nm142
NEW MEDIA HISTORY AND THEORY
instructor: curt cloninger
email: ccloning at unca dot edu
office: Owen 311 (office hours are online, by appointment)
location: university of north carolina asheville

class-specific | readings & artwork



intro
syllabus
rough project calendar
attendance and grading policies

major assignments
theorist application paper
culture position paper [examples: Treece * Laney|Shirlen|Ashley]
Paper Topics To Avoid
[common problems with student papers]

writing resources
unc writing center handouts [nb: argument and thesis statements] (UNC)
MLA citation generator (bibMe)
the citation machine (warlick)

required texts
The New Media Reader (ed. wardrip-fruin, montfort) [do *not* need the CD-ROM, just the book]
New Media in Art [second edition] (rush)



project
McLuhan project

primers
Cyber_Reader (ed. spiller)
Overview of Media Art (ed. frieling/daniels)
introducing the book (naerum)

origins of computing
As We May Think (bush) [1945]
Computing Machinery and Intelligence (turing) [1950]
eliza
kitten experiment diagram
the seriously creepy "two-kitten experiment" (inglis-arkell)
The Alien Style of Deep Learning Generative Design (perez)
concentric empathy (fahey)
Media Archaeology Out of Nature: An Interview with Jussi Parikka (feigelfeld) ♦
what computers can't do * what computers still can't do (dreyfus)
superintelligence (bostrom)

non-linearity & interactivity
Four Leaves from a Commonplace Book <introduction> (cabinet magazine)
instructions from "18 happenings in 6 parts" (kaprow)
The Death of the Author (barthes) [1967] ♦
Print Is Flat, Code Is Deep (hayles) [2004] ♦
a humument (phillips)
Control Artist (johnson) [2001]

new media & culture theory
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (benjamin) [1935] ♦
Cloning Aura (various authors) [2016] ♦
Understanding Media (mcluhan) [1964] ♦
Finger Gloves (horn) [1972]
from "The Eternal Now" (lapham)
It's a Mistake to Mistake Content for Content (goldsmith) [2015] ♦
The Society of the Spectacle (debord) [1967] ♦
Theory of the Dérive (debord)
The Precession of Simulacra [excerpt] (baudrillard) [1981] ♦
On Exactitude in Science (borges) [1946]
K-HOLE
Here's Why the Banksy Movie Is a Banksy Prank (walker)
What is Post-digital? (cramer) [2014] ♦
+++
On The Passage of a Few Persons Through a Rather Brief Period of Time [part 1 * part 2 * part 3]
May 1968 graffiti
No Fun (sex pistols) [1977]
Careering / Poptones (public image limited) [1980]

(bonus: tactical media)
Making Do: Uses and Tactics (de certeau) [1980] ♦
The Temporary Autonomous Zone (bey) [1985] ♦
Electronic Civil Disobedience (critical art ensemble) [1994] ♦
The ABC of Tactical Media (garcia/lovink) [1997]
The Exploit (galloway/thacker) [2007] ♦

new media in art
Introduction:
Nude Descending a Staircase (duchamp)
Fountain (mutt)
Making Changes (walton)
Eternity in an Instant: The Moving Images of David Crawford (cloninger)
Man With a Movie Camera (vertov)
4'33'' (cage)
Zen for Film (paik)
The Fluxus Performance Workbook (various artists)
Eat [excerpt] (warhol)

Media & Performance:
Homage to New York (tinguely) [1960]
Variations V (cage, cunningham, klüver) [1965]
Prune Flat (whitman) [1965]
Left Side Right Side (jonas) [1972]
Vertical Roll (jonas) [1972]
Art Make-up (nauman) [1967]
Pinch Neck (nauman) [1968]
Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square (nauman) [1967-8]
Anthro/Socio(Rinde spinning) (nauman) [1992]
Beyond the Medium. Toward The Goals. Case Study: Vito Acconci (cloninger)
Pryings (acconci w/ kathy dillon) [1971]
Theme Song (acconci) [1973]
demo of tv cello (paik/moorman) [starts at 4:00]
syntagma (export) [1983]
---
performances [scroll down to "Successful-Surgery 1990"] (orlan)
pandrogyne (p-orridge[s])
exoskeleton (stelarc)
Double Entendre [cf: EAI description] (davis) [1981]
Performer/Audience/Mirror (graham) [1975]
The Kuleshov Effect
take off your pants [installation | prologue | game] (smith/white) [2005]
K-Corea INC.K [section a] (trecartin) [2009]

Video Installation:
Designing Context (cloninger)
Museum of Modern Art, Department of Eagles (broodthaers) [1968-72]
Electronic Superhighway (paik) [1993]
Video Corridor (nauman) [1968]
reFACE (levin/liebarman) [2007]
Wipe Cycle (gilette/schneider) [1969]
Through A Looking Glass (gordon) [1999]
Accent Elimination [stills/description * video] (katchadourian) [2005]
Machine Vision [cf: description] (vasulka/vasulka) [1976ff.]
Orka (s. vasulka) [1997]
The Crossing [gif] (viola) [1996]
Drawing Restraint (barney)
Cremaster Cycle (barney)
What It's Like, What It Is #3 (piper) [1991] (1991)
Ever Is Over All [cf: alternate documentation] (rist) [1997]
(Absolutions) Pipilotti's Mistakes (rist) [1988]
I'm Not The Girl Who Misses Much (rist) [1986]
In Defense of the Poor Image (steyerl) [2009] ♦
How Not to Be Seen: A F*cking Didactic Educational .MOV File (steyerl) [2013]

technology
Foreseeing the Future: The legacy of Vannevar Bush (malone)
Timeline of Science Fiction Ideas, Technology and Inventions (technovelgy)
Behind the White Shadows of Image Processing (menkman) ♦

some final perspectives
Kierkegaard on the Internet: Anonymity vrs. Commitment in the Present Age (dreyfus) ♦
Getting Intimate with Invisible Audiences (zer-aviv) ♦
What's So New About New Media Art? (ryan) [2003] ♦
The Postmedia Perspective (quaranta) [2010] ♦
New Media from the Neolithic to Now (holmes) [2009] ♦
Networks Without a Cause: A Critique of Social Media (lovink) [2011]
The Artists Have Been Set Free (citarella, troemel, abrams) [2016] ♦
How Social Media Is Changing Music (shortlidge) [2019]