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SYLLABUS
Media Practices: The Moving Image
FVNM 2001-001 / Fall 2007
THURSDAYS 9AM - 4PM, McClean 313
jonCates
email: jcates AT saic DOT edu
office: MI 519
Kerry Richardson
email: kricha AT saic DOT edu
office: MI 330
phone: 312.345.3543
Teachers' Assistant: Alan Strathman
email: astrat1 AT saic DOT edu
DESCRIPTION
This class is designed to introduce students to the language and history of moving
images and the ways in which a broad range of artists have used them. The course
will examine ideas of radical content and experimental form by establishing the
normative models and procedures of cinema and video, and then showing the ways
artists have challenged these conventions. The course will define and differentiate
the two dominant forms of the moving image -- film and video -- and begin a
consideration of new and expanding forms of the moving image. We will combine
lectures, readings, screenings, and discussion; collaborative studio practice and
critique/discussion; and visiting media artists.
ATTENDANCE
The class will meet every Thursday from 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m., with a one-hour
break at noon, with the exception of Thanksgiving break and Graduate Critique
Week. Attendance and punctuality are required. Attendance will be taken every
class. You will be considered late if you arrive after 9:15 am. Attendance will also be
taken at the beginning of the afternoon session; you will be considered late if you
arrive after 1:15 pm. Two “lates” are considered one absence. Three absences mean
NO CREDIT for the class.
ACOMMODATIONS FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES
Any student in need of academic adjustments or accommodations because of a
disability should first contact SAIC's Disability and Learning Resource Center (DLRC),
formerly Services for Students with Disabilities. The Disability and Learning Resource
Center can be reached by phone at 312.499.4278 or by sending an email to Sara
Baum at sbaum@artic.edu. DLRC will review the student's disability documentation
and will work with the student to determine reasonable accommodations. DLRC will
then provide the student with a letter outlining approved accommodations. This
letter must be presented to the instructor before any accommodations will be
implemented. Students should contact DLRC as early in the semester as possible.
THE WRITING CENTER
The Writing Center is located in MC B1-03 (the basement of 112 S. Michigan), where
tutors are available to help you with any stage of the writing process. The Writing
Center is open Monday through Saturday. Sign-up sheets are posted in the hall
outside of the tutoring suite. If you have any questions, contact the Writing Center
Coordinator, Leila Wilson, at lwilson@saic.edu or 312.345.3588
COURSE SCHEDULE
01: INTRO, CHOOSE THEME
02: REMIX/MASHUP/REMAKE, MEDIA ART MAKING METHODS, MATERIALITY, TEXT
PROCESSING EXERCISE, CHOOSE GROUPS
03: MATERIALITY, SAMPLING, APPROPRIATION, DATABENDING
04: GUERRILLA TV/VIDEO COLLECTIVES, PERSISTENCE OF VISION, MOVING
IMAGES
05: LANGUAGE OF THE MOVING IMAGE, FRENCH NEW WAVE, FILM CAPTURE
06: REMAKE/MASHUP/REMIX: FRENCH NEW WAVE
07: NONLINEAR EDITING FINAL CUT PRO EXERCISE
08: INSTALLATION FIELD TRIP
09: VISITING ARTIST, NEW MEDIA ART
10: NEW MEDIA ART, FINAL PROJECT GROUPS
11: VISITING ARTISTS, FINAL PROJECT: WRITTEN PROPOSALS, PRESENTATIONS
12: COLLABORATION, FINAL PROJECT FEEDBACK
13: (THANKSGIVING BREAK)
14: TROUBLESHOOTING AND PRODUCTION PROBLEMS, FINISHING
15: (CRITIQUE WEEK)
16: FINAL PROJECTS
WEEK 01: 08-30
INTRO, CHOOSE THEME
What is experimental Media Art?
* Artistic, Independent, Nonstandard, Nonnormative, Small or No budget, DIY, DIT,
Intentional, Critical, Challenging (could be oppositional to or different from
entertainment)
What is New Media Art?
* New Media Art is not New or Old Media Art but rather ongoing and parallel
processes. New Media Art is: Computational, Digital, Code-based, often screen-based
and hystorically related to Film and Video Art
What is Avant Garde?
* Examples: DADA, Surrealist, Hans Richter, FLUXUS, Yoko Ono, Stan Brakhage,
Situationist, etc.
What is Installation Art?
* Environmental, Immersive, Embodied, Audio and visual environments/spaces, Live,
Realtime, Expanded Cinema, Contextualized by considerations of the site, i.e. White
Cube vs Black Box, etc...
Discuss class structure
Discuss Film, Video & New Media Department Dept (including info on paths of
study/tracks), Conversations At the Edge, Gene Siskel Film Center, Video Data Bank,
Eye & Ear Clinic, IRMS and Media Center (including detailed explanation of
authorization classes and schedule), CRIT (including SAIC issued laptop computers
and WIRED classes)
SYLLABUS
A) Media Practices features collaborative groupwork requiring individual creativity
* Introduction to a theorypractice model of Film, Video & New Media Department,
understanding the basis of theorypractice of independent, experimental Media Art,
rethinking "media"
EXERCISES AND PROJECTS
A) In class technical exercises towards thematic projects
B) Technical exercises in Film, Video & New Media in the 1st 1/2 of semester
C) 2 sets of proposals are required:
CI) 1 Research Proposal
CII) 1 Project Proposal
Proposals must be intentional and rational.
