FA 210
Intro to Digital Media and Computing in the Visual Arts
M/W 2:00-4:50PM
Fall 2004

syllabus

M/W 2:00- 4:45 pm

Harris 220 and Watt 6 (labs)

Instructor: Gregory Kucera

office hours: TBA

kucera@artcenter.edu

Course Description

A course in digital media which, through studio practice and critical inquiry, explores the implications and potential of computer-generated art forms.

 Course Objectives

What are the consequences of digital technology for artists? Underlying this question are complex issues: What is the artist's relationship to history and tradition? What is the artist's relationship to capitalism? What is the relationship between art object and art tool? 

Recognizing that these questions are better answered by art-making than by art theory, this course is an introduction to digital technology as a fine art tool with an emphasis on its possibilities for realizing the artist's creative and conceptual goals. The class provides a fundamental instruction to software as well as a forum for students to develop art projects and critically address the aesthetic questions and challenges posed above

Lab classes will provide an introduction to 2-D digital imaging via Photoshop 7.0 and to web design via Dreamweaver.

Students will formulate objectives for their art projects through a careful consideration of the implications of digital media for their own aesthetic interests. While gaining a basic familiarity with the digital desktop as a tool for fine artists, students will also develop a critical and interdisciplinary framework for evaluating digital work on aesthetic terms. To provide a context for this critical emphasis, periodic lectures and readings will help us examine the historical and contemporary precedents for digital art projects.

Required Materials

·   250 or 100 MB Zip disks (depending on lab use) formatted for Macintosh. (If you have a PC you can use PC formatted zips)

Number of disks will vary depending on individual needs. I strongly recommend that you back up your projects on other zip disks. $15.00-$20.00 each.

·   CD-R to back up projects.

·   Service bureau costs for printout.

·   Photographs and other source materials.

·   USC e-mail account.

Required Books

·   Adobe Photoshop 7.0 Classroom in a Book, ISBN: 0321115627

·   Macromedia Dreamweaver MX: Training from the Source, Macromedia Press, Khristine Page, ISBN 0-201-79929-4

·   Class Reader (Handout)

Grading

Attendance

Attendance will be taken at all meetings and is MANDATORY.

Your final grade will be dropped one letter grade for every 2 unexcused absences. 2 lates = 1 absence. 5 unexcused absences will result in a failing grade.

Grade Breakdown

Project 1 - 25%

Project 2 - 25%

Project 3 - 25%

Weekly Assignments & Discussion of Readings - 15%

Participation in Critiques - 10%

·   Projects are graded on the conceptual and aesthetic quality of finished work, technical/craft expertise, and conceptual and technical investment of time.

·   Grading for projects includes project development and project analysis. There will also be assignments due throughout the semester. These should reflect a significant investment of time and thought.

·   Late assignments will drop one letter grade.

Participation          

·   Your grade will be lowered if you do not actively and constructively participate in critiques.

·   Your grade will be lowered if you do not come to class prepared to productively work on projects during open studio times.

Integrity policy

Any student found guilty of plagiarism, fabrication, cheating on examinations, or purchasing papers or other assignments will immediately receive a failing grade in the course. There are no exceptions to this rule.

Students with Disabilities and Academic Accommodations

Students requesting academic accommodations based on a disability are required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP when adequate documentation is filed. Please be sure the letter is delivered to the professor as early in the term as possible. DSP is open Monday through Friday, 8:30-5:00. The office is located in the Student Union room 301 and their phone number is 213-740-0776.

PROJECTS

Each project will be introduced with a presentation by the instructor and a detailed handout describing the projects in greater depth.

PROJECT 1) Portrature: See Below

PROJECT 2) Technology and Pop

PROJECT 3) Beauty and the Contemporary Sublime

·   1/23 Crit in class assignment #1. Intro to Barthes (Mythologies, Empire of Signs) reading

·   ASSIGN CIB Assignment Lessons: 6 Channels and 7: Retouching

· 

Project #1.
Reality after the death of photography.
The renaissance gave birth to perspective. Modern art is often
contextualized in reaction/relation to the development of the
photograph. Today classical photography is considered obsolete,
replaced by smaller lighter weigh cameras. Kodak has recently released
a disposable digital camera's from which images are delivered to the
consumer as image CD's making not only the film negative and the photo
print a thing of the recent past. Is photography dead?

Early analogue photography was thought to bear an indexical relation to
its subject. It was thought that a photo could not lie because light
had a direct and physical effect upon the silver nitrate in film stock.
Today cameras' increasing use a CCD (charge coupled device), where light
is encoded and decoded through circuitry as information and recorded
without any immediate physical trace to the optical referent. The
digital image from it's inception is known and assumed to have been
preprocessed. Has photography grown closer to or further from reality?

Produce a portrait that seeks to answer these questions. Develop
an image (or images) that is uniquely digital, utilizing techniques such
as scanning, appropriation, or digital recording. Be prepared to argue
your conceptual reasoning for choosing the techniques you have employed
to this end.

PROJECT 2

FA 210 Introduction to Digital Media and Computing in the Visual Arts
Fall 2003

PROJECT 2) The seamlessness of Techno-subjectivity

For this project, each student will composite a photograph that draws from no fewer than seven original digital images. This project lets you flex your compositing techniques to develop a “seamless”, “believable”, or “continuous” space, from elements not originally related to one another spatially or temporally. Develop an idea utilizing techniques developed in class (locked down camera, fixed perspective, and masks or keys) to attempts to produce am image that is evocative of narrative, metaphor, or allegory. The content may be your own, or drawn from another source such as mythology, literature, or pop culture.

RESOURCES:

NANCY BURSON

http://www.nancyburson.com

VanLamsweerde

http://www.mcachicago.org/MCA/exhibit/past/pretty/images/wendy.html

http://www.pdnonline.com/20years/fashion/20_inez_van_lamsweerde.html

http://www.airdeparis.com/inez3.htm

Keith Cottingham

http://www.kcott.com/

PREVIOUS STUDENT WORKS

demo1

demo2

project2

project3