VIS 202 / Visual Arts Department / UCSD

Dr. Lev Manovich (manovich@ucsd.edu)

Tuesday, 6-8:50pm

Seminar Topic:

INFO-AESTHETICS:

INFORMATION AND FORM

Course URL: www.manovich.net/ia

Course summary:

Twenty first century has arrived. What comes after modernism, post-modernism an new media? This course is based on the assumption that new global information society is in the process of creating a new cultural logic and a new aesthetics: INFO-AESTHETICS. Through readings, discussions, investigations of contemporary culture (from architecture to fashion to information appliances), and practical media projects and we will attempt to discover – and develop – INFO-AESTHETICS – the new aesthetics for the new century.

INFO-AESTHETICS is a book/Web site in progress. Selected student projects will be featured on the site, which will eventually be turned into a book.

Course Description:

If novel and cinema were the new cultural forms reflecting the new industrial society, what are the new cultural forms, which would be able to adequately represent the new global information society? Given that computer is the engine of this society, we may expect that these forms would be computer-based (i.e., they would be "new media"). But how exactly they would reflect the specificity of the social and the human experience of living in this new society which appears to resist easy visualization? (For instance, all kinds of work are reduced to sitting in front of a computer screen; all kind of activities are reduced toinvisible streams of data traveling through the global computer networks.)

A related question is what kind of aesthetics is appropriate for a society where most work and many forms of leisure are computer based? If industrial society led to a range of different aesthetics strategies, from photo-montage to streamlined, ornament-free architecture and design, what is the new aesthetics appropriate for information society?

The course will combine theoretical research with practical work. We will explore historical parallels between the economics and culture of the industrial age (nineteenth and early 20th century) and the economics and culture of the information age (today). We will also look at selected areas of contemporary culture (new media, architecture, fashion, and cinema) to see if we can already find signs of info-aesthetics at work. We will also read a number of influential theoretical accounts of media, technology, and culture from the last few decades to help us track modernism -- post-modernism – INFORMATIONALISM trajectory.

The students will also work on individual digital media projects designed to explore INFO-AESTHETICS -- that is, they will use digital media to represent different social and human dimensions of information society. Put diffirently, you can think of your project as a monument to INFORMATION SOCIETY. Alternatively, practical projects may take form of comparative historical investigations, presented as visual essays.

This course is a part of a larger INFO-AESTHETICS project. The project will eventaully result in an extensive Web site / book. The site / book will consist from a long essay written by Lev Manovich; a portfolio of historical and contemporary images assembled by the project participants; and the individual projects created by students in this course, as well as in INFO-AESTHETICS workshops, conducted internationally. (The first is taking place in Finland this Fall).

COURSE REQUIREMENTS
  1. In class presentation of a theoretical text.
  2. In class presentation of a historical of contemporary cultural object or movement. Your presentation should include an analysis of how this object/movement symbolically represents its social period (early industrial society; advanced industrial society; emerging information society; contemporary information society).
  3. A creative project related to the concepts explored in a class. In a nutshell, the project should present a symbolic representation of some aspects of information society. The project can be done using any digital media and/or traditional) techniques, but it should be presented as a Web site.

BOOKS REQUIRED (Ordered at Groundworks):

1. Moma Highlights : 325 Works from the Museum of Modern Art.

  1. Marshall McLuhan. Understanding Media : The Extensions of Man.

3. Jean Baudrillard. Simulacra and Simulation.

4. Jacques Derrida. Archive Fever : A Freudian Impression.

5. Hans Ibelings, Supermodernism : Architecture in the Age of Globalization.

6. Manuel Castells. The Rise of the Network Society.

Additional readings available on the Net to be assigned.

Please have Moma Highlights : 325 Works from the Museum of Modern Art at every class meeting.

COURSE SCHEDULE

  1. Class introduction: Five meanings of info-aesthetics.
  2. Info-aesthetics 1: From Modernism to Software
  3. Info-aesthetics 2: New style / New forms
  4. Info-aesthetics 2: New style / New forms, continued
  5. Info-aesthetics 3: Representing Information Society
  6. Info-aesthetics 3: Representing Information Society, continued.
  7. Info-aesthetics 4: New Cultural Forms
  8. Info-aesthetics 5: Information as Form (Telecommunication as Culture)
  9. Info-aesthetics 5: Information as Form (Telecommunication as Culture), continued
  10. No class
  11. Finals week: Project Presentations / info-party

 

READINGS (the numbers coorespond to week numbers above)

  1. McLuhan. Understanding Media. From "Introduction" through "Reversal of the Overheated Medium."
  2. McLuhan. Understanding Media. From "The Gadget Lover" through "Challenge and Collapse" + selected chapters from Part II: "The Written Word"; 'The Printed Word"; "Television"; "Automation.".
  3. Jean Baudrillard. Simulacra and Simulation.
  4. Kittler, The History of Communication Media and There is No Software.
  5. Jacques Derrida. Archive Fever.
  6. Manuel Castells. The Rise of the Network Society (selected chapters).
  7. Manuel Castells. The Rise of the Network Society (selected chapters).
  8. Hans Ibelings, Supermodernism : Architecture in the Age of Globalization.
    9.

extra, time allowed: Virilio articles (from the Net); Frederic Jameson, selected articles on post-modernism (xeroxes).