New Media Theory Course at SVA

New
Media Theory (SDG 5562 A):

Spring 2018
Instructor: Rory Solomon

Class: Wednesday, 12-‐2:50pm; Building W21C, room 1022-‐C
E-‐Mail: rsolomon2@sva.edu
Phone: (212) 229-‐2531
Office Hours: By appointment
Course description
In this course we will endeavor to answer the question: What are “new media”? Through this
inquiry we will consider other related questions, such as: What is/are media in general? How do
various communication technologies come to mediate different aspects of human activity, and
how do they come to encapsulate various human values? Do media determine our situation, or
are media determined by other socio-‐cultural factors? If both of these things are true, how can
we untangle and understand this co-‐ constitutive web of interactions? Who owns our media,
and how do these technologies particpate in the production of economic, social and cultural
value? These questions will be considered from aesthetic, cultural, social and political
perspectives; and our investigation will situate new media within a broader history of media and
technology more generally.
Key texts from critical cultural theory, philosophy, anthropology and science and technology
studies will be used to illustrate how mediation as a concept operates across various material
forms, and how changes in this operation impact perception, communication, knowledge and
cultural production. Through lectures, reading assignments and discussions, prominent theories
along with exemplary projects from art and industry will be considered, in order to develop an
understanding of how (new) media shape, and are in turn shaped by, the overlapping forces of
humanity and nature.
Course objectives
The goal of this course is to provide a broad background for an active media art or design
practice, as well as a deep understanding of our present-‐day media-‐technological landscape.
Students will develop a thorough and nuanced understanding of the media forms with which
they engage on a daily basis and in their art practice, and will cultivate the critical skills
necessary to approach new forms that they will encounter in the future. The class will
demonstrate cross-‐disciplinary theoretical approaches, and will provide a forum for students to
exercise critical thinking through discussion, reading, writing, and making.
Course requirements
Students are expected to attend every class meeting and participate fully in class discussions.
This necessarily requires that each student thoroughly complete all required reading
assignments before class. Final grades will be based on the following components:
-‐Class participation & weekly reading responses: 50%

-‐Midterm paper: 25%
-‐Final project / presentation: 25%

Assignments
Class participation & reading responses. The most important thing to do to succeed in this
course is to thoroughly complete all readings in advance of class, think about these carefully,
and come to class prepared to share your ideas by actively participating in group discussion.
Each week you will write a brief 100-‐250 word reading response, which you will post on Canvas
by 10pm the night before class. Your comments here will provide the basis for our discussion.
You are required to bring the readings with you to class to facilitate group reading and
discussion and receive full credit for participation.
Midterm paper. You will write a 2000-‐2400 word paper (6-‐8 pages double spaced) that engages
material from the first half of the class in response to a prompt that I will distribute during week
5. You will have 3 weeks to complete a short project proposal which I will approve, 2 weeks to
complete a rough draft which I will give feedback on, and one additional week to complete your
final draft.
Final project/presentation. Your final assignment will consist of a project in any medium of your
choice that constructs an argument about any material covered in the class. This should be
equivalent to a studio-‐level work. Projects will be presented in class during the last 1 – 2 weeks
of the semester. You may not simply reuse a project from another class as your final project for
this class, although you are highly encouraged to use tools or skills that you have developed in
other classes.
Grading Standards
For an explanation of grading information please refer to the SVA Handbook (p.10-‐11)
Attendance
The SVA Handbook states that "since the School of Visual Arts is a professional art college
dedicated to teaching and learning, attendance is required in all classes." (p. 9) Two unexcused
absences will automatically result in lowering the final grade, and three absences will lead to
failure of the class. Two late arrivals will be considered equivalent to one absence. In general,
absences and lateness can adversely affect your participation grade.
Please notify me in advance of any absences. If you miss a class you are expected to
communicate with your classmates to determine what you missed. You will still be responsible
for any assignments due or assigned that day unless you make prior arrangements with me.
Required texts/textbooks
PDFs will be provided for all course readings, so you are not required to purchase any textbooks.
However, we will be reading several selections from two books in particular. These are available
in the Computer Art library, or you may want to purchase them yourself:
• Noah Wardrip-‐Fruin and Nick Montfort, The New Media Reader (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
2003).
• Matthew Fuller, Software Studies: A Lexicon (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008).

