Instructor: Tiffany
Holmes • tholmes@artic.edu • 312.345.3760
Teaching assistant • Josh Rosenstock• jrosen@artic.edu
Course meets Wednesdays • 6-9pm • MI 517
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.
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