ATS INSTRUCTOR
TIFFANY HOLMES

TEACHING ASSISTANT
JOSH ROSENSTOCK

CALENDAR

SYLLABUS LINKS

INTERACTIVE ART
HISTORY AND CONTEXT

week1_overview
week2_happenings/hci
week3_automated art
week4_vr and simulation

CONTEMPORARY DIRECTIONS IN INTERACTIVE MEDIA

week5_games
week6_data dynamics
week7_biotech and art
week8_wearables

REVOLUTION, RESISTANCE, AND PUBLIC PRACTICE

week9_webtopia/dystopia
week10_public intervention
week11_collectives/activism
week12_open topic_wrapup

 

COURSE OVERVIEW

In this graduate seminar, students will investigate the central questions surrounding the notion of interactivity in our culture. In particular, we will address the complex web of relationships that evolve among artist, audience and environment in an interactive art experience. Interactivity has become a ubiquitous and seductive buzzword used to describe virtually any human gesture enacted through a machine interface. However, deeper questions remain about how we define and react to interactive art. Are there aspects of performing or enacting interaction itself that have artistic merit? Are these aspects formal or functional components of a work of art? What are the experiential differences between interactive works presented in a gallery context and web-based art pieces, where interaction is relegated to the pointing and clicking of a mouse?

In the class, we will investigate our own relationship as artists to the discourse of interactivity, and, in so doing, we will discuss the ramifications of the digital age on our lives. In addition, we will examine our relationship to interactive works as an audience by examining the both the work and writing of contemporary digital media artists. We will also consider aspects of the professional practices of artists involved with electronic media.

Evening activity schedule (subject to change)

Section 1: Lecture/screenings related to seminar evening topic (Room 714)

Section 2: Student facilitated discussion (incorporating readings, and any other relevant material) (Graduate seminar room)

Section 3: Student work presentations /Guest presentation/Professional Practices laboratory

Individual Requirements

1) Become a member of rhizome.org. Sign up to receive both the Net Art News (daily) and the Rhizome Digest (weekly mail).

2) Read weekly assignments and occasionally write one page position papers (no more than 2-3 over the course of the semester).

3) Facilitate ONE class discussion (with a partner)

4) Prepare and deliver a 20 minute presentation of your art work

5) Final project, one-page (minimum) web documentation of work with artist's statement.

required reading

The New Media Reader, by Noah Wardrip-Fruin (Editor), Nick Montfort (Editor). Text is available at Utrecht Bookstore for $45 or used online for $34.

Recommended reading: Overview of the field of new media

Margot Lovejoy, Postmodern Currents: Art and Artists in the Age of Electronic Media. NJ: Prentice Hall, 1989.

Michael Rush, New Media in Late 20Th-Century Art (World of Art). NY: Thames and Hudson, Inc., 1999.

Julie H. Reiss, From Margin to Center : The Spaces of Installation Art. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999.