Additional book recommendations will be made throughout the semester, and if you would like
suggestions of texts that might be relevant to any of your other projects, please do not hesitate
to ask.

Laptop policy
The format of our class is a seminar. That means that each week we will read a selection of texts
and come to class to have a group discussion about them. To better facilitate this, there will be
no laptops or other devices in class. Of course life does not always accommodate class
schedules, so if something urgent comes up and you need to use your phone during class, please
step outside to do so. We will also take a break halfway through each class which will provide an
opportunity to do this.

You are expected to bring hardcopies of all required readings to class as we will be referring to
them directly and indirectly in our discussions, including reading from them together at times.

Class Resources
We will be utilizing Canvas this semester for sharing course readings and your work. Details will
be provided on the first day. All enrolled students should be able to find our course’s Canvas
website here: https://sva.instructure.com/

SVA has a Writing Center which is extremely helpful: http://writingresourcecenter.com/.
As part of the midterm writing assignment, you will be expected to visit the Writing Center at
least once for feedback.

SVA has a school-‐wide license for http://lynda.com, which is an extensive online learning tool
featuring thousands of courses and video tutorials for all degree-‐seeking students, faculty, and
staff. The SVA portal is: http://www.lynda.com/portal/sva.
Academic Integrity Policy

This policy ensures that incidents of academic dishonesty are handled in a manner consistent
with the College’s mission, existing policies, standards and procedures. For the purposes of this
policy, academic dishonesty is defined as: plagiarism, cheating, lying in academic matters and
falsifying official student records. More serious violations will be handled through the process
enumerated laid out in the SVA Handbook (p.8). Put simply, make sure your work is your own.
Students with Disabilities

In order to receive academic accommodations due to a disability, a student must first register
with the Office of Disability Services (ODS). Students approved for accommodations will be
given an ODS Accommodation Letter to submit to their instructors. If a student does not provide
an ODS Accommodation Letter to their instructor, they will not be eligible to receive
accommodations in that course. All instructors are required to adhere to SVA's policies
regarding accommodations for students with disabilities. Students who have a need for
academic accommodations, or suspect they may have a disability, should contact the ODS via
telephone: (212) 592-‐2282, or visit the office: 23 Lexington Avenue, Mezzanine, in the George
Washington Residence, or email: disabilityservices@sva.edu
Course Outline

>> SECTION 00 _ [NEW] MEDIA THEORY

Week 1: January 10
What is media? What are media? Why media? – Course overview & introductions

Listen:
-‐ Paul Simon, “Boy in the Bubble”

Week 2: January 17
A brief introduction to media studies – “The medium is the message”

Reading:
-‐ Lisa Nakamura, “Media,’ from Keywords for American Cultural Studies
-‐ Marshall McLuhan, “The Medium is the Message,’ and “Media Hot and Cold,” from
Essential McLuhan, pages 149-‐169. (These chapters were originally published in a book
titled Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.)
-‐ Friedrich Kittler, “Code,” from Software Studies: A Lexicon

Additional optional reading:
-‐ John Guillory, “Genesis of the Media Concept”
-‐ Harold Innis, “The Bias of Communication”

Week 3: January 24
What are new media? What are some defining aspects or unique properties of new media that
set them apart from “old media?” – Media history / media archaeology

Reading:
-‐ Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, Chapter 1, “What is New Media?” pages
19-‐48
-‐ Steve Shapin, “What Else is New?” from The New Yorker, May 14, 2007

-‐ Jussi Parikka, What is Media Archaeology, Chapter 1, pages 1018

Week 4: January 21
Bootstrapping – Human-‐computer interaction – knowledge work – The hyperlink – War vs.
peace story of technology

Reading:
-‐ Thierry Bardini, “The Social Construction of the Personal Computer User”
-‐ Vannevar Bush, “As We May Think,” Atlantic Monthly, July 1945

To watch in class:
-‐ “Mother of all demos” (Excerpt.)

