NM 320
Intermediate Interactive Media (Internet Art)

Instructor: Curt Cloninger / curt at lab404 dot com

NM 320 explores the history, theory, and practice of internet art -- defined as "art meant to be experienced online." We will examine and produce works in the genres of network conceptualism, hypermedia comics, non-linear narrative, and generative software. Readings, research, and artmaking projects will address issues of identity, location, collaboration, hacktivism, immersion, storytelling, insider/outsider art, minimalism, design aesthetics, media synthesis, and game design.

Students will couple web development skills with other media production experience to create art for and residing on the internet. The emphasis will be on making original, relevant, and engrossing artwork given the constraints and strengths of the online medium. Technical software skills will be addressed as they relate to this creative process.

The projects and assignments required in this class are time-intensive and require an average of 9 hours per week on the computer, either in a campus lab or on your own computer that contains the software used in the class. The pre-requisite for this class is NM 231.

Student Learning Objectives
In this course you will:

• Understand the inherent strengths and weaknesses of the internet as a communications medium.
• Develop artistic methods that take creative advantage of the internet's peculiarities.
• Understand internet art in the context of 20th/21st century art and "new media" art.
• Synthesize a wide range of media production skills in the service of artmaking.
• Produce original artworks in a variety of conceptual genres.
• Identify methods for establishing sustained narration using minimalistic multimedia elements.
• Create "unfinished environments" that invite user exploration and participation.
• Develop a non-linear narrative methodology.
• Identify ways in which online art can contribute to positive social change.
• Recognize your own agency as a new media artist, and become confident exercising that agency to modulate and change the world.

• Network-based Conceptualism
• "Open" and "Closed" Interactivity
• Linear and Non-linear Narrative
• Hypermedia Narrative
• Generative Software

Required Materials:
Bulldog email account -- check regularly
Student web hosting space (for posting work)
flash drive, notebook or sketchbook, graph paper, pencils, and pens