emerging forms.

Assessment

Assessment item 1: Leading tutorial discussion

Assessment item 2: Reflection on aesthetic issues in production work

Assessment item 3: Major project

Minimum requirements

Since class discussion and participation in activities form an integral part of this subject,you are expected to attend, arrive punctually and actively participate in classes. Should you experience difficulties meeting this requirement, please contact yourlecturer. Students who have a reason for extended absence from class (e.g., illness) may be required to complete additional work to ensure they achieve the subject objectives.

Indicative references

ML – Markets Library

CR– Closed Reserve

ER – Electronic Reserve (full text). From library catalogue, click on 'Reserve Collection by Subject'. Enter 57043 or 'New Media Aesthetics'.

Works to view/ use/ listen to/ interact with:

A full list of works to be used in conjunction with classes will be provided on UTS Online and may be updated during semester as further references come to hand. Students preparing to lead a tutorial discussion should familiarise themselves with these works PRIOR to the class.

WEEK 2

Darren Tofts, 'What is Media Art' in Interzone: Media Arts in Australia, (Australia: Craftsman House/ Thames and Hudson, 2005) pp 12-29 (ER)

Andrew Murphie and John Potts, 'Digital aesthetics: new labels for the new aesthetic,' in Culture and Technology (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) pp 84-94 (ER ML)

Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, 'Introduction: The Double Logic of Remediation' in Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press, 2000) (ER) http://drr.lib.uts.edu.au/file/9071/57043_bolterdouble.pdf

Lev Manovich, 'What is New Media?' The Language of New Media (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001). (ER ML)

http://drr.lib.uts.edu.au/file/9070/ 57043_manovichwhat.pdf

Further Reference:

Timothy Murray, Digital Incompossibility: Cruising The Aesthetic Haze Of The New Media, Ctheory,

http://www.ctheory.net/ text_file.asp?pick=121

WEEK 3

Charles Grivel 'The Phonograph's Horned Mouth' in Douglas Kahn and Gregory Whitehead, (eds.), The Wireless Imagination, (Cambridge, MA: the MIT Press, 1992) (ER)

Margaret Morse, "What do Cyborgs Eat", in Gretchen Bender and Timothy Druckrey, Culture on the Brink, 1994. (ER):

http://drr.lib.uts.edu.au/file/1851/ 50252_morsewhat.pdf Full book: 303.483 Bend Also available in Margaret Morse, Virtualities: Television, Media Art, and Cyberculture (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press 1998)

Paolo Atzori and Kirk Woolford, 'Extended-Body: An Interview with Stelarc', Ctheory,

http://www.ctheory.net/ text_file.asp?pick=71

John Sutton: 'Porous Memory and the cognitive life of things' in Darren Tofts, Annmarie Johnson and Alessio Cavallero (eds) Prefiguring Cyberculture: An Intellectual History, (Australia and USA, Power Publications and MIT Press, 2002) (ER)

Further Reference:

Distributed aesthetics: http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue7/ index.html

Critical Art Ensemble, 'The Coming of Age of the Flesh Machine' in Timothy Druckrey (ed.) Electronic culture: technology and visual representation, (New York: Aperture, 1996).

WEEK 4

Annmarie Chandler and Norie Neumark (eds.) At a Distance: Precursors to Art and Activism on the Internet (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2005). Chapter 1, Introduction by Norie Neumark and Chapter 5, 'Fluxus Praxis: An Exploration of Connections, Creativity, and Community,' by Owen F. Smith. (ML ER)

Craig Saper, "Fluxus as a Laboratory" in Ken Friedman (ed.), The Fluxus Reader. Chicester, West Sussex, New York: Academy Editions, 1998. (ER)

Fluxus: The History of an Attitude: Books: Owen F. Smith

Owen Smith, A PILGRIM'S PROGRESS

http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/atca/ subjugated/five_13.htm

Owen, Smith. 1998. Fluxus: The History of an Attitude. San Diego: San Diego State University. Press.

