Digital Art and New Media Course Descriptions
2011-12 General Catalog
DARC 204
(831) 459-1919
http://danm.ucsc.edu
Graduate Courses
201. Recent Methods and Approaches to Digital Arts and Culture. F
Students examine methods and approaches to research and writing in digital art and new media, while exploring key theories concerning technology, art, and culture. Focus is on the interaction between digital technologies and socio/cultural formations. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. S. Murray
202. Dialogues and Questions in Digital Arts and Culture. S
Students engage in dialogues at the intersection of theory and practice with the goal of producing a pre-thesis proposal and essay. Readings and seminar discussions inform the development of project proposals and essays, which theoretically contextualize students' work. (Formerly Digital Arts and New Media 203.) (Also offered as Music 254Q. Students cannot receive credit for both courses.) Enrollment restricted to graduate students. B. Carson
203. Frameworks and Arguments in Digital Arts and Culture. S
Intended to help students develop and write the MFA thesis. Students conduct research on the thesis topic, design outlines, construct strong theoretical arguments, and draft the final document. (Formerly course 202, Genealogies and Theories of Digital Arts and Culture.) M. Morse
204. Ways of Seeing and Hearing. F
Graduate-level advanced seminar explores ways that seeing, hearing, and knowing are influenced by culture, power, race, and other factors. Readings emphasize how documentary subjects are constituted and known, addressing questions of epistemology, social constructivism, objectivity, and method. (Also offered as Social Documentation 204. Students cannot receive credit for both courses.) Enrollment restricted to social documentation and digital arts new media graduate students. M. Ochoa
205. Approaches to Social Documentation. F
Comprehensive review and analysis of documentary strategies aimed at societal critique and social change, evaluating changes in argument, evidence, and process over development of the discipline. (Also offered as Social Documentation 200. Students cannot receive credit for both courses.) A concurrent media lab is required. Enrollment restricted to digital arts and new media graduate students. Enrollment limited to 15. B. Rich
206. Practice of Social Documentary. F
Introduction to social documentary genres including video, photography, new media and other mediums, which addresses social-scientific research and methodology in the context of these processes. (Also offered as Social Documentation 202. Students cannot receive credit for both courses.) A concurrent media lab is required. Enrollment restricted to digital arts and new media graduate students. Enrollment limited to 15. J. Leanos
207. Video Production of the Social Documentary. W
Intensive directing and producing course that covers conceptualization, research, treatment and proposal writing, interview technique, camera, editing, production, and distribution. (Also offered as Social Documentation 280. Students cannot receive credit for both courses.) A concurrent media lab is required. Enrollment restricted to digital arts and new media graduate students. Enrollment limited to 15. R. Tajima
208. Special Topics in Social Documentation. F,W,S
Designed to provide supplemental instruction on specific topical and/or technical matters related to social documentation. Topics include technical standards and innovations within the field of social documentation, documentary subjects, location production, and/or the work of individual professional documentarians. (Also offered as Social Documentation 290. Students cannot receive credit for both courses.) Enrollment restricted to digital arts and new media graduate students. Enrollment limited to 15. May be repeated for credit. The Staff
210. Project Design Studio. F
Students work on the design of individual projects by developing project proposals, budgets, "proof of concept" design documents and/or prototypes and exploring tools, technologies, programming languages, hardware, software, and electronics techniques relevant to their projects. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. E. Crichton
211. Critique. S
First-year digital arts and new media graduate students are required to present work-in-progress based on the projects developed in earlier courses and during the current quarter in individual studio critiques with the instructor as well as in group critiques. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. Enrollment limited to 18. S. Daniel
212. Thesis Proposal (no credit). S
First-year digital art and new media graduate students work on the development and completion of their thesis-project proposal and abstract under the supervision of the program chair and their thesis committees. Enrollment restricted to DANM students. The Staff
215. MFA Exhibition Production. W
Second-year digital arts and new media graduate students work with faculty curator/coordinator to develop thesis projects specifically for the group exhibition context. Students contribute to exhibition design and collateral materials while studying the unique presentation and curatorial challenges of new media. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. S. Murray
