summer04 | 388
ART 388 - Advanced Internet Art
Tue & Thu 9:00 - 10:50 - FA 112


Course Objectives

This class will address the history and culture of the Internet and explore the World Wide Web as an artists' domain for publication and expressive creation. The class will examine narrative structures through experiments in linear and non linear navigation. Special emphasis will be placed upon defining the differences between client side and server side creations, and how these affect the content that can be provided by an artist. It will also emphasize on the evolution of multimedia into hypermedia, through the usage of client/server tools and programming languages.

Readings

Readings will be distributed throughout the semester. Critiques will frequently be initiated from various topics covered in the readings. In order to participate effectively you will need to have read the required texts and be able to articulate your responses to them within the context of class discussion and critique.

Participation

A class is a multiway form of communication. I might be there as a teacher, but you are also there to make others, including me, other points of view. I am very open to a lot of proposals, and NO CENSORSHIP OR DISCRIMINATION will be tolerated or promoted. Consider the class as a brainstorming session. And please contact me during office hours, or send me an email, or give me a phone call so we can solve any problem before the class.

Grading

There will be several mini projects throughout the semester, including papers, miniprojects, and others. Each one of them will be a part of the final 60% of the grading. If necessary I will do some pop quizes, depending on the students' participation and motivation, and depending on how certain classes work, I might add an extra work not listed in the syllabus. The final project will be 40% of the grade. The method will be as follows

A B C D F
100 > 90 89 > 75 74 > 55 54 > 40 39 > ...


Attendance

NO EXCUSES, more than 4 absences you will have the chance to withdraw the class - if allowed by the academic calendar - or you will get an F.
I really consider that punctuality and assistance are the most important parts of a class. If you miss a class, you will never be able to experience that class again. I use the word "experience" because not all the information given during the class can be put in paper, or even videotaped. Classes are a question of communication, and communication implies many different ways of exchanging information, the feeling, the laughters, the collective experience... An absence for any reason is an absence. It is your responsibility to initiate and maintain communication with me in case of an unusual circumstance."



