Digital Media: Current Directions
Spring 2009
Course listing: Arts 12
Location: HIB 110 (Humanities Instructional Bldg)
Class times: Mon & Wed, 4:00 - 5:50 pm
Credit: 4 units
Professor: John Crawford <>
Teaching Assistant: John Crooks <>
Teaching Assistant: Noelle Hoffman <>
Office hours: By appointment
This overview of current practice and research in digital media art focuses on areas especially affected by recent technological, scientific, cultural and political developments. Addresses the increasing overlap of artistic and scientific practices, critical issues related to dependence on new and emerging technologies, and legal issues that affect artists and researchers working with digital media. Discusses mechanisms by which technological developments and their function in art worlds shape, and are shaped by, power relations, most obviously by the politics of race, gender or class.
Through a series of lectures, discussions, individual student research projects and group activities, this course establishes relationships between a range of digital media practices, touching on such areas as interface design, digital music, telematic performance, intelligent agents, virtual realities, artificial life and ubiquitous computing. Students will discuss critical issues related to digital technology and the arts, and will view and discuss recent works by leading digital media artists.