New Media Practices: Paths to New Media

in Media Practices
curriculum...

.NTRO

The New Media Path of the Film, Video & New Media Department must be
introduced, articulated, explained and engaged in Media Practices
classes on a daily basis. New Media Art should be shown in the context
of Film and Video Art whenever these fields are screened or discussed.
The Film, Video & New Media (FVNM) department's approach to the theory
practices of these 3 interrelated fields focuses attention on the
critical, conceptual, formal, aesthetic, social, hystorical and dynamic
aspects of Media Art works made with these approaches. With these
considerations in mind, FVNM positions New Media Art as historically
rooted in relation to time, screen and code based [+/or] resistant
experimental Media Art from the advent of cinema to the current moment.
.PATH
The New Media Path follows this trajectory, with the following courses:

New Media 01 (FVNM 2100)

dotVideo (FVNM 3810)
Realtime (FVNM 3812)
Radical Software Critical Artware (FVNM 4830)
IF (FVNM 4860)
Machinima (FVNM 4866)
playFull, playMe (FVNM 4865)
OnEvent (FVNM 4867)
0850LEET (FVNM 4225)

The New Media Path classes can be described as follows:

New Media 01 (FVNM 2100)

-> Create, Transcode and Remix {Screen|Time}-Based New Media
-> The prerequisite for all classes in the New Media Paths
-> Introduces the skills and ideas needed for New Media Art making

dotVideo (FVNM 3810)

-> Web Art meets Media Art online and then they fall in cyber-love
-> Students program hypermedia works, database cinema projects and
develop Networked Digital Art works, systems and processes

Realtime (FVNM 3812)

-> Experiment, Improvise and Code Live New Media Art
-> Students develop realtime audio video systems and perform live
experimental New Media Art

Radical Software Critical Artware (FVNM 4830)

-> Develop Software As Art and Art As Software
-> Students connect and compare the field of Software Art to the early
moments of Video Art through code-based studio approaches to these moments

IF (FVNM 4860)
-> IF Interactive Forms THEN branching nonlinear New Media Art
-> Students create hypermedia projects and investigate database
approaches to nonhierarchical and nonlinear New Media Art works

Machinima (FVNM 4866)

-> Hack Video Game engines to create experimental Media Art works
-> Machine ++ Cinema == Machinima
-> Students use commercial Game Engines such as Half-Life as well as
Free and Open Source software

playFull, playMe (FVNM 4865)

-> Play, Hack ++ Build Art Games!
-> Students code, critique and hack computer based Art Games
OnEvent (FVNM 4867)
-> Curate, Code and Organize Collaborative, Collective New Media Events,
Action and Activities!
-> Students publicly program New Media Art events and activities online
and in physical spaces, such as alternative Art spaces

0850LEET (FVNM 4225)

-> Hacker Art, obsolete computers and the ethics of forgotten
technologies are discussed in this hybrid seminar/studio

.READ
The New Media Reader by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort (2003)
and New Media Art by Mark Tribe, Reena Jana and Uta Grosenick (2006)
should be used as readings and secondary sources for research in Media
Practices classes as introductory texts on New Media Art.

.PLAY
The following web-based New Media Art projects make explicit references
or connections to their {time|code|screen}-based-ness and therefor
should be included in Media Practices syllabi:

inflat-o-scape - Jessica Irish

http://www.inflatoscape.com/

entropy8zuper - entropy8zuper
http://www.entropy8zuper.org/

The Endless Forest - Tale of Tales aka Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn
http://www.tale-of-tales.com/TheEndlessForest/

idiomorphic software - Barbara Lattanzi

http://www.wildernesspuppets.net/

braingirl - Marina Zurkow

http://www.thebraingirl.com/

dollspace - Francesca da Rimini

http://www.thing.net/~dollyoko/
Life Is Like Water - Peter Horvath
http://www.6168.org/subway/

FLMTXT 2.0 - mark amerika

http://www.markamerika.com/filmtext/

ASCII History of Moving Images - Vuk Cosic

http://www.ljudmila.org/~vuk/ascii/film/

Little Movies - Lev Manovich

http://manovich.net/little-movies/

Vivian Selbo
vertical blanking interval
http://adaweb.walkerart.org/project/selbo/

RE:WIRED
The SAIC WIRED curriculum is a program to orient freshman and establish
digital literacy. SAIC WIRED is required for all freshmen as part of
the laptop program and teaches "Basic computing skills, basic
HTML/Dreamweaver/FTP skills, and intermediate imaging skills" as well
as "software protocols and operating systems, as well as software art"
and includes "An appreciation of open source software initiatives" such
as Processing. The SAIC WIRED program uses the phrase "New Media",
relies on readings from The New Media Reader by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and
Nick Montfort and includes the kind of curriculum developed
by, familiar to and forwarded by FVNM's New Media Path. It is
particularly important for Media Practices classes to understand SAIC
WIRED and present an FVNM perspective on the content and concept of
New Media Art in relation to Film and Video Art through an emphasis on
time, screen and code based Art making.

.OUTRO
Incoming students will be more familiar with New Media Art and all
ubiquitous digital and network technologies. As is the case with
Cinema, Film and Video Art, we are often in the position of teaching
students critical thinking and studio skills so that they can
creatively question the assumptions of dominant corporate media
cultures. We should be and are encouraging and facilitating students'
explorations of and experimentations with various independent Media Art
approaches. New Media is the most recent addition in the chronological
sequence of Film, Video and New Media Art, however, we must also
question this chronological approach as to not artificially privilege
the “newness” of New Media and in order to recognize that all of these
Media Arts coexist in the present moment. The coexistence of an
education into Film, Video and New Media Art is crucial for students of
our department and Media Practices must introduce these interrelations
at every opportunity.