IAT 810 New Media Graduate Seminar
Critical Approaches to New Media History, Theory and Practice
Considering that all media was once new, in this graduate seminar students will explore a series of classic and contemporary texts that define pathways for thinking about our changing relations and understandings of media. Its objective is to provide students with critical frameworks that will allow them to interrogate what is new in the term “new media” and what term means for their own field of research. In the process, students will be asked to think critically about how every media causes and reflects social, cognitive, spatial, and cultural shifts. They will also be asked to reflect on how distinct cultural, social and political contexts, technological innovation, academic disciplines and practices intersect the concept of “new media.”
Through out the course students will be required to lead weekly discussions of readings, present examples of new and old media works that relate to their own filed of research, attend workshops, visit galleries and, through a series of peer-review exercises, produce a final project.
This term we will partner with the New Media Gallery located in the Anvil Center in New West Minster. Students will meet with curators Sara Joyce and Gordon Duggan who will introduce them to the challenges of curating New Media art works and to their temporary exhibition Witness devoted to the concept of “machine vision.” In addition, students will also attend a printmaking workshop in the gallery in which they will learn how to produce a print-based zine. Students will apply the concepts learned in class to analyze the artworks presented in the temporary exhibition entitled Witness and will draw connections with their own field of research.
The final project will consist of two parts. Students will collectively design a zine (print, web based or a combination of both) in which each of them will publish an individual final project. The individual final project is open and could take any form (as long as it can be published in the zine). If it is not a research paper, the individual final project should include a short written statement that explains the project and engages with in-class readings and the art works in the exhibition.
WEEKLY SCHEDULE*
* Please note that this is a draft. Changes to the weekly schedule will be announced in class.
Week 1. Introductions
Sep 5-9 / Friday, September 9.
Intro to course; setting-up course expectations; make discussions teams; etc …
Readings due on week 2:
- Lisa Gitelman, “Media as Historical Subjects” in Always Already New: Media, History and the Data of Culture (MIT press, 2008), pages 1- 21.
SFU Library Permanent link to this record: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b5193918~S1a - Huhtamo, Erkki, and Jussi Parikka, eds. Media Archaeology Approaches, Applications, and Implications. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), pages 1 -21.
SFU Library Permanent link to this record: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b5973675~S1a - John Durham Peters, Space, Time, and Communication Theory. Canadian Journal of Communication, [S.l.], v. 28, n. 4, Apr. 2003. ISSN 1499-6642.
SFU Library Link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b5230052~S1a
Available at: http://www.cjc online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/1389/1468>.
Week 2. Approaches to Media I
Sep 12-16/ Friday, September 16
Gabriela will lead the discussion this week.
All students hand in reading summaries at the beginning of class and participate in discussion.
Readings due on week 3:
- Marshall McLuhan, “The Medium is the Message” (excerpts) in Media Studies (3rd Edition), pages 22-27 From Marshall McLUhan, Understanding New Media: The Extensions of Man (London: Routledge, 1964) New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. Available on CANVAS –Week 2
- Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” in Illuminations: Walter Benjamin; edited and with an introduction by Hannah Arendt; translated by Harry Zohn (New York, Schocken Books, 1998) 217-250
Available on CANVAS –Week 2
- Zielinski, Siegfried. Deep Time of the Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006. Chapter 1 pages 1- 12 and Chapter 9 pages 255 -280.
Available on SFU Surrey Library Reserves and on CANVAS –Week 2
- Bolter, J. David, and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999), Chapter 1- “Theory” pages 20-64.
SFU Library permanent link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b2076055~S1a
Other Recommended Readings/Resources:
- Kittler, Friedrich A., Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, and Michael Wutz. Gramophone, Film, Typewriter [in Translated from German.]. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999. On reserve at SFU Surrey Library
Week 3. Approaches to Media II
Sept 19- 23/ Friday, September 23
One student will lead the discussion this week.
All students hand in reading summaries at the beginning of class and participate in discussion.
Readings due on week 4:
- Drucker, Johanna, “Art” in Mitchell and Hansen Critical Terms in Media Studies (UChicago, 2010 ) pages 3-19. Available on CANVAS Module 3.
- Kwastek, Kaja. Aesthetics of Interaction in Digital Art. (Cambridge, Ma: MIT Press, 2013).
“Chapter 1 Interaction Art –Definitions and Origins” pages 1-39 (read all) , and “Chapter 2 Interaction as an Aesthetic Experience” pages 43-62 (skim)
SFU permanent Link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b6584101~S1a
- Hayles, Katherine, “Print Is Flat, Code Is Deep: The Importance of Media-Specific Analysis” in Transmedia Frictions. On reserve at SFU SUREY Library.