* Does your proposal answer the questions necessary to the production of your
group's project?
REQUIRED READING
NEW MEDIA ART, Mark Tribe/Reena Jana, Taschen 2006
CHOOSE THEME
WEEK 02: 09-06
REMIX/MASHUP/REMAKE, MEDIA ART MAKING METHODS, MATERIALITY, TEXT
PROCESSING EXERCISE, CHOOSE GROUPS
INTRO REMIX/MASHUP/REMAKE
A PLAYFUL, EXPERIMENTAL, NONNARRATIVE, SHARED, COLLABORATIVE AND
ENCODED METHOD OF MEDIA ART MAKING
The Cut Up Method of Brion Gyson and William S Burroughs
Screen: Film, Video and New Media Art from this method such as The Cut Ups by
Anthony Balch
MATERIALITY
Distinguish and connect Film, Video and New Media Art materials and technologies
* Keyword examples of differences and links between Film, Video and New Media
technologies: Grain, Signal, Sequence, Time, Sample, Sync, Timecode, Film negative
key number, Mechanical, Chemical, Video RGB, Code, Compression, Frame, Fields,
Analog, Digital, Pixel value, Hexadecimal code
* Screen: Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, JODI, Joan Jonas, etc.
CHOOSE GROUPS
5 Groups chosen by random selection
WEEK 03: 9-13
MATERIALITY, SAMPLING, APPROPRIATION, DATABENDING
MATERIALITY
Review distinctions and connections between Film, Video and New Media
Discuss material object approach to nonmaterial digital media,
software and code
* Keyword examples: Digital media objects, Digital as material, Code
as material, Different languages, Programmability and transcoding
** Any code structure or any digital media is translatable or changeable from one
material interpretation to another because of their basic similarities as interpretable
digital codes.
Discuss economics of digital media/material
* Keyword examples: Intellectual Property, Copyright, Copyleft, Creative Commons,
Piracy, Open Source, etc.
* Project examples: UBUWEB – Kenneth Goldsmith, ARCHIVE.ORG, Creative
Commons, Illegal-art.org
SAMPLING and APPROPRIATION
Digital vs Analog sampling
* Screen: Technology/Transformation: Wonderwoman by Dara Birnbaum, Piece
Touchee by Martin Arnold
DATABENDING
Discuss Databending vs Signal Processing
* Discuss: Hacking or Cracking systems through artistic exploration and unintended
uses, Commercial (closed source) vs Free and Open Source Software, etc...
* Screen: Magnet TV by Nam June Paik, Wrong Browser by JODI, etc.
* Technical exercise: Soundhack
HOMEWORK:
Read “From Portapak To Camcorder: A Brief History Of Guerrilla Television” by
Deirdre Boyle at:
http://www.experimentaltvcenter.org/history/people/ptext.php3?id=8&page=1 or
follow link on class portal page under LINKS
WEEK 04: 09-20
GUERRILLA TV/VIDEO COLLECTIVES, PERSISTENCE OF VISION, MOVING IMAGES
EARLY VIDEO COLLECTIVES
* Keyword examples: Guerrilla TV, the Portapak, collectives
Screen/discuss: excerpts from Everyone’s Channel (David Shulman, 1990),
Decentralized Media Projects (Surveying the First Decade Anthology), Media Burn
(Ant Farm, 1975), Four More Years, (TVTV, 1974)
ANIMATION
What is Animation?
* Keyword examples: FPS, Frames, Persistence of Vision, Pre-cinematic devices,
Zoetrope, Eadweard Muybridge, Avant Garde, early cinema hystories, etc.
* Screen: Early examples from the Lumiere Brothers and Edison, A Trip to the Moon
by Georges Melies, plus Flicker by Tony Conrad, cameraless films of Man Ray, etc.
Cameras and Moving Images
* Discuss: As a political apparatus, developments of imaging technology, Industrial
influences, Computer culture, War and propaganda, etc.
* Screen: Eisenstein, Griffith, Riefenstahl, etc.
Technical demo: camcorders, tripods
* Keyword examples: image composition, framing, camera movements
HOMEWORK
Attend CONVERSATIONS AT THE EDGE screening 9-20 at the Gene Siskel with Skip
Blumberg, Nancy Cain and Chip Lord
Read Film Art: An Introduction handout on Docutek
WEEK 05: 09-27
LANGUAGE OF THE MOVING IMAGE, FRENCH NEW WAVE, FILM CAPTURE
* Keyword examples: cinema, mise-en-scene, continuity, time, space, narrative,
Hollywood, studio production system, French New Wave, remake
Discuss continuity as system, with examples from Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1928), The
Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941), Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Discuss French New Wave with excerpts from Jules et Jim (Francois Truffaut, 1962),
Breathlesss (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960), Masculin/Feminin: 15 Faits Precis (Jean-Luc
Godard, 1966)
Technical demo: Bolex cameras, light meter
* Keyword examples: lenses, exposure, light metering, film as capture
WEEK 06: 10-04
REMAKE/MASHUP/REMIX: FRENCH NEW WAVE
What does it mean to remix? To mashup? To recode?