Melanie Swalwell (2003) 'New/Inter/Media', Convergence, special issue: What is Intermedia? vol. 8, no. 4 (ER)

WEEK 5

George Landow, 'Hypertext as collage writing' in Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology (Baltimore, Parallax, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997) pp123-166 (ER ML)

Espen J. Aarseth 'Nonlinearity and Literary Theory' in George Landow (ed) Hyper / Text/ Theory, Baltimore, MA, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994) pp 51-86 (ER ML)

Jody Dean "Blogging Theory"

http://bad.eserver.org/issues/ 2006/75/dean.htm.

http://www.long-sunday.net/

Further Reference:

J.Yellowlees Douglas 'How Do I Stop This Thing? Closure and Indeterminacy in Interactive Narratives' in George Landow (ed) Hyper / Text/ Theory, Baltimore, MA, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994) pp 159-188 (ML)

Michael Joyce, Of Two Minds; hypertext pedagogy and poetics MIT Press, Leonardo Book 2000. ML 800 JOYC (CR)

WEEK 6

Ross Gibson, 'The Rise of Digital Multimedia Systems:, (ER)

Peter Weibel, 'Expanded Cinema,' in Jeffrey Shaw and Peter Weibel (eds.) Future Cinema: The Cinematic Imaginary after Film (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003) (ML ER)

http://drr.lib.uts.edu.au/file/8706/ 57043_weibelexpanded.pdf

Michael Joyce, 'Interactive Planes: Toward Post-Hypertextual New Media' in in Brunhild Bushoff (ed) Sagasnet reader: Developing Interactive Narrative Content, ( Munich, High Text Verlag 2005) pp 126-147 (ER),

http://drr.lib.uts.edu.au/file/8713/57043_hobermanlets.pdf

Jean-Louis Boissier, 'The Relation Image' and 'La Morale Sensitive' in Jeffrey Shaw and Peter Weibel (eds.) Future Cinema: The Cinematic Imaginary after Film (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003) (ER)

http://drr.lib.uts.edu.au/file/8710/ 57043_boissierrelation.pdf

Further Reference:

'Let's make a monster,' in Jeffrey Shaw and Peter Weibel (eds.) Future Cinema: The Cinematic Imaginary after Film (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003) (ER)

Vivian Sobchak, 'Nostalgia for the Digital Object,' in Jeffrey Shaw and Peter Weibel (eds.) Future Cinema: The Cinematic Imaginary after Film (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003) (ER)

http://drr.lib.uts.edu.au/file/ 8714/57043_sobchaknostalgia.pdf

WEEK 7

Guy Debord, 'Theory of the Derive', from Internationale Situationniste #2. The Situationist International Text Library

http://www.library.nothingness. org/articles/SI

Ross Gibson, 'Land Gone Wrong' from Seven Versions of an Australian Badland (Australia: University of Queensland Press, 2002) pp 1-21 (ML ER)

Lev Manovich, 'The Poetics of Augmented Space: Learning from Prada' http://64.233.161.104/ search?q=cache:1Fv10cjcCGgJ:www.manovich.net/DOCS/ augmented_space.doc+lev +manovich+augmented+reality&hl=en

Howard Rheingold, ' The era of sentient things' from Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution (Cambridge, Mass, Perseus, 2002) (ML CR ER)

Further Reference:

Darren Tofts, 'The Mystic Writing Pad' from Memory Trade: A Prehistory of Cyberculture (Australia: Interface/ 21C, 1997) pp 61-69 (ML)

Frances Yates, The Art of Memory, (London:Pimlico, 1996) (ML)

Bas Raijmakers and Yanna Vogiazou, 'CityTag: Designing for the Emergence of Spontaneous Social Play in a Mixed Reality game' in Brunhild Bushoff (ed) Sagasnet reader: Developing Interactive Narrative Content, (Munich, High Text Verlag 2005) pp 246- 262 (ML ER)

Christian Paul, 'Chapter 2, Digital Art (London: Thames and Hudson, 2003) (ER)

Works to look at and listen to:

Chris Caines: http://madeupstuff.com/ go/

Drift: http://www.mediascot.org/drift/ html/index.php

http://murmurtoronto.ca/

Terri RuebL:http://www.terirueb.net/

34 North 118 West: http://34n118w.net/ 34N/

Right as Rain: http://thepharmakon.org/ RightAsRain/

WEEK 9

Jeremy Turner, 'The Microsound scene: An Interview with Kim Cascone,' ctheory,

http://www.ctheory.net/ text_file.asp?pick=322

Christiane Paul, Digital Art (London: Thames and Hudson, 2003) 132-137 'Sound and Music