SFU Permanent Link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b6666344~S1a
- Lev Manovich, “Postmedia Aesthetics” in Transmedia Frictions : The Digital, the Arts, and the Humanities.
On reserve at SFU SUREY Library.
SFU Permanent Link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b6666344~S1a
Other Recommended Readings/Resources:
- Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002)
SFU Library permanent link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b6515383~S1a
Week 4. Aesthetics
Sep 26-30/ Friday, September 30
One student will lead the discussion this week.
All students hand in reading summaries at the beginning of class and participate in discussion
Reading due on week 5:
- Crary, Jonathan. Techniques of the Observer in October, Vol. 45 (Summer, 1988), pp. 3-35
Available through jstor: http://www.jstor.org/stable/779041 . - Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. (New York: Vintage Books, 1979). pages 195- 217.(Read all)
SFU permanent link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b5331571~S1a
Pick one of the following extra readings:
- Halpern, Orit. Halpern, Orit. Beautiful Data : A History of Vision and Reason since 1945. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014), Chapter 2 “Visualizing: Design, Communicative Objectivity and the Interface” pages 79-146 .
SFU Library Permanent Link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b6665035~S1a
- Drucker, Johanna. Graphesis : Visual Forms of Knowledge Production. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014), “Chapter 1 Image, Interpretation, and Interface” pages 16-55
- Cubitt, Sean. The Practice of Light: A Genealogy of Visual Technologies from Prints to Pixels. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2014) “Chapter 3 Surface” pages 79-152 (selections/skim) and “Chapter 4 Shadows” pages 153-233 (selections/skim)
SFU Library Permanent Link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b6540269~S1a
Suggested Readings:
- Crary, Jonathan. Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990. On Reserve at Surrey Library
- Sobchack, Vivian Carol. The Address of the Eye : A Phenomenology of Film Experience . Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Week 5. Light (as images/ vision/surveillance/image)
Oct 3 -7/ Friday, October 7
One student will lead the discussion this week.
All students hand in reading summaries at the beginning of class and participate in discussion.
Readings due on week 6:
- Wegenstein, Bernardette, “Body” in Mitchell and Hansen Critical Terms in Media Studies (UChicago, 2010 ) pages 19-35
- Haraway, Donna J. “A Cyborg Manifesto. Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” In The Cybercultures Reader, edited by D Haraway, D Bell and B. M Kennedy, 291-324. New York: Routledge, 2000.
- Parikka, Jussi. Insect Media : An Archaeology of Animals and Technology. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010. “Introduction: Insects in the Age of Technology” (skim) and Chapter 1 Nineteenth Centruy Insect Technics, pages 1-27 (read all)
SFU Library Permanent Link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b5856173~S1a –
- Nadrajan, Gunalan, “Islamic Automation: A Reading of Al-Jazari’s The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (1206) pages 163 -178 in Oliver Grau, Media Art Histories(MIT Press, 2006) . Available on CANVAS.
Suggested Readings:
- Zylinska, Joanna. The Cyborg Experiments : The Extensions of the Body in the Media Age ( London; New York: Continuum, 2002) This book has good discussions on artworks in reference to Haraway.
- SFU Library Permanent Link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b5411773~S1a
- Grebowicz, Margret. Beyond the Cyborg : Adventures with Donna Haraway. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013) SFU Permanent Link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b6794118~S1a
- Braidotti, Rosi. Gender and Culture : Nomadic Subjects : Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory (2). New York: Columbia Unviersity Press, 2011. Chapter Six “Organs without bodies” pg 167-190 and Chapter Eight “Mothers, Monsters, and Machines” pg 13-246 SFU Library Permananet Link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b6161086~S1a\
- Hayles, Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literarture and Informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. On Reserve SFU Libraries
Week 6. Bodies (and machines as bodies)
Oct 10-14/ Friday, October 14
One student will lead the discussion this week.
All students hand in reading summaries at the beginning of class and participate in discussion.
Students visit the gallery during the week and start to think about what they would like to research/write about
Readings due on week 7:
- Ravetto-Biagioli, Kriss. “Shadowed by Images: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and the Art of Surveillance.” Representations 111.1 (2010): 121-43. jstor
- Rafael Lozano Hemmer, “Best practices for conservation of media art from an artist’s perspective”
Available at: https://github.com/antimodular/Best-practices-for-conservation-of-media-art (Links to an external site.)
- Christiane Paul, “The Myth of Immateriality: Presenting and Preserving New Media” pages 251-275 in Grau’s Media Art Histories (MIT Press, 2006) On SFU Library reserves.
