The history of methods and practices of Art, Science, & Technology in the development of New Media, with surveys from a historical perspective. Studies the practices, careers, and disciplines involved with Film and Digital Media.

The general goals of this introductory course are three-fold; namely, to give you the ability to:

1. represent your ideas on paper & electronic media;
2. analyze existing media works with the goal of pulling out useful ideas for your own works; and
3. setup a website that will serve as an online portfolio for your works.

Specifically, after successfully completing this course you will be able to:

• Analyze the underlying structure of existing movies, games, advertisements, and other intermedia works
• Extract useful motifs from existing movies, games, advertisements, and other intermedia works for incorporation into your own intermedia works.
• Sketch figures, faces, and facades (buildings) in arbitrary viewpoints based on 3D-solid primitives.
• Take an imaginary social interaction and represent it as sequential art, c.f., comic strip.
• Transfer your sketches into a 2D (Flash) and 3D (Daz3D) software package.
• Register a domain name and set up a web site to display your works.

The emphasis is on using theory, imitation, and practice to create works that have an enlightening effect on society.

I call my teaching method "Drilling the Fundamentals", viz., learning by constantly doing. Unlike traditional university courses, where the professor teaches and you take notes, each of my classes will mix lecture with in-class design & analysis activities. Weekly homework assignments will help you refine the in-class material.

Books:

There's no required book for the class because there's no single book that covers the topics I plan to teach you.

Software:

• Daz 3D
• Daz Studio 3D Models Pack 1
• Dungeoun Runners
• Google Lively
• Adobe Flash
• Autodesk Maya
• Microsoft Expression (Windows)

Helpful online web references:

• W3C Tutorials
• .NET Development Documentation

Web Hosting Provider:

You must register a domain name for your Web site and sign up with an internet service provider (ISP). I have arranged a deal with Infobahn in Pittsburgh (412-653-8050) to provide inexpensive Web site hosting. If you choose to go with them, you can register online securely using the following URL: Infobahn Secure Online Registration, You can also register via phone (note: long distance charge); mention "Hosting Special #1" when you call the number listed above.

Note: if you go with another ISP and you plan on transforming your website into a social space, you should make sure they support:

• Active Server Pages .NET
• Microsoft Access or Sql Server Databases
• CDONTS mailing
• Web Services

It states quite clearly that all offers shall become null and void if...and you can read it for yourself in this photostatic copy:

• You must attend every class. Your grade goes down by 2% points for every class missed without a valid excuse. Medical excuses must be accompanied by a note from your physician. Having a job interview is not a valid excuse for missing class.
• You must bring your laptop to every class so that you can do the in-class programming drills, which we will have every class.
• No skipping class early. It's the same thing as not attending class (see penalty above).
• You must download the readings and homeworks prior to the start of the week's class. Due to the dynamic nature of the topics, readings and homeworks are not fixed. On the first Monday of each week I will post the new readings, lectures notes, and homework assignments.
• Homeworks are due before class. The due dates are printed on the assignments. The penalty for late homeworks is -2^(t+1)%, where t is the ceiling of the number of days late. For instance, if you're late by one day, the penalty is -4%. If you're 4 days late, the penalty is -32%. The penalty is in addition to any other points lost on your homework.
• If you are a qualified person with disabilities who might need appropriate academic adjustments, please communicate with me as soon as possible so that we may make appropriate arrangements to meet your needs in a timely manner. Frequently, we will need to coordinate accommodating activities with other offices on campus. Course materials can be made available in alternative formats.
• It is expected you will respect others by not using communication devices during the class period.
• Any violation of the Student Code of Conduct will be taken very seriously and appropriate sanctions will be applied. Violations include: plagiarism, exam misconduct, etc. Please refer to the UNM Pathfinder for additional information
• You have exactly 1 week after you receive your graded assignment or graded exam to address grading issues. You must submit to me both a detailed writeup (hardcopy, not electronic) of the grading issue, along with the original assignment or exam. I will not even consider regrading assignment or exams after this time period has elapsed.
• IMPORTANT: I reserve the right to drop any student that misses 2 classes in the first week of the course.
• IMPORTANT: All exams are closed book / closed notes. Retrieving any information created prior to the exam is considered cheating and a violation of the Student Code of Conduct.
• IMPORTANT: All class-related networking traffic is subject to analysis for violations of the Student Code of Conduct.

I, the undersigned, shall forfeit all rights, priviledges, and licenses, herein and herein contained, etc. etc. fax mentis incendium gloria culpum, etc. etc. memo bis, punitor delicatum!