To examine in class:
PAUL OTLET:
-‐ Molly Springfield, “Inside the Mundaneum,” Triple Canopy:
http://www.canopycanopycanopy.com/contents/inside_the_mundaneum
-‐ Alex Wright, “The Web Time Forgot,” New York Times, June 17, 2008:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/science/17mund.html
ABY WARBURG
-‐ “Collected Works: Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas,” Frieze Magazine, January-‐
February 2004:
http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/collected_works/
THEODOR NELSON:
-‐ Theodor H. Nelson, “Proposal for a Universal Electronic Publishing System and Archive,”
Chapter 30 of The New Media Reader

>> SECTION 01 _ DIGITAL ENCODING

Week 5: February 7 – Midterm assignment distributed.
Code as data – Encoding – Analog vs digital – Databases – Data epistemology – Database cinema

Reading:
-‐ Derek Robinson, “Analog,” from Software Studies Lexicon
-‐ Tara McPherson, “Digital,” from Keywords for American Cultural Studies
-‐ Christiane Paul, “Database as System and Cultural Form,” from Database Aesthetics: Art
in the Age of Information Overflow
-‐ Michel Foucault, Preface from The Order of Things

-‐ Leve Manovich, “Vertov’s Dataset,” The Language of New Media, pages xiv – xxxvi.

Atworks:
-‐ Lev Manovich, “Soft Cinema”
-‐ jodi, http://wwwwwwwww.jodi.org, or if you’re feeling really brave, try http://jodi.org
(WARNING: this will redirect you to a random site that may contain bright, flashing
visuals or loud audio.)
-‐ John Simon, Every Icon
-‐ Ken Goldberg, “Date Dentata,” http://goldberg.berkeley.edu/art/datamitt.html
-‐ Magdalena Pederin, “The Name is an Anagram,” http://vimeo.com/4293266

-‐ Tom Mullaney, “The Chinese Typewriter,” 2009
-‐ Lev Manovich, “Database as a Symbolic Form”
-‐ Clay Shirky, “Ontology is Over-‐rated”

Week 6: February 14 –
Code as Commands – Programming & Hacking

Reading:
-‐ Douglas Rushkoff, Program or Be Programmed, Preface and Introduction (pages 7-‐27)
-‐ Gabriella Coleman, “Hacker Politics and Publics”
-‐ Christopher Kelty, “The Fog of Freedom

-‐ “The Hacker Manifesto,” by The Mentor, http://phrack.org/issues/7/3.html

-‐ Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, “Programmability,” from Software Studies: A Lexicon
-‐ Nelly Oudshoorn and Trevor Pinch, “How Users and Non-‐Users Matter” (pages 1-‐16)
-‐ Franco Berardi & Geert Lovink: “A call to the Army of Love and to the Army of Software”
(available here)
-‐ McKenzie Wark, The Hacker Manifesto (This book is structured as a “manifesto,” written
in short, strong, declarative paragraphcs, which Wark numbers. Focus on paragraphs 1 -‐
50. Or flip through it and read any parts that seem interesting to you!)
-‐ Lawrence Lessig, Code v2, Chapters 1 & 2
-‐ Friedrich Kittler, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter (in particular, Chapter 3, “Typewriter”)
-‐ Paul E. Ceruzzi, A History of Modern Computing (in particular, pages 90-‐99)

>> SECTION 02 _ IN[ITIAL] FORMATION[S] & [INFRA]STRUCTURE

Week 7: February 21
Hardware vs. Software – Infrastucture – Prehistory of cyberspace

Reading:
-‐ Friedrich Kittler, “There is no Software,” ctheory.net
-‐ Tung-‐hui Hu, “Truckstops on the Information Superhighway: Ant Farm, SRI, and the
Cloud”

-‐ Max Headroom clips
-‐ “Videodrome” (excerpt)
-‐ Nam Jun Paik examples
-‐ Radical Software, video art catalog network

-‐ William Gibson, Neuromancer
-‐ Andrew Blum, “Netscapes,” from WIRED magazine,
http://andrewblum.net/2009/netscapes-‐wired-‐ magazine/
-‐ Allison Schifani, “Alternative sprawls and junkcities Buenos Aires Libre”