Week 7. Talk with Sarah Joyce & Gordon Duggan
Oct 17-21/ Friday, October 21 (Gabriela is away)
No discussion this week but you need to hand in reading summaries.
Class will be held at the New Media Gallery in the Anvil Center in New West Minister (New West Minister Sky Train Station)
Students visit the gallery during the week and start to think about what they would like to research/write about.
Introduction to the Gallery (curator/directors intro, gallery mandate, curatorial approach)
- What are the challenges of exhibiting new media works
- What is new media? (This could bring into context some of the texts you will be reading in class)
- Exploration of works in the current exhibition (Sarah and Gordon like having more organic conversations, where they offer/receive insights into the works just as much as the visitor/student)
- Discussing individual works and the exhibition as a whole (context, concepts, lines of inquiry, etc.)
Week 8. Printmaking Workshop
Oct 24- 28 / Friday, October 28 (Gabriela is away)
No discussion or reading summaries this week
Printmaking workshop: students are given access to the printmaking press to create images using mono-printing, collograph or linocut processes.
- Students participate in a demonstration of the techniques and tools (no previous skills required)
- Introduction to materials (I can meet with them one-on-one and discuss their idea and how best to tackle it)
- All materials are the responsibility of the student.
Students visit the gallery during the week and start to think about what they would like to research/write about.
Due on week 9:
Student presentations of final project proposals.
Week 9. Student Proposal Presentation
Oct 21- Nov. 4 / Friday, November 4
No discussion or reading summaries this week.
Students present their final project proposal (what they will write about/ produce in relation to the exhibition and their own research).
- Location TBA ( we might meet at New West Media Gallery)
Due next week:
Rest and work on your final projects, its Remembrance Day and we do not have a class!
Week 10. Remembrance day no classes
Nov 7 – 11 / Friday, November 11
There is no class on Friday.
Readings due week 11:
- Parikka, Jussi. A Geology of Media (Minneapolis ; London University of Minnesota Press, 2015), Chapter One “ Materiality : Grounds of Media Culture, pages 1-29 (read all) and Appendix: Zombie Media ; Circuit Bending Media Archeaology into an Art Method, pages 141-155 (NEED TO SCAN)
SFU Library Permanent Link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b6796933~S1a - Kahn, Douglas. Earth Sound, Earth Signal : Energies and Earth Magnitude in the Arts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013) Introduction page 1-25; Chapter 1 pages 25-34, Chapter 7pages 93-105; Chapter 133-162. (NEED TO SCAN)
SFU Library permanent link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b6516260~S1a - Sterne, Jonathan. Mp3 : The Meaning of a Format. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012) , Chapter 1 Format Theory, pages 1-32; Chaper 6 “Is Music a Thing?” pages 184-226.
SFU Library Permanent Link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b6291025~S1a
Recommended Readings:
- Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter : A Political Ecology of Things. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010)
SFU Permanent Link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b6290726~S1a
- Coole, Diana H., and Samantha Frost. New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics. (Durham; London: Duke University Press, 2010)
SFU Permanent Link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b6290805~S1a
Week 11. Matter (as Earth and Sound)
Sep 19-23/ Friday, November 18
Students lead discussion reading summaries are due
Peer Reviews are due at the beginning of class
Readings due on week 12:
- Gitelman, Lisa. Paper Knowledge: Toward a Media History of Documents. (Durham ; London Duke University Press, 2014), Chapter 4 “Near Print and Beyond Paper” page 111- 135 and Afterword page 135 -150.
- SFU Library Permanent Link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b6383272~S1a
- Eichhorn, Kate. Adjusted Margin : Xerography, Art, and Activism in the Late Twentieth Century. (London, England ; Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2016) pages Chapter 1 “From Control Revolution Age to Generative Systems” pages 27-56; Chapter 3 “Xerography, Publics and Counter Publics” pages 81-112.
- Taylor, Diana. The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003). Chapte 1”Acts of Transfer” pages 1-52.
SFU Library permanent link: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b6289936~S1a
Week 12. Archives (as Documents/Bodies/Technology)
Nov 14-18 / Friday, November 18
Students lead class discussion and reading summaries are due.
Week 13. Wrap Up
Nov 21-25/ Friday, November 25
Discussion of final projects and planning for in-gallery presentation and/or workshop.
Exam Week – December 6 to December 18
Final projects are due on December 16.
The final project is a response to one of the artworks in the New Media Gallery exhibition.
More details on the requirements of the response will be discussed during the course.