It's all there, black and white, clear as crystal!'

• 65% -- homeworks (~13 assignments)
• 25% -- project
• 10% -- quiz

Week 1

READINGS:

• Manovich, L. (2006). Generation Flash. In W. Chun and T. Keenan (eds.), New Media, Old Media: A History and Theory Reader. New York, NY: Routledge.
• Rheingold, H. (2000). The Virtual Community  (Ch3: Visionaries and Convergences: The Accidental History of the Net.). Boston, MA: MIT Press.

MEDIA:

• Bop-o-Rama.com
• The Darkside of New Media 1: 8 Teens Charged with Attacking Girl for YouTube
• The Darkside of New Media 2: Bouncing baby video

Week 2

READINGS = Mind as Media (Hardware):

• Epstein, R. (2007). The Myth of the Teen Mind. Scientific American Mind, 3, 57-63.
• Ungerleider, L., & Haxby, J. (1994). 'What' and 'Where' in the Human Brain. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 4, 157-165.
• Black, R., & Logothetis, N. (2002). Visual Competition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 3, 1-11.
• HTML Reference
• CSS Reference

MEDIA:

• Flash: Brain Anatomy and Function
• Dali, S. (1940). The Three Ages - Old Age, Adolescence, Infancy
• Visual Illusions

Week 3

READINGS:

• Marcus, A. (2003). Icons, Symbols, and Signs: Visible Languages to Facilitate Communication, Interactions, 10, 37-43.
• Barsalou, L. (1999). Perceptual Symbols Systems. Behavioral And Brain Sciences, 22, 577-660.
• Coulson, S., & Oakley, T. (2000). Blending Basics. Cognitive Linguistics, 11, 175-196.
• Fauconner, G., & Turner, M. (1998). Conceptual Integration Networks. Cognitive Science, 22, 133-187.

MEDIA:

• Scott McCloud:Big Triangle for thinking about art
• Video Game: Guild Wars NightFall Quick Reference Card

Week 4

READINGS:

• Norman, D. (2002). Emotion & Design: Attractive Things Work Better, Interactions, 9, 36-42.
• Ekman, P. (1999). Facial Expression. In T. Dalgleish & M. Power (Eds.), Handbook of Cognition and Emotion. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
• Coulson, M. (2004) 'Attributing Emotion To Static Body Postures: Recognition Accuracy, Confusions, And Viewpoint Dependence.', Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 28 (2) 117-139.
• Rolls, E. (2000). The Brain and Emotion, Brain and Behavioral Sciences, 23, 219-228.
• Phan K, Wager T, Taylor S, and Liberzon I (2002). Functional Neuroanatomy of Emotion: A Meta-Analysis of Emotion Activation Studies in PET and fMRI. NeuroImage, 16, 331-348.
• Freeman, D. (2004). Creating emotion in games: The craft and art of Emotioneering. Computers in Entertainment, 2, 1-11.

MEDIA:

• Antonio Damasio: Emotion, Feeling, and Social Behavior: The Brain Perspective
• Video Game: Bioshock

Week 5

READINGS:

• Cialdini, R. (2001). The Science of Persuasion. Scientific American, 284, 76-81.
• Flor, N. (2000). Memetic Marketing. InformIT, December 11, 2000.
• Flor, N. (2004). The Seven P's of Direct-Response Advertising. Handout.

MEDIA:

• Charles Atlas Comic Ad
• Various Viral Ads
• Memetic Ads

Week 6

READINGS:

• Hollan J, Hutchins E, Kirsh D (2000). Distributed Cognition: Towards a New Foundation for Human-Computer Interaction Research, ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 7, 174-196.
• Flor - Cognitive Engineering Handout

MEDIA:

Week 7

READINGS:

• Flor N (1996). Hearing with the Eyes. Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Flor - A Primer on Blues, Rock, and Pop Improvisation (Handout)

MEDIA:

• Various Blues Songs
• Various Rock Songs
• Various Pop Songs

Week 8 - Narrativity

READINGS, Part 1:

• Michael Rush Video Art "Video and the New Narrative"
• Jonathan Knight Crary "Perceptual Modulations: Reinventing the Spectator"

MEDIA, Part 1:

• Todd Haynes' Poison, Jem Cohen's Lost Book Found
• Rodney Graham, Pipilotti Rist, Shirin Nashat

READINGS, Part 2:

• Donna Haraway, "Crittercam: Compounding Eyes in Nature Culture"
• Exceprts from Don Ihde's Bodies in Technology
• Eva Hayward "And Say the Water Responded?"