216. Digital Bodies. *
Explores the appearance, form, and theoretical status of the human body/political subject in online art. Focuses on representations of race and gender, family resemblances, and local communities, as well as the political and colonial metaphors of spatial interaction operating on the World Wide Web. Visual representations of bodies that take the form of avatars, advertising, robots, and anime studied in their contextual usage. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. Upper-division undergraduates may enroll with permission of instructor. Enrollment limited to 17. J. Gonzalez
217. Concepts in Electronic Art. *
Study of concepts developed in contemporary conceptual art practice and their application to technological media. Review a broad spectrum of electronic art—the Internet, digital video, interactive systems, kinetics and robotics, biotechnological work—that hold conceptual art practice in the foreground. Use concepts cultivated by early conceptual artists and apply them to individual projects using electronic media. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. Upper-division undergraduates may enroll with permission of instructor. Enrollment limited to 17. I. Reichert
219. Introduction to Electronics for Artmaking. F
Intensive introduction to electronic devices used in artmaking, providing hands-on experience with sensors, motors, switches, gears, lights, simple circuits, microprocessors, and hardware storage devices to create kinetic and interactive works of art. Students are billed a materials fee. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. The Staff
220. Introduction to Programming for the Arts. W
Covers aspects of computer programming necessary for digital art projects. Students learn to manipulate digital media using program control for installations, presentations, and the Internet. No prior programming experience required. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. P. Elsea
221. Mathematics and the Arts. *
Examines the role of mathematics in the arts since the computer revolution with an emphasis on chaos, fractals, and symmetry. Covers abstract animation and algorithmic music, including the history of leading innovators and techniques from 1950 to the present. Student projects explore the creative process today using cutting-edge technologies. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. Upper-division undergraduates may enroll with permission of instructor. Enrollment limited to 30. May be repeated for credit. R. Abraham
224. Digital Arts Project Studio. *
Provides a context for significant development of digital arts projects: in the first year, individual and collaborative; in the second year, resolution of thesis projects. Individuals and collaborative groups meet with the instructor for focused critical feedback. Students create a public exhibition of their work-in-progress. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. Enrollment limited to 18. E. Crichton
227. Projected Light in Performance. W
Exploration of projected light in performance and art. The history of lighting as art is covered in a hands-on demystifying format from the shadow of a bare light bulb to the latest in automated and projection equipment and techniques. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. Juniors and seniors may enroll with permission of instructor. Enrollment limited to 20. D. Cuthbert
228. Techniques of Modernity and Aesthetic Formations. *
Explores the transformations and aesthetic possibilities of the digital age through a study of perceptual shifts of the past, from orality to literacy, gift to commodity, pre-colonial to colonial, "pre-modern" to "modern," and the technological revolutions that accompanied these shifts. (Also offered as Music 228. Students cannot receive credit for both courses.) Enrollment restricted to graduate students; upper-division undergraduates may enroll with permission of instructor. Enrollment limited to 18. D. Neuman
231. Human-Computer Interaction. W
Theory and hands-on practice to understand what makes user interfaces usable and accessible to diverse individuals. Covers human senses and memory and their design implications, requirement solicitation, user-centered design and prototyping techniques, and expert and user evaluations. Individual research project. Interdisciplinary course for art, social science and engineering graduate students. Students cannot receive credit for this course and course 131. (Also offered as Computer Engineering 231. Students cannot receive credit for both courses.) Enrollment restricted to graduate students. S. Kurniawan
233. The Object as Interface. *
Combination theory and studio-based exploration into the role of the object in real and virtual space. Provides a broad conceptual and theoretical examination of issues relating to object-making on a physical and dematerialized plane. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. Enrollment limited to 15. W. Hibbert-Jones