DJ Spooky, http://www.l-m-c.org.uk/ LMCframeset3.html

Charles Mudade, 'the Turntable' ctheory, http://www.ctheory.net/ text_file.asp?pick=382

Works to look at and listen to:

Negativland: http://www.negativland.com/

Ian Andrews: http://radioscopia.org/

DJ Spooky aka that subliminal kid: http://www.djspooky.com/ index2.html

Radioqualia: http://radio-astronomy.net/

Further Reference:

Chris Cutler, 'A history of plunderphonics':

http://www.l-m-c.org.uk/ texts/plunder.html

WEEK 10

Jill Walker, 'How I was Played by Online Caroline,' in Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan (eds.) First Person New Media as Story, Performance, and Game (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004) 302-309 (ER)

http://drr.lib.uts.edu.au/ file/9073/ 57043_walkerhow.pdf

Rachel Greene, Internet Art (London: Thames and Hudson, 2003) extracts: 92-104 (ER)

Eugene Thacker, Fakeshop: Science Fiction, Future Memory & The Technoscientific Imaginary, Ctheory.net 87.

http://www.ctheory.net.com/ event/e087.html

Eugene Thacker, 'Networks, Swarms and Multitudes' Ctheory,

http://www.ctheory.net/ text_file.asp?pick=422

Works to look at:

R. Bevan and T. Wright, Online Caroline: http://www.onlinecaroline.com

Suzanne Triester: http://ensemble.va.com.au/ tableau/suzy/

Fakeshop, Fakeshop: http://www.fakeshop.com.

Randall Packer: http://www.experimentalparty.org/

http://www.braintec.info/

http://www.icols.org/pages/ MainFrame.html

http://www.oldton.com/

http://rent-a-negro.com/

http://mouchette.org/index.html

http://www.turbulence.org/ Works/nature/intro.html

The concise Model of the Universe, The Paul Annears

http://www.xxos.net/index.php

Bit Index

http://www.bureauit.org/bitindex.html

Eyes of Laura

http://eyesoflaura.org/ index3.php?bandwidth=hi

WEEK 11

Jordan Crandall, 'Anything That Moves: Armed Vision' ctheory.net 72

http://jordancrandall.com/ main/writings/ writingsmenu.html

John E. McGrath, Loving Big Brother: Performance, privacy and surveillance space. London: Routledge, 2004. Preface and Chapter 5, 'Staging the Spectator' (ER)

'Wired Ruins" Ctheory.net Multimedia

http://ctheorymultimedia.cornell.edu/ issue3/digiterr.htm

Timothy Murray, 'Digital Terror' Ctheory,

http://www.ctheory.net/ text_file.asp?pick=420

'Ludology,' in Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan (eds.) First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004) (ER) http://drr.lib.uts.edu.au/ file/ 9072/57043_eskelinenludology.pdf See also:

http://www.electronicbookreview.com/ v3/threads/ threadtoc.jsp?thread=firstperson

and Jane McGonigal, 'Notes Toward a More Pervasive Cyberdramaturgy'

http://www.electronicbookreview.com/ v3/ servlet/ebr?essay_id= mcgonigalr1&command= view_essay

Jane McGonigal, "A Real Little Game: The Performance of Belief in Pervasive Play." Digital Games Research Associaton (DiGRA) "Level Up" Conference Proceedings. November 2003 http://avantgame.com/ writings.htm# ARTICLES%20&%20 PAPERS

Jonathon Crary, Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern Culture, London (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999) pp. 1-5, 72-5 (ER)

Works to look at:

Selectpark's game art archives, www.selectparks.net

http://www.escapefromwoomera.org/

Jonah Bruckner-Cohen see especially Bumplist

http://www.coin-operated.com/projects

http://www.underash.net/

http://www.hackaday.com/

http://www.thehacktivist.com/ index.php

Electronic Disturbance Theatre

http://www.thing.net/%7Erdom/ ecd/ecd.html

http://www.critical-art.net/

Further Reference:

William Bogard, Distraction and Digital Culture (ctheory.net 88)

http://www.ctheory.net/ text_file.asp?pick=131

'game' issue of MC,

http://www.media-culture.org.au/ past_vol_3.html

Henry Jenkins 'Games, the New Lively Art.'

http://web.mit.edu/21fms/ www/faculty/henry3/ GamesNewLively.html

John Johnston, 'Machinic Vision', Critical Inquiry 26, Autumn 1999, pp. 27-48.

