Holmes • FIRST DAY • CLASS 1• CLASS 2• CLASS 3• CLASS 4• CLASS 5• CLASS 6• CLASS 7• CLASS 8 •
FTP Help • CALENDAR • ART LINKS • CLASS ZINES • GROUP A • GROUP B

ARTTECH 2101 • Fundamentals : Introduction to Multimedia
Fall 2003• 112 S. Michigan Avenue • Room 416 • Thursdays • 9-4pm

Instructor: Tiffany Holmes • tholmes@artic.edu
Teaching assistant: Ignacio Mardones• imardones@artic.edu

Overview: Technically, this ten week course introduces the basic concepts, strategies, and techniques associated with creating art using HTML, the basic syntax for publishing on the world wide web. Conceptually, we will create electronic sketches that deal in some way with a common subject: comparing the fast food industry and the software industry. Collectively students will work to create an online zine based on artistic reactions to assigned readings and screened works. NOTE: The last four weeks of this course will be dedicated to designing an interactive multimedia interface in conjunction with the Electronics section.

Assignments: Each week a "sketch" will be assigned in class to help you see the range of possibilities the computer offers artists working in multimedia. These problems are intended to encourage an in-depth awareness of process rather than product–these sketches may be intentionally raw or unfinished. The final project for the "multimedia" section will be a more resolved creative contribution to a class collaborative project: a section of an online zine about consumer culture.

Attendance: Class meets on Thursdays from 9am to 4pm. We will start class promptly. Each unexcused absence will lower your participation grade–three unexcused absenses may result in failure of this course. Chronic lateness will also result in the same (three late arrivals equals one absence). Also, if you are physically present, but do not engage in class discussions, critiques, and demonstrations, this will be regarded as an absence as well.

Required Materials:

• EMAIL ADDRESS AND ARTIC ACCOUNT

• spiral notebook or bound composition book (bring daily to class)

• ZIP disks (2 to start with, 100 MB Mac formatted; always back up your work on 2 disks), blank CDs, mini-DV tapes.

Recommended Reading:

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001.) Available at most bookstores and used (hardcover) at Amazon for around $15.