MEDIA, Part 2:

• Crittercam
• David Gatten What the Water Said (1997-1998)

Week 9 - Integration

READINGS:

• Brenda Laurel, "Computers as Theatre"
• Jurgen Cluas, "Expansion of Media Art", 1984
• Bill Kluver, "Northeastern Power Failure", 1966

MEDIA:

• The Work of Lowry Burgess, Gail Wight, Ken Goldberg, Eduarado Kac
• Natalie Jeremijenko
• Amy Franceschini

Week 10 - Interfaces

READINGS, Part 1:

• Donna Haraway, "Cyborg Manifesto"
• Constance Penley, "Cyborgs at Large: Interview with Donna Haraway"

MEDIA, Part 1:

• Orlan
• Stelarc
• Synthetic Pleasures (Lee, 1995)

READINGS, Part 2:

• Lev Manovich, "The Screen's Genealogy"
• J.D. Bolter, "Essays of Operation", 1989
• Kathy Rae Huffman, "Video Architecture: Beyond the Screen"

MEDIA, Part 2:

• Bill Viola, Gary Hill, Jennifer Steinkamp, Tatsuo Miyajima

Week 11 - Interactivity

READINGS, Part 1:

• Margaret Morse, "Poetics of Interactivity"
• Martti Lahti, "As We Become Machines"

MEDIA, Part 1:

• Second Life
• eXistenZ (Cronenberg 1999)

READINGS, Part 2:

• Ken Feingold
• Jim Campbell & Interactivity 1
• Jim Campbell & Interactivity 2
• Alan Kay, "User Interface: A Personal View"
• Myron Krueger, "Responsive Environments"

Week 12 - Hyper/Text/Media

READINGS, Part 1:

• Marie-Laure Ryan, "Beyond Myth and Metaphor: Narrative in Digital Age"
• N. Kahterine Hayes, "Print if Flat, Code is Deep"

MEDIA, Part 1:

• Diane Greco, "Cyborg: Engineering the Body Electric"
• Antonio Muntadas, "File Room"
• Olia LIalina, "War"
• Alexis Shulgin, "Desktop Is"
• Jenny Holzer, "Please Change Beliefs"
• Jenny Holzer, "Shredder"

READINGS, Part 2:

• Jorge Luis Borges, "The Garden of Forking Paths"
• James Brooks, "Reading and Riding with Borges"
• Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg, "Personal Dynamic Media"

MEDIA, Part 2:

• Laurie Anderson's Puppet Motel
• Josh On's THEYRULE.NET
• Jodi.org and Superbad
• Selection of Director and Flash pieces

Week 13 - Virtuality

READINGS, Part 1:

• Thomas Lamarre, "From Animation to Anime"
• Rebecca-Anne do Rozario, "Reanimating the Animated"

MEDIA, Part 1:

• Work from Brothers Quay
• Work from Jan Svankmajer
• Work from Pixar
• Anime

READINGS, Part 2:

• Ian A. Boal, "A Flow of Monsters: Luddism and Virtual Technologies"
• Brenda Laurel, "Post-Virtual Reality: After the Hype is Over"
• Sherry Turkle, "Constructions and Reconstructions of the Self in Virtual Reality", 1994

MEDIA, Part 2:

• BladeRunner
• Matrix

Week 14 - Immersion

READINGS, Part 1:

• Eva Hayward, "Of Metaplasms and Mesoglea"
• Notes on immersion
• Tom Gunning, "Illusions Past and Future"

Week 15 - Future

READINGS, Part 1:

• Hans Moravec, "The Senses Have No Future"
• Bill Viola, "Will There Be Condominiums in Data Space", 1982
• Lev Manovich, "The New Temporality: THe Loop as a Narrative Engine"

MEDIA, Part 1:

• Chris Marker's La Jetee, 1962
• Clip from: Run Lola Run
• Documentary BBC Horizon: Time Travel

READINGS, Part 2:

• Angela Ndalianis, "Special Effects, Morphing Magic, and the 1990's Cinema of Attractions"
• Yvonne Spielmann, "Aesthetic Features in Digital Imaging"
• Metamorphing

MEDIA, Part 2:

• Abyss (Cameron, 1989)
• Terminator 2 (Cameron, 1991)
• Spectres of the Spectrum (Baldwin, 1999)
• Women in Art