Students

AZIZI, SAYEMA | azizi1

BASCH, AARON | abasch1

BERRY, FRANKLIN | fberry1

BUTT, TRAVIS | buttjoh1

CURTIS, SHAUN | shaunc1

DICKMAN, ANDREW | adickm1

FORSYTHE, JEFFREY | jeff5

HARTMAN, SAMUEL | shartm4

JORDAN, JEFFREY | jeff2

LOWE, ALVIN | alowe1

MUDD, NATHANIEL | mudd1

VINER, VALERY | vviner1

SHECK, THOMAS | thomass1

Week Date Topic Description
Assignments
1 Tue, Jan 27 INTRO 1 Introduction - Syllabus, goals of the class, required readings, general presentation of the students. Based on a comparison between "Eodipus King" by Sophocles and the movie "Minority Report" by Spielberg, how can the term TRAGEDY be defined? - personal expression - 5 page paper / due Thu, Feb 05
Thu, Jan 29 INTRO 2 Evolution of electronic elements in their sociopolitical environment: Century of Lights, Industrial Revolution, XXth Century. Telegraph, Telephone, Wireless CB, Radio, and Television. VACUUM TUBES, ENIAC, From analog to digital. 1/0 . BIT/BYTE. Transistors. The first computers.. ASCII Art.
Visual Poem Project: transform your favorite poem ( at least 20 lines ) into a visual html project, using images, tables / due Tue Feb 17
2 Tue, Feb 03 INTRO 3 History of the web from cold war paranoia to homeland security. Arpanet, Evolution of the web. Definition of CLIENT/ SERVER side. Applications and examples.
Digital ASCII art: each student has to present 3 pieces of digital ASCII art / due Tue Feb 24
Thu, Feb 05 CLIENT 1 Oedipus papers // TEXT as the base for all Internet creation. SSH, SFTP, FUGU, Fetch, FTP.
3 Tue, Feb 10 CLIENT 2 More Basic HTML, definitions, syntax, examples, text coding, browser particularities. Fonts, sizes, colors.
Thu, Feb 12 CLIENT / SERVER 3 Advanced HTML: display of information, tables.
4 Tue, Feb 17 CLIENT 1 Visual Poem Project presentation // More Tables, images, transparent gifs.
Thu, Feb 19
No class
5 Tue, Feb 24 CLIENT 2 Digital ASCII Art presentation // Advanced HTML: frames. Advantages and disadvantages. Using plain HTML and any editor of your choice, create your own family tree, including your close friends, using frames, images, sounds, animations. You will show all the relations between the different members of your extended family / due Tue March 02 => Tue March 09
Thu, Feb 26 CLIENT 3 Embedding Applets, SWF, DCR, QT movs. Sounds and animation.
6 Tue, Mar 02 CLIENT 4 Extended Family Tree Projects presentation, group critique // XHTML = CONTROL!!! Cascading Style Sheets, DTDs, examples, definition, design, pre-production Using strict XHTML+CSS, transform your original digital ascii creations into interactive css creations, or if you prefer, you can create at least 3 new ascii projects / due Thu Mar 11 => Tue March 16
Thu, Mar 04 CLIENT 5 Applied XHTML + CSS 1: text styles
Starting in 1938, after Orson Welles produced the radio version of the "War of the Worlds", and reinforced by WWII and the nuclear paranoia of the cold war, Science Fiction became the main territory to express the collective fears of entire generations towards anything foreign, unknown and threatening.
Based on your perception of the exhibit "PARADISE NOW," what are the collective contemporary fears the participating artists are expressing? Minimum 3 page paper -
due tue March 30th - NO EXCUSES
7 Tue, Mar 09 CLIENT 6 Applied XHTML + CSS 2: positioning
Thu, Mar 11 CLIENT 7 CSS ASCII Project - Group critique // Client side programming for the web. Javascript: DHTML
8 Tue, Mar 16 CLIENT 8 Javascript. notions of variables, functions, usage, examples: form verifications, random images, time and date. DHTML
Thu, Mar 18 JS 1 More Javascript, interactive display. More applications DHTML
Based on Llinás's reading, create a minisite exploring the links between the web and our own memory creation process using DHTML, XHTML and Javascript / due Thu Apr 01
9 Tue, Mar 23
Spring Break
Thu, Mar 25
10 Tue, Mar 30 JS 2 Q&A WWW Memory Projects - Javascript
Thu, Apr 01 JS 3 WWW Memory Projects - group critique
11 Tue, Apr 06 PHP 1 Form verification via JS, handling of information via PHP -Server side programming, permissions Confessions project: create a website for people to express their opinions about a specific controversial topic using XHTML, JS, DHTML, PHP / due Tue Apr 27
Thu, Apr 08 PHP 2 PHP Syntax and examples, $_GET and $_POST
12 Tue, Apr 13 PHP 3 PHP exercises 1, hidden buttons in forms, dynamic display
Thu, Apr 15 PHP 4 PHP and Databases, Understanding DBs, example of tab delimited text db. Public presentation of Final project ideas with timeline and workflow, open topic. The Final project must be a server side website, including XHTML, DHTML, Javascript, PHP/MySQL / due Thu Apr 29
13 Tue, Apr 20 MySQL 1 MySQL - Storing information 1
Thu, Apr 22 MySQL 2 MySQL - Storing information 2
14 Tue, Apr 27 MySQL 3 Presentation of Confessions projects - Group critique
Thu, Apr 29 FP 1 Final project ideas presentation
15 Tue, May 04 FP 2 Final project workshop
Thu, May 06 FP 3 Final project workshop
16 Tue, May 11 ADV 1:1 advisory
Thu, May 13 ADV 1:1 advisory
17 Tue, May 18 FINALS Final projects - dates to be announced
Thu, May 20


Bibliography

Technical books / manuals

• www.w3schools.com

• A. Michael Noll, Introduction to Telecommunications Electronics

Larry Ullman, PHP for the World Wide Web

Elizabeth Castro, HTML for the World Wide Web, 5th Edition

• Elizabeth Castro, PERL and CGI for the World Wide Web

Elizabeth Castro, XML for the World Wide Web

Tom Negrino & Dori Smith, Javascript for the World Wide Web

Jason Cranford Teague, DHTML and CSS for the World Wide Web

Reference books

• Gilles Lipovetsky, Era of Void

• Gilles Lipovetsky, L'empire de l'éphémère

• Rodolfo R. Llinás, I of the Vortex

• Javier Sampedro, Deconstructing Darwin

• Martin Heidegger, Zeit und Sein - Being and Time

• Celia Pearce, The Interactive Book

• Omar Calabrese, The Neo-Barroque Era

• Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, Rizoma

• Gianni Romano, Artscape

• Keith Cameron, Multimedia Call: Theory and Practice

• Laurence Strene, Tristam Shandy

• John Wiley & Sons; (July 1994), Analogous Digital

• Stanley Aranowitz, Barbara Martisons & Michael Menser, Technoscience and Cyberculture: A Cultural Study

• Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

• Martin Davis, The Universal Computer: The Road from Leibniz to Turing

• Régis Debray, Vie et mort de l'image : une histoire du regard en Occident.

• David Deutsch, The Science of Parallel Universes-And Its Implications

• Mark Dery, Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century

• Silvio Gaggi. From text to hypertext. Decentering the subject in Fiction, Film, the visual arts and Electronic Media.

• Oliver Grau. Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion.

• George P. Landow, Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology (Parallax - Re-Visions of Culture and Society)

• Pierre Levy. La machine univers: Création, cognition et culture informatique

• Peter Lunenfeld (Ed.). The digital dialectic. New essays on new media

• Lev Manovich. The Language of New Media

• Philipe Quéau, Le virtuel : vertus et vertiges. Champ Vallon ; Institut national de l'audiovisuel.

• Sherry Turkle, Life on the screen

• Paul Virilio, The Vision Machine



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summer04 | 388