WED 5-8pm

Course Description

If a medium is to be understood as an intervening substance through which an effect is produced, it has become necessary to understand and appreciate the post-industrial substances – the technological tools – that have radically reconfigured artistic production, distribution and exhibition practices in the twenty-first century. What exactly is so novel about New Media, then, and how have practitioners, critics, corporate entities, and audiences come to contend with its paradoxically permanent state of “newness?” Moreover, given that New Media is a field of study, creative sphere, and technological catalyst for social change – one that encompasses a number of disparate technologically-contingent areas of artistic endeavour – how might we begin to unify these distinct elements into a conceptually coherent and historically situated category?

 NMED 5850 reviews a number of theoretical ideas, philosophical concepts, aesthetic movements, and industrial innovations that have played an instrumental role in the defining and organizing of New Media – both as an academic discipline and as a field of interwoven, electronically-enabled artistic and social praxes. The course is a critical survey of canonical writings and prominent historical developments upon which our understanding of New Media depends. Our investigations will address how these writings and developments have influenced the predominant subcategories within New Media including 3D art and animation, cinema and the moving image, digital design, and the interactive arts.

 The primary aims of the course, then, are to:

• identify common principles, concepts, and practices that unify disparate creative activities
• establish categorical differences that distinguish these areas from the “traditional” arts
• historicize cohesively the transformations to these evolving and emerging areas

 Working in accordance with Laurie Ouelette’s mapping of the discipline of Media Studies, each of the course’s sections will consider new media’s significant interrelationships with the following areas: culture, technology, representation, industry, identity, audience and citizenship. Each of these units will be addressed via the close, critical evaluation of representative essays by leading theorists and practitioners. These essays will be discussed in weekly student-led seminars that are overseen by two of the course instructors, and require the public articulation of critical responses. The objective here is to formulate carefully-considered enquiries into the field’s foundational ideas, as your interrogative engagement with these theories will ultimately play a vital role in defining and situating your own creative practice.