courses /winter 06 /danm 202 /syllabus

This foundational course for the DANM MFA program examines some of the key issues in cultural and critical theory that are formative for the critical practice of digital arts and new media. In a broader sense, these issues (as well as their accompanying practices and theories) are important to a significant engagement with, and formation of, digital media cultures – or “cybercultures.”

Our own engagements will focus on questions concerning “cybercultures,” which already seems like an antiquated term if not quite an outmoded concept. Another way of describing our engagements would be the investigation of the various ways in which technologies (mainly digital, though not necessarily only that – whatever that might be exactly) and cultural formations interact with each other and mutually constitute each other. Culture is conceived of broadly here to include not just “artistic” work but any kind of work dealing with forms of expression and communication.

In addition we will be looking at various theoretical and critical approaches that deal with the social and cultural formations in relation to digital technologies (both material and imagined). The goal is to develop familiarity with various theoretical discourses that address the relationship between cultural formation and expression and technologies so that you can situate your own expressive work in some kind of proximity to that context.

For Final Readings click here

For Requirements see projects

For Readings see schedule

For Readings Questions see DANM202 Readings Questions

For Links to Student Presentations and Essays click here

For Final Assignment Proposals click here

For Photos from our field trip to the Exploratorium click here