Week 8: February 28 – Due: Midterm project proposal (250-‐300 words).
Networks – Protocol – Control / Freedom – Politics – Network topology and decentralization

Reading:
-‐ Alex Galloway & Eugene Thacker, “Protocol and Counter-‐Protocol”
-‐ Gilles Deleuze “Postscript on Control Societies”
-‐ Ted Byfield, “DNS: A Short History and a Short Future”

-‐ Evgeny Morozov, Net Delusion, Introduction
-‐ Gilles Deleuze and Felix Gauttari, “Introduction: Rhizome,” from A Thousand Plateaus
-‐ Galloway & Thacker, The Exploit
-‐ Galloway, Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization
-‐ Richard Kahn and Douglas Kellner, “Oppositional Politics and the Internet: A
Critical/Reconstructive Approach”

Artworks
-‐The work of Rafaël Rozendaal

NO CLASS – March 7
Have a great spring break!

Week 9: March 14 – Midterm rough draft due.
Political Economy – Production & consumption – Tactical Media

Reading:
-‐ Clay Shirky, “Gin, Television, and Social Surplus”
-‐ Felix Stalder, “Between Democracy and Spectacle: The Front-‐End and 242 Back-‐End of
the Social Web”

To watch in class:
-‐ Glenn Greenwald, “Why privacy matters” (TED Talk)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcSlowAhvUk
-‐ Eben Moglen lecture “The alternate net we need, and how we can build it ourselves”
(Personal Democracy Forum 2011) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gORNmfpD0ak

Artworks:
-‐ Dead Drops, by Adam Bartholl (https://deaddrops.com)
-‐ LASER tag (be sure to watch the video!)
(http://www.graffitiresearchlab.com/blog/projects/laser-‐tag/)
-‐ Ingrid Burrington’s Urban Infrastructure Guide Book
(http://lifewinning.com/research/infrastructure-‐ studies)
-‐ Check out some projects by Periplurban (https://periplurban.org) -‐ check out some
projects by The Yes Men (https://theyesmen.org)

-‐ Hans Magnus Enzensberger, “Constituents of a Theory of the Media”
-‐ Jean Baudrillard, “Requiem for the Media”

Week 10: March 21 – Midterm papers due.
The screen – Graphics – Simulation – Visualization –User interface

Reading:
-‐ Florian Cramer & Matthew Fuller, “Interface,” from Software Studies: A Lexicon
-‐ Jacob Gaboury, “Hidden Surface Problems: On the Digital Image as Material Object”
-‐ Warren Sack, “Aesthetics of Information Visualization”

-‐ Tom Gunning, “To Scan a Ghost”
-‐ Jason Eppink, “A Brief History of the GIF (So Far),” Journal of Visual Culture (2014)
-‐ Ted Byfield leture on data visualization
-‐ Jonathan Crary, “Technicques of the Observer” (October, Summer 1988) or
“Modernizing Vision” (from Images: A Reader)
-‐ Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

Week 11: March 28 – Final project assignment distributed.
Gaming – Interactivity

Reading:
-‐ Michael Murtaugh, “Interaction,” from Software Studies: A Lexicon
-‐ Claus Pias, “The Game Player’s duty,” in Media Archaeology: Approaches, Applications,
Implications
-‐ Natasha Schüll, “Gambled Away: Video Poker and Self-‐Suspension”

Play:
-‐ “A Dark Room” by Michael Townsend

-‐ “A Dark Room: The Best-‐Selling Game That No One Can Explain” [newyorker.com] by
Michael Thomsen
-‐ “Can D.I.Y. Supplant the First-‐Person Shooter?” [nytimes.com] by Joshua Bearman,
about Jason Roher and Jonathan Blow
-‐ Ian Bogost, “The Rhetoric of Video Games”
-‐ Jesper Juul, The Art of Failure
-‐ Mary Flanagan and Helen Nissenbaum, Values at Play in Digital Games