Lev Manovich, 'The Paradoxes of Digital Photography',

http://www-apparitions.ucsd.edu/ ~manovich/text/digital_photo.html

Paul Virilio, The Vision Machine (London: BFI, 1994)

Paul Virilio, The Information Bomb (London: Verso 2000) chapter 7.

General:

Further useful references in Markets Library are:

Sean Cubitt, Digital Aesthetics (London: Sage, 1998) (ML. 004.019 CUBI)

Andrew Murphie and John Potts, Culture and Technology, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. (ML 306.36 MURP)

Annmarie Jonson, Alessio Cavallero (eds), Prefiguring Cyberculture: an intellectual history, Power Press, 2003 (303.4833 TOFT CR)

Oliver Grau, From Illusion to Immersion (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003)

Darren Tofts, Parallax: essays on art, culture and text (700.1 TOFT CR)

Ken Goldberg (ed.), The robot in the garden : telerobotics and telepistemology in the age of the Internet, (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000)

Randall Packer and Ken Jordan, (eds), Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality (NY: Norton, 2001) (ML 006.7 PACK.)

Peter Lunenfeld (ed.) The Digital Dialectic: New Essays on New Media (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000) (ML 303.4834 LUNE)

Timothy Druckrey (ed.) Electronic culture: technology and visual representation (New York: Aperture, 1996) (ML 701.105 DRUC. CR)

Timothy Druckrey (ed) Ars Electronic: facing the future: a survey of two decades (Linz: Ars Electronica, 1999) (ML. 700 DRUC. CR)

Paul Virilio, The Information Bomb (London: Verso, 2000)

Verena Andermatt Conley (ed), Rethinking technologies (Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1993)

Peter Weibel and Timothy Druckrey (eds.), Net-condition: art and global media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001)

Verena Andermatt Conley (ed), Rethinking technologies, Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1993. (ML 601/12)

Michael Joyce, Of Two Minds; hypertext pedagogy and poetics MIT Press, Leonardo Book 2000. (800 JOYC CR)

Friedrich Kittler, 'There is no software', literature, media: information systems, London: Routledge, 1997. (ML 302.23 KITT)

John Johnston, 'Machinic Vision', Critical Inquiry 26 (Autumn, 1999)

Manuel de Landa, A Thousand Years of Non-Linear History, (Cambridge, MA: Zone Books, 2000) (ML 501 DELA)

Useful online theory sites:-

Ctheory, http://www.ctheory.net/ default.asp (A huge array of digital / culture articles)

Lev Manovich online http//:www.manovich.net

http://www.dichtung-digital.org/ english.htm

http://www.netartreview.net/

Lists you might want to join:

Fibreculture, http://www.fibreculture.org

Empyre http://www.subtle.net/empyre/

Please circulate info about other useful or interesting lists on through UTS Online, on the 'Useful Resources' thread.

Net art resources:

http://www.furtherfield.org/

http://www.rhizome.org/

http://www.whitney.org/artport/ Whitney Museum portal to net art

http://www.turbulence.org/ another big net art site

http://www.tate.org.uk/netart/ default.htm tate gallery net art site

http://www.netartreview.net/ this also has exc links to net art- see the new media fix

http://www.rhizome.org/

http://www.altx.net mark amerika's online portal

http://www.javamuseum.org/ start1.htm

http://www.subtle.net melinda rackham's net art site

http://www.cyberpoiesis.net/shortcuts/ interviews/FAQs with net artists

www.selectparks.net game art archive

http://www.alternativemuseum.org/

Look at one or both of the new hypertext-ish journals that have recently come out: an issue of JoDI http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/ Articles/ v03/i03/ editorial.html

and 'inflect', hosted by the University of Canberra www.ce.canberra.edu.au/inflect

http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/newmedia/ lexia/index.htmTalan Memmott From Lexia to Perplexia

http://www.ineradicablestain.com/ Shelley Jackson

Trace online writing http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/index.htm