250A. Collaborative Research Project Group: Mechatronics. F,W,S
Three-quarter collaborative research project group involves faculty-initiated research in the use of a variety of media including video, performance, and sculpture, for the creation of complex, kinetic, audio-visual systems exploring temporality, materiality, experience, and perception. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. Enrollment limited to 8. May be repeated for credit. The Staff
250B. Collaborative Research Project Group: Participatory Culture. F,W,S
Three-quarter collaborative research project group encompasses a range of faculty-initiated projects in social computing and community-media activism, which involve the design of new technologies to address social problems and facilitate broader participation in culture and politics. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. Enrollment limited to 8. May be repeated for credit. The Staff
250C. Collaborative Research Project Group: Performative Technologies. F,W,S
Three-quarter collaborative research project group generates faculty-initiated new public and performative spaces where digital media, communication networks, and interactive systems may be fused with lighting, movement, stage, and sound design to create shared multimedia experiences for audiences and performers. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. Enrollment limited to 8. May be repeated for credit. The Staff
250D. Playable Media. W
Focuses on media, such as computer games, that invite and structure play. Work includes building and critiquing a series of prototypes; studying major examples in the field; and discussing both theoretical and practice-oriented texts. (Also offered as Computer Science 290J. Students cannot receive credit for both courses.) Enrollment restricted to graduate students. May be repeated for credit. N. Wardrip-Fruin, M. Mateas
254I. Empirical Approaches to Art Information. *
Reading and practice in empirical methods, as applied to the study of music, visual art, multimedia production, and performance arts. Topics include semiotics, critiques of empiricism, cultural determinants and contingents of perception, the psychophysics of information, sensory perception (visual and auditory), memory, pattern recognition, and awareness. Students apply existing knowledge in the cognitive sciences to a developing creative project, or develop and conduct new experiments. (Also offered as Music 254I. Students cannot receive credit for both courses.) Enrollment restricted to graduate students. Enrollment limited to 17. May be repeated for credit. B. Carson
254L. John Cage: Innovation, Collaboration, and Performance Technologies. *
In-depth examination of John Cage's interdisciplinary work, his pioneering activity in live electronic technology, and his influence in current multimedia creativity. Approximately one-half of the seminary is devoted to student research and creative projects and reflect Cage's legacy. (Also offered as Music 254L. Students cannot receive credit for both courses.) Enrollment restricted to juniors, seniors, and graduate students. Upper-division undergraduates may enroll with permission of instructor. Enrollment limited to 12. The Staff
267. Workshop in Computer Music and Visualization (2 credits). F,W,S
Graduate-level techniques and procedures of computer music composition and visualization. Practical experience in the UCSC electronic music studio with computer composition systems and software, including visualization and interactive performance systems. Extensive exploration of music and interactive graphic programs such as Max/MSP/Jitter. Enrollment by permission of instructor; appropriate graduate experience required. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. (Also offered as Music 267. Students cannot receive credit for both courses.) Enrollment limited to 12. May be repeated for credit. P. Elsea
297. Independent Study. F,W,S
Independent digital arts and new media research project under the guidance of a digital arts and new media faculty member or other faculty with approval of adviser. Project includes readings, research, and a written report. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. Maximum 10 credits. May be repeated for credit. The Staff
297G. Independent Study (3 credits). F,W,S
Independent digital arts and new media research project under the guidance of a digital arts and new media faculty member or other faculty with approval of adviser. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. May be repeated for a maximum 6 credits. May be repeated for credit. The Staff
299. Thesis Research. F,W,S
Students carry out a master's of fine arts thesis in digital arts and new media research, under the guidance of a thesis committee. The thesis will be an arts project with digital documentation accompanied by a written paper discussing the student's preparatory research as well as the theoretical significance of the project. Enrollment restricted to graduate students. Maximum 10 credits. May be repeated for credit. The Staff
Revised: 8/13/12