Additional optional to play:
-‐ “Dwarf Fortress” by Tarn Adams and Zach Adams. A profile of this game was published
in the New York Times in 2011, “Where do Dwarf-‐Eating Carp Come From?”
-‐ “Passage” by Jason Rohrer, and other games by him [sourceforge.net]. His game
“Between” seems to be unavailable now, but you an read about it here
[livejournal.com]. A profile of him in Esquire magazine: “The Video-‐game Programmer
Saving Our 21st-‐Century Souls” [esquire.com] by Jason Fagone
-‐ “Braid” by Jonathan Blow. Purchase / play here: https://braid-‐game.com. Read some
background in this article in The Atlantic (remember, this is the same publication that
published the Vanevar Bush piece 70 years ago) “The Most Dangerous Gamer”
[theatlantic.com] by Taylor Clark
-‐ “Fez.” Designed by Phil Fish & programmed by Renaud Bedard. Download / play here:
https://fezgame.com/. Read some background in this NY Times article “A New Game
Delights in Difficulty” [nytimes.com] by Chris Suellentrop.

>> SECTION 03 _ IF (all that) THEN (what)

Week 12: April 4
Artificial Intelligence – Dis/embodiment

Reading:
-‐ Alan Turing, “Computer Machinery and Intelligence”
-‐ N. Katherine Hayles, Prologue from How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in
Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics
-‐ Mark Hansen, “Bodies in Code, or how primordial tactility introjects technics into human
life”

Artworks:
-‐ Myron Krueger, “Videoplace,” Responsive Environment,” 1972-‐1990s
-‐ Scott Snibbe, https://www.snibbe.com
-‐ Camille Utterback, “Text Rain,” and “Untitled 5”
-‐ Joseph DeLappe, “Salt Satyagraha Online: Gandhi’s March to Dandi in Second Life,” 2008

Week 13: April 11
Aura – Copy – Remix Culture – From Modern to Postmodern, Copy and Past(ich)e

Reading:
-‐ Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility” (third
version)
-‐ Christina Xu, “A Field Guide to China’s Most Indispensible Meme”

-‐ Bruno Latour and Adam Lowe, “The Migration of the Aura, or How to Explore the
Original through Its Facsimiles”
-‐ Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism and Consumer Society”
-‐ Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass
Deception

Week 14: April 18 – Written component of final project due.
New Media Art

Reading:
-‐ Johanna Drucker, “Art,” from Critical Terms for Media Studies
-‐ Claire Bishop, “Digital Divide,” from Art Forum, September 2012
-‐ Bruce Sterling, “An Essay on the New Aesthetic,” http://www.wired.com/2012/04/an-‐
essay-‐ on-‐the-‐new-‐aesthetic/

Browse some additional links:
-‐ http://booktwo.org/notebook/sxaesthetic/
-‐ http://shorttermmemoryloss.com/portfolio/project/the-‐new-‐aesthetic/

Artworks:
-‐ Browse the Whitney Museum’s “Artport”: https://whitney.org/Exhibitions/Artport
-‐ For example, “Software Structures”
http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/softwarestructures/
-‐ The New Aesthetic Tumblr: -‐ https://new-‐aesthetic.tumblr.com/

>> SECTION 04 _ LOOKING [back / moving] FORWARD

Week 15: April 25 – Final presenations.
Technological change and history.

Reading:
-‐ Walter Benjamin, “Angel of History,” from “On the Concept of History,” Thesis IX

Optional reading:
-‐ Wendy Chun, “The Enduring Ephermeral, or The Future Is a Memory”

No work will be accepted after the last day of class.

New Media Theory Course at SVA

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Media Theory (SDG 5562 A):

Instructor: Rory Solomon

-‐Class participation & weekly reading responses: 50%

Academic Integrity Policy

Students with Disabilities

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen

New Media Theory Course at SVA

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originaltitel

Copyright

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Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

New Media Theory Course at SVA

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

New

Media Theory (SDG 5562 A):

Instructor: Rory Solomon

-­‐Class participation & weekly reading responses: 50%

Academic Integrity Policy

Students with Disabilities

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen

-‐Class participation & weekly reading responses: 50%