2008F


Instructor




Arts 130 Digital Visual Culture


George Legrady
TA Andres Burbano

Tues, Thur 10am-11:30am - arts 1340


Course Objectives




Course Topics







Course Work
 

Digital Visual Culture is an upper division course that examines the impact of digital technologies on artmaking and visual culture. The course will introduce projects, methods, and resources representative of the impact of digital processes on artmaking and its reception in the visual, spatial, temporal, conceptual and cultural domains.

The course will discuss the following: Art as research and prototyping; 1960's Experiments in Arts & Technology; the computational image; time-narrative; space-structure & form; digital visual design; machine culture, robotics; space-time & interactivity; numbers, systems, procedures, data space and algorithms; bio-genetics, self-organizing systems; arts-science hybrid practices.

Courseload consists of lecture attendance, weekly topic reviews, a few small projects, attendance at selected visiting lectures, midterm test, and final exam.

arts 130 maillist (arts130 @ mat.ucsb.edu) | Arts 130 Archive (http://lists.create.ucsb.edu/pipermail/arts130/)


[1]...... 09.25 Th

Course Introduction An overview of Arts130

What is digital culture? Art as Research
Art as business: Jeff Koons | Artist in studio: Polke

What is arts and engineering/science interdisciplincary, collaborative research?
Sony [Tanaka] | IBM Watson [Wattenberg] | Neuromorph [Perona] |
Listening Post: Hansen/Rubin [NYTimes] | Research in Art Lab: Makrolab

   

[2].......09.30 Tu



Reading

  Media Arts Literature Overview
Brief description of the discipline with an overview of the key literature of the past 10 years with some earlier historical examples

Art as Research, Information Arts, Steve Wilson (pg 3-33)
   
10.02 Th

Reading

Elements of Media Art for Prototyping

Question of Merit (Goodman)


[3]...... 10.07 Tu



Reading
  Experiments in Art & Technology (LACMA, 1967-1970)
Early arts, industry, & engineering: An overview of the 1960's EAT experiments
Langlois Overview | Time Magazine 1971 Review

Notes on "A Report on the Art and Technology Program at LACMA", 1967, Tuchman, (pp9-47)
   
10.09 Th

Assignment
Experiments in Art & Technology

Compare two of the artists and projects, reflecting on what it would have been like 40 years ago to try to realize an artwork that involves technology. Due October 18.


[4]....... 10.14 Tu   VISUAL MAPPING
Visual Complexity | Wattenberg | Denes | Lesak |
Daniel Spoerri: An Anecdoted Topography of Chance
[6]  [203]
   
10.16 Th

Assignment
  Methods of Classification

OBSERVATION/CLASSIFICATION SKETCH: The assignment deals with examining how we classify things. These are the steps:
1. Take a situation from your everyday life: how your room is organized, your schedule, your interaction with the people you live with, your closet, the kitchen, phenomena: light and sound changes during the day, every person you meet wearing red, how the objects in your space are (dis)organized, etc.

2. Consider the situation as a system: Describe the elements, and their relation to each other using any methods of organization (time, location, colors, volume, brightness, incremental change variations, etc.

3. Create a web page using photos, a sketch, etc. Images should be kept small: 640x480 pixels, 72dpi, jpeg

Project is due October 23. Describe and give link in the mailling list.


[5]...... 10.21 Tu



Reading
  IMAGE TO COMPUTATIONAL IMAGE
Image as structured information; representation, optical mechanical; computational image
What is an Image | Anamorphosis [marci/zoltan [1]] | Waliczky | Ruhm

Barthes' "Rhetoric of the image" [Download article] [Panzani Billboard ] [Notes]
   
10.23 Th




Assignment

IMAGE/Events in TIME: Narrative (Student Research presentations)
Projects in the Moving Image; Narrative flow; Multi-linear structure

Marey [1] [2]| Art+COM [1] | Shape-Time photography | PhotoSynth |

Discuss the relationship of the still to the moving image in terms of Barthes' discussion and how the internet may expand the context of an image as the PhotoSynth software proposes to do.


[6]...... 10.28 Tu




Reading
  SPACE-STRUCTURE-FORM | MACHINE CULTURE
Objects, machines, installations, spatialization
Gabo | Cragg | Kapoor [1]| Digital fabrication | Weiser | Block-Jam | Ned Kahn | Bohlen | Rinaldo | DECOI |

Robotic Chair [1] [2] [3]|
   
10.30 Th




Mid-Term Exam

SPACE-TIME, LOCATIVE & INTERACTIVITY
Projects in space-time & Interactivity
Marey [1] [2]| Art+COM [1] | Ruhm | Scalable City | Moeller | Courschene | Fujihata |
Senseable, Graz [1] | Jeff Han

The mid-term will address material covered in the course: ideas, artists, techniques, etc. All questions on the exam will come from material at this webpage.


[7]...... 11.04 Tu



Reading
  SEMIOTICS: The study of signs

10000yrs | Fleetingness of Bits | Semiotics Basics | bits/byte

How would address the problem of long term communication given that language changes and that the technology is short lived
   
11.06 Th





Assignment
DESIGN PROCESS: METHODOLOGY & AESTHETICS
Research, concept definition, resources, sketching, production details, budgets, visual identity, target audience, sample production, web design details

Guest speaker: Casey Williams: Photography & Aesthetics

Describe the design process in any of the projects presented this week

[8]...... 11.11 Tu   AESTHETIC DIRECTIONS IN BIO, GENETIC, ECO-VISUALIZATION
Emergent_Art: Sommerer-Mignonneau | Karl Sims | Boids
Bio_Nature: Self-Organizing Camazine | Syntfarm | Swarm (Ramos) |
Bio_Robotics: Stelarc | Rinaldo
Bio_Eco: Tiffany Holmes || Vanouse | Da Costa | Critical art Ensemble | Symbiotica |
   

11.13 Th

Assignment

AESTHETIC DIRECTIONS IN BIO, GENETIC, ECO-VISUALIZATIONS

Describe the design process in any of the projects presented this week


[9]...... 11.18 Tu



  SOUND ART | ENVIRONMENT | INSTALLATION
A few examples of sound used as a site specific experience

Ambient sound: Fontana | Neuhaus |
Speakers as elements in installation: Rath | Minard
Sound & Objects: Heckert | van der Heide | deMarinis
Installation: Kubisch | Osborne
Sound Performance: Nicolai [1]
   
11.20 Th


TBA

[10]...... 11.25 Tu

  TBA
   
11.27 Th

THANKSGIVING

[11]........ 12.2 Tu   TBA
12.4 Th

TBA

[12]...... 12.09 Tu
  FINAL PROJECT DUE