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Instructor:

Dr. Diane Gromala

[email:gromala@sfu.ca] IMPORTANT: title your emails, beginning with <810>

to ensure that they will not get lost among massive amounts of email effluvia.

Teaching Assistant:

Meehae Song

[email:meehaes@sfu.ca] IMPORTANT: title your emails, beginning with <810>

Office hours:

Dr. Gromala can be located M-Th in the BioMedia Lab or her 14th floor office (across from Desiree's, in the admin area).

Meehae Song will be available M-Th. Please email her to book a time.

Location:

SFU Surrey

Tuesdays, 5:30–8:20pm, Room 3150

Course Description:

Introduction

In this course, we review theory, history and current research in the field of new media.

The core concern of this course is the identification and understanding of the aesthetic principles and the poetics of New Media design and experience. These principles will then be applied in critical analyses of New Media artifacts and environments. Context will be provided through a review of the histories of technology, previous moments of media emergence, and social and cultural movements. Outcomes will include but are not limited to the exploration, analysis and development of applied methods in order to better understand, design, create and assess current and future developments in emergent digital media.

Weekly Class Preparation

Weekly preparation for class includes intensive or “close” critical readings, assessing authors’ methodologies, noting the evidence provided, giving considerable thought to the interpretations presented by others, and synthesizing the implication of the arguments with the course material as a whole.

Leading Class Discussions

This course requires you to read, reflect and then review your findings with the class. Everyone will read the required citations and be prepared to discuss them. In addition, each week, 1 or 2 people will be responsible for leading the class discussion. You will be graded on both the quality of the discussions you lead, and on your general participation in the intellectual activity of the class.

When you lead a class discussion or deliver a presentation, do not simply regurgitate the main points. select and summarize a couple of the most salient points – ones that will be most generally usable as scholarly citations in the analysis of new media works of art. We are looking for citations that directly identify and explicate the poetics of New Media, not an exhaustive or comprehensive list of all the points in your assigned articles.

On a weekly basis, it is also important that you bring to class and discuss examples of from each reading or elsewhere and apply them in your analysis of works of new media.

Final Paper:

The final paper for the class will be a close reading of an exemplary New Media experience, artifact, or site. A close reading is a detailed deconstruction and analysis of an experience. The New Media object or experience must be digital. It should be interactive, and should include some sense of narrative or story. The purpose of the final paper is for you to demonstrate what you have learned in class by focusing on an in-depth paper. Thus, you should identify, analyze, and discuss the poetics of the new media experience, artifact, or site. Your analysis should use concepts drawn from the course readings. Part of the work for this assignment is for you to identify one or more academic venues for publication of your paper. Two milestones, including a presentation, will be scheduled before the end of the semester. The final paper is due one week before the end of the semester. Should you choose to pursue publication, we will follow the standards for authorship that are outlined in SIAT’s graduate student document.

3 credit hours

Evaluation

Lead Presentations 25% [this grade includes both explication & examples/application] Class Participation 25% [includes in-class experiments] Final Paper 50% Extra credit for well-considered risk-taking can be earned, but not if it is a form of avoidance of other assignments. Presentations, assignments and the final paper may assume a form other than what is outlined, as long as you gain prior approval from Dr. Gromala first.

University and SIAT policies on academic honesty apply to this course. The SFU Policy can be found at: <www.sfu.ca/policies/teaching/index.htm>.

All course requirements must be fulfilled in order to pass the course. All requirements are due on the date and time assigned during class meetings or online (see below).

Course procedures (including topics, content, assignments, due dates, and evaluation) in this course outline are subject to change. Any such changes will be noted in class and/or on online. Students are responsible for tracking and working within any such changes in procedures.

Readings & media

Will be posted on the wiki by noon on September 14, 2010.