F A L L B R E A K
17 Oct
For our final project, we are creating a collective experiment in publication and distribution. This means we are going to make a collaborative effort to create a “book”–––which will exist both in print and online–––and we will experiment with means of distribution. This book will consist of content generated by each of you. You are in control of your own “chapter,” which may manifest in any way you see fit. The only criteria are that 1) your digital project may be linked to the digital projects of your peers, and that 2) your analog project may be put into a collective package alongside the projects of your peers.
The reason for making an artists’ “book,” in both digital and analog forms, is to push us to examine and question the translation between printed and digital “matter” in terms of art making. I have selected readings for you to absorb over the break that are about media transitions, to fuel critical thinking about what it means for us, as artists and writers, to shift between digital and analog. I am also putting some books on reserve for you to graze through that deal with typical artists’ book, to further your thinking about how you might like to create an analog version.
Some questions you might ask are:
What does the book look like in 50 years?
What do you like about the image of this future book, and what do you dislike about it?
What can we glean from the transition from film to video, and how does that relate to other parallel transitions (i.e. the movement from paper to digital information)?
As artists, how can we create a work that exists in both worlds, digital and analog?
Is this even possible?
What is lost and/or gained in translation, and how can we express the material that is in that gap––the conceptual space between digital and analog?
What is the difference between how you read something on a screen and how you look at it on a piece of paper?
What is the difference in how you look at a piece of art on a screen and how you look at it on a piece of paper?
For this collective effort, I envision each of you landing on a personal project that explores the questions suggested by the ideas we have talked about so far, as well as the ideas you will absorb over break. Your personal project can really be seen as two projects: (an online version, and a print version). This can be interpreted in many ways, and I encourage you to let your thoughts go––think about the mediums of “book-ness” and “internet-ness.”
OK, following this project description is a list of readings.
When you come to class on Monday October 29, I would like you to have a solid idea of what you want to offer for the project. It is OK if this idea shifts a little after we all get back together and discuss, but I don’t want you to think in terms of a possible idea, I want you to come up with a definite idea. We will have only 6 weeks to create our projects and distribute them after the break. I will generate a list of dates that will work as deadlines to move the project along, so that production and distribution run smoothly.
OK, good luck!
See you on the 29th.
2. A World in Three Aisles: Browsing the post-digital library, by Gideon Lewis-Kraus
3. Digital Decay, by Bruce Sterling
4. Toward an Aesthetics of Transition, by David Thornburn and Henry Jenkins
5. The Dead Media Project: A Modest Proposal and Public Appeal, by Bruce Sterling
6. The Death of Film/ The Decay of Cinema, by Godfrey Cheshire
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