Digital Media: Theory and Practice

Professor Jamie Skye Bianco
| email | twitter (for class) | twitter (general) |
Spring 2015, NYU-MCC 1031, Section 1 (14568 )
Mon & Wed, 12:30-1:45PM, BOBS LL 140
Office & Lab Hours: announced here (email to schedule)
Office Location: 239 Greene St., #721, NYC 10003 (Mail: 8th floor)
TA: Hediya Sizar | twitter |office hours announced here (East bldg, 7th floor)
TA: Marcha Johnson | twitter |office hours announced here (East bldg, 7th floor)


Print Version
Course Description
Course Schedule
Course Blog: Digital Media Theory
Course Expectations
Student Websites
Students (general)
Spikenlilli (Prof. Bianco's website)

COURSE DESCRIPTION:


digital literacy = digital media theory + digital media practice + creative, critical project (social issues in ecologies)


The idea of practice-based research, long integrated into the sciences, is relatively new to the humanities. The work of making--producing something that requires long hours, intense thought, and considerable technical skill--has significant implications that go beyond the crafting of words. Involved are embodied interactions with digital technologies, frequent testing of code and other functionalities that results in reworking and correcting, and dynamic, ongoing discussions with collaborators to get it right."

-- N. Katherine Hayles, How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis

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Digital technologies have made new forms of culture and communication. These forms rely on software, computation, informatics and algorithms. How do we begin? What makes one "literate" - derived etymologically from the verb 'to read' - in digital media?

It is a truism that digital media have fantastically altered human life in many capacities, but it will be our task to think through these conditions critically. To do this, we must be fluent in the practices and theories of digital media, and it also means we must be able 'to read' and 'to write' or practice in its languages. Some of these languages, when rendered by a browser, app or service client, look like the words, images, sounds, moving images and animation that we might study analytically, asking a question like, “what do they mean?” But also, “how do they work”?

How do they work? This second question requires that we understand - just as with text - how to read and how to write in digital media. This is our task: to learn some theory and basic composition. And perhaps most importantly, because digital media is a dynamic and rapidly changing set of modalities (software, scripting and coding languages, form factors, etc), we must learn how to learn more. We must become DIY – do-it-yourself - practitioners so that two years from now, when some of what we do in class will have changed, we will be able to teach ourselves new modes.

But learning does not happen in a vacuum. We must project, invent and critically create through practice. To this end, we will take as our theme and project basis: Social Issues in ECOLOGIES. An ecology, while most commonly understood as environmental or as a description of a set of media interactions, might be more finely understood as the tracing out of a set of relationships that intra-act, feedback, inter-depend and cascade with, through, and across one another. Thinking ecologically will allow us to understand digital media, technologies, human and nonhuman bodies in a complex of relations and it will also help us to understand practice, methods and making in creative, critical and ethical modes.

Each student will CREATE a site-specific environmental, ecological project focused on a social or social justice issue, local to New York City. This project, your research and media making for it will for the basis for the work you do in this class. We will both learn to think and build together. Theory and practice learned though project-making. You may choose your own project within environmental, ecological parameters and in discussion with Prof. Bianco and TA Hediya.

From the catalog: this course offers students a foundational understanding of the technological building blocks that make up digital media & culture, & of the ways they come together to shape myriad facets of life. Students will acquire a working knowledge of the key concepts behind coding, & survey the contours of digital media architecture, familiarizing themselves with algorithms, databases, hardware, & similar key components. These technological frameworks will be examined as the basic grammar of digital media & related to theories of identity, privacy, policy, & other pertinent themes.

WORKLOAD:


Let it be said, and it is meant. This course will operate at an advanced level of study. the workload is extremely heavy & expectations for your productivity are very high.

Students are encouraged to contact Prof. Jamie Skye Bianco in advance of the course regarding software requirements (see below under required materials) and consult her website at www.spikenlilli.com.

REQUIREMENTS:


Attend ALL classes and arrive on time.

Complete all assignments as assigned and on time. Assignments described in the schedule.

Meet Prof. Bianco as requested and as scheduled for your mid-term evaluation, if requested.

Present your final Project Portfolio as scheduled. You may NOT miss the Final Presentation, so do not schedule a departure from campus prior to our Final class.

Fully participate in class activities and especially our collaborative critiques of each others work.

Proactively attend labs & office hours of Prof. bianco and ta Hediya and ta Marcha to get the help you need... before the due dates

PROJECTS (the stuff of grades):


On time attendance at all classes (10%)
In-class work, writing, exercises (5%)
Technical tutorials (2%)
Readings: print & digital (5%)
Bi-weekly entries on the class digital media theory blog (10%)
Reading presentation: 2 parts – oral and paper (3-5 pages) (5% + 5%)
Ecologies Project Website (15%)
Photo Project (7.5%)
Audio Project (7.5%)
Video Project (10%)
Processing sketch (3%)
Final presentation (5%)
Full, unfettered participation, self-motivation, proactive engagement with all coursework (10%)
NOTE: Attendance at lab & office hours if you have trouble or need help (Prof. Bianco may require this of you if you fall behind)
NOTE: ALL assignments must be completed to pass the course.

REQUIRED TEXTS

(some available as ebook via library)

 


Matthew Fuller. Software Studies: a Lexicon (available online through the library)

matthew fuller & andrew goffey. Evil media (available online through the library)


MORE REQUIRED MATERIALS:

Adobe master Suite 5.5, 6 or cloud
any version from 5.5 on is acceptable.

Available to students from the nyu computer store at a seriously discounted price.

There are work-around alternatives, including use of the mcc departmental lab (239 Greene st., #703 - check in on 8th floor) during its specified hours and use of the nyu/bobst library computing labs.

I guarantee you we will use the following Adobe applications (though others may be used depending on our progress): Photoshop, DreamWeaver, audtion, premiere, Media Encoder & Media Player.

***Please Note: This software is required for the assignments for this course.*** DO not use alternatives without obtaining prof. bianco's permission first.

Domain and website host
While nyu offers students free domains and hosting service, this service is limited.

You will receive your own domain and hosting service for the semester, courtesy of MCC. ftp information will be sent via email (save it!!!)

I recommend you consider establishing your own domain/host before the end of term.

Memory Stick/Portable External Drive
You will need a minimum of 16G of memory.

This memory stick will be used exclusively for this class. Bring it to class. Use it as backup. While your work will always be posted on your website, you must also keep every single assignment from class on the usb drive, including project files, old files, and scratch files. You will provide your final coursework to prof. Bianco on this drive.

Regular Access to Digital Camera, camcorder, microphone/sound recording equipment
Equipment may be checked out from the MCC dept. office at 239 Greene, 8th fl. This is a first-come, first-serve provision. You will need to email mcc.medialab@nyu.edu (cc Prof. Bianco) requesting specific equipment on specific days. Check out is for one day or for the weekend. Equipment must be returned by 10am on the following day/Monday.

Do not use your cell phone cameras... they have limited resolutions and lenses.

Make sure that whatever camera you use (especially if you borrow a videocamera) that you have the software to access the image files and to download them to your computer or memory key.


MORE info on grades, the course, policies:

click here for expectations...