SYLLABUS
The syllabus for this class is online. New information will be added throughout the quarter.

Instructor: Dr. Lev Manovich
email: manovich@ucsd.edu
http://jupiter.ucsd.edu/~manovich
Office hours: Tuesday 3:30-4:30 pm (Visual Arts Facility 553)

Lecture: M 6:50-9:40pm. CENTER HALL 105.

Labs:
The labs are conducted by Teaching Assistants.
T.A.'s office hours and email addresses will be announced in sections.

Required readings:
All required readings will be available online on the Web site for this class.

Recommended readings:
 Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media (The MIT Press, 1998). (Available at Groundworks bookstore.)
 

Class description:

We are currently living in an unique historical period when all forms of cultural production, distribution, and critical analysis are becoming based on computer and information technologies. This course aims to address two topics related to this transformation:

(1) How can we understand the language of new media by placing placing it within the history of media technologies and modern visual culture? What are the ways in which new media relies on older cultural forms and languages and what are the ways in which it breaks with them? What is unique about how new media objects create the illusion of reality, address the viewer, and represent space and time? How do conventions of older cultural forms such as printed page, architecture, cinema, and television interact with computer's own language to shape the language of new media?

By new media I mean new cultural forms which are native to computers or rely on computers for distribution: Web sites, human computer interface, virtual worlds, VR, multimedia, computer games, computer animation, digital video, special effects in cinema and net films, interactive computer installations. The term "the language of new media" used to refer to a number of various conventions used by designers of new media objects to organize data and structure user’s experience.

In answering these questions we will rely on histories of computer science, art, design, photography, video and other electronic media, and, in particular, the key cultural form of the twentieth century -- cinema. Just as film historians traced the development of film language during cinema's first decades, we will try  to understand the logic driving the development of the language of new media. We will discuss the following topics: the parallels between cinema history and the history of new media; the identity of digital cinema; the language of multimedia and the language of cinema; use of montage and mobile camera in new media as compared to cinema; historical ties between new media and the avant-garde film
 
(2) Along with using the history of culture to understand new media, we will also use new media to re-think the history of culture. The current computerization of culture makes available new concepts and new perspectives for understanding the history of culture and technology. In this course we will use various concepts which originate with computers (such as interface, database, digital, software) in order to understand older cultural forms in new ways. For example, we will ask if films can be thought of as databases or if a traditional works of art can be thought of in terms of content interface opposition.

While the course's main emphasis is on theoretical and historical arguments, we will also view and analyze a number of key new media objects created during the last decade -- from commercial classics in the areas of computer games and special effects to the works of a variety of international award winning media artists.
 

Class format:

The course is based on my book The Language of New Media which will be published by The MIT Press in the Fall of 2000.
Each lecture will be based on a part of the book. This part will be made available online on the Web site for this course before the lecture. You are required to read it before the lecture. You are also required to complete additional readings and visit the links (if assigned.)
The first part of the lecture will be used to summarize the main points of this week's topic, to present historical background and visual material (video documentation's, short films, Web sites, CD-ROMs), and to introduce the film screening. The second part of the lecture will be devoted to the screening of a film.

Labs will provide an opportunity to discuss class material with a TA in a smaller group.
The TAs may assign additional short writing assignments throughout the course.

Class topics and screenings (subject to change):

Week 1. Introduction.
Week 2. What is New Media? Screening: Vertov, "A Man with a Movie Camera."
Week 3. What is New Media? (continued). Screening: Lang, "Metropolis."
Week 4. The Interface: The Language of Cultural Interface. Screening: Scott, "Blade Runner."
Week 5. The Interface: The Screen and the User. Screening: Greeanway, "Draftsman's Contract."
Week 6. The Operations: Selection, Compositing, Teleaction. Eisenstein, "October."
Week 7. The Illusions. Screening: Antonioni, "Blow-up."
Week 8. The Forms: Database. Screening: Greenaway, "Prospero Books."
Week 9. The Forms: Navigable Space. Resnais, "Last Year in Marienbaad."
Week 10. What is (digital) Cinema?

Attendance:
Attendance will be taken every lecture and every lab session. During the quarter, you are
allowed to miss no more than one lecture and no more than one lab session without a proper
excuse (doctor's notice). Each additional absence will lower your final grade half a letter
grade. Chronic lateness counts as absence. Forgetting to sign the attendance sheet or leaving
early counts as absence.

Class requirements:
1. Attendance of lectures and lab sessions.
2. Active participation in lab discussions.
3. Required readings for each lecture should be done before the lecture.
4. Visiting linked Web sites for each lecture before the lecture.
5. Mid-term paper. Length: approximately 1000 words.
6. Final paper. Length: approximately 3000 words.
 
Midterm and Final Papers:
The topics for the papers will be given in class.
Students are expected to follow standard formatting and citation practices; failure to do so will result in a lower grade.
The students are expected to complete midterm paper on time. If the paper is not delivered on
time, its grade will be lowered one full letter grade. Final paper is due on final day for this course,
as set by the University.

Grading Breakdown:
Students will be assigned grades by the TAs.
1. Mid-term paper: %30
2. Final paper: %50
3. Class participation: %20