* Keyword examples: Remixologies, Appropriation, interpretation, sharing,
collaboration
* Screen: Dramatically Repeating Lawrence of Arabia and 4 Vertigo by Les LeVeque
* In-class shoot: capture imagery rethinking, reinterpreting, remaking iconography
of French New Wave.
WEEK 07: 10-11
NONLINEAR EDITING FINAL CUT PRO EXERCISE
SCREEN RAW FOOTAGE, transfer to video
FINAL CUT PRO INTRO
Technical exercise: Capture, Edit, Splice, Remix, Export in Final Cut Pro
20 SECOND INDIVIDUAL REMIXES
Take 20-second clips of found audio (provided by instructors) and edit film footage
HOMEWORK
Read Media by Michael Archer from Installation, Thames and Hudson LTD
1994 handout on Docutek
WEEK 08: 10-18
INSTALLATION FIELD TRIP
INSTALLATION INTRO
What does Installation mean in Film, Video & New Media?
* Discuss: Happenings, Performance Art, Expanded Cinema, Rethinking cinema,
Future Cinema, Economies of scale, White Cube VS Black Box, Cinema and Media in
Contemporary Art, etc.
* Screen: Bill Viola, Tony Oursler, Isaac Julien, William Kentridge, etc.
INSTALLATION FIELD TRIP
ASSIGNMENT
Students write a short critique of one of the installation works encountered on the
field trip
WEEK 09: 10-25
LINKING, KEYWORDS, DATABASE CINEMA, VISITING ARTIST BARRY DOUPE
INTRO TO DATABASE CINEMA AS NEW MEDIA
What is New Media? Database Cinema?
* Discuss: Databases as containers, Keywords as hyperlinks and metadata, Variable
outputs from databases (including effects of code layers in various languages, i.e.
web-based applications),
Interactivity, Navigation, Cybernetics, etc...
* Screen: Soft Cinema by Lev Manovich, Red Rabbit by Austin Meredith
* Discuss: Database Society: Being databased in databanks, New Media hystories
and computer cultures, Surveillance culture, War and money machines (including
census data and missile guidance), etc...
* Discuss: Census taking, Missile guidance systems, Burroughs Computer
Corporation, IBM, the Pentagon, the Third Reich, Google, etc...
OUTSIDE ASSIGNMENT
Collect media files connected to the multicolored phrase or sentence.
WEEK 10: 11-01
NEW MEDIA ART EXERCISE, ARTWARE, PROCESSING, FINAL PROJECT
GROUPS
NEW MEDIA ART EXERCISE
What is New Media Art?
* Discuss: chance, indeterminate, play
* Discuss: “Beautiful as the chance encounter, on an operating table,
of a sewing machine and an umbrella.” Comte de Lautreamont, Songs of Maldoror
(1869), etc...
ARTWARE
What is Artware?
* Discuss: Software as Art or Art as Software
* Play: idiomorphic software by Barbara Lattanzi such as EG Serene, HF Critical
Mass, AMG Strain or Surface Tension: Applied Memory Mutation Software
HOMEWORK
Develop ideas for final group projects
WEEK 11: 11-08
FINAL PROJECT: WRITTEN PROPOSALS, PRESENTATIONS
Students present to each other inside their groups to share research, ideas,
inspiration, etc...
Groups present treatments of final collaborative projects to the entire class.
PRODUCTION PLANNING
Plan productions
* Discuss and develop: storyboards, diagrams, maps, instruction sets, shot lists,
etc...
* Screen: William Kentridge, Miranda July, etc...
Technical exercise: Students collaboratively create production plans as a group for
each group component of the collective final project.
Production plan should be for a 3-5 minute component of the collective final project
Technical exercise: demonstrate lighting kits and basic sound recording
WEEK 12: 11-15
VISITING ARTISTS: LO VID
FINAL PROJECT: PRESENTATIONS OF PRODUCTION PLANS, PRODUCE
COLLABORATIVE FINAL PROJECTS
FINAL PROJECT: PRESENTATIONS OF PRODUCTION PLANS
Groups present production plans to entire class.
PRODUCE COLLABORATIVE FINAL PROJECTS
Groups begin to produce, shoot, etc.
WEEK 13: 11-22
THANKSGIVING—NO CLASS
WEEK 14: 11-29
TROUBLESHOOTING and PRODUCTION PROBLEMS, FINISHING
TROUBLESHOOTING and PRODUCTION PROBLEMS
Groups present in progress collaborative final projects
FINISHING
How to finish, export, master, etc...
WEEK 15: 12-06
Critique week: NO CLASS
WEEK 16: 12-13
FINAL PROJECTS
FINAL PROJECTS
Groups present collaborative final projects.
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