UCBerkeley>   CNM 201/IEOR 298-3:
QUESTIONING NEW MEDIA
     
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Spring 2010

CNM 201/IEOR 298-3: Questioning New Media
M 5:30-6:30PM (class), M 7:30-9:00PM for ATC lectures
340 Moffitt Library (the BCNM Commons)

Professor Ken Goldberg
goldberg@ieor.berkeley.edu

TAs:
Alenda Chang
alenda@berkeley.edu
Kris Fallon
krisfallon@berkeley.edu

Course Description:
CNM 201/IEOR 298-3 (cross-listed under Center for New Media & Industrial Engineering and Operations Research) will be held in conjunction with the Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium, a monthly lecture series that brings internationally known speakers to campus to present their work on advanced topics in new media.

Students will enhance skills in "questioning" new media: how to think critically about advanced topics in new media, how to use new media resources such as the Internet to research pioneering work in new media, how to formulate effective questions about new media, and how to evaluate and create persuasive presentations on topics in new media.

Students will research each speaker and formulate incisive questions regarding each speaker's work. Students will attend each lecture, take careful notes, and ask relevant questions. During the week after each lecture, students and instructors will review and evaluate the strengths (and weaknesses) of the presentation and discuss pertinent advanced topics in new media.

This course is open to graduate students from any department and upper-level undergraduates (upon instructor approval).

This course fulfills one of the core course requirements for the Designated Emphasis in New Media.

Requirements:
Students must attend class meetings and every ATC lecture. Please see the attached course schedule for the specific dates of classes and lectures. Students must research each speaker and are responsible for generating discussion and contributing to a course blog as well as the Berkeley Art Museum / Pacific Film Archive blog. Each student must participate in one group presentation during the semester, and each student must write a short, three-page final paper regarding a selected speaker. Required readings are available on the course website.

Grading:
This is a 3-credit course. Students will receive a letter grade. To do well in the class, students must come prepared to each class and ATC lecture, contribute to class discussions and the class and BAM blogs, and develop incisive and relevant questions for each visiting speaker in the ATC lecture series. Attendance is expected: students with more than two unexcused absences will receive a lower grade.

Class Schedule (dates with ATC lectures in bold):

January 18 Academic and Administrative Holiday - NO CLASS
January 25 Introduce Joe McKay
Read: Bill Joy's "Why the future doesn't need us" (April 2000); Nicholas Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" (July/August 2008)
Browse: Joe McKay's web site; McKay's "Big Time" project at the Berkeley Art Museum
January 29 ATC Lecture: Joe McKay, "Something Besides Super Monkey Ball," 7:30-9PM, 160 Kroeber Hall
February 1 Discuss Joe McKay lecture
Introduce Shari Frilot
Read: "An Elegy for Film" from David Rodowick's The Virtual Life of Film (2007); "2010 New Frontier at Sundance Film Festival"
February 8 Present research and questions for Shari Frilot

ATC Lecture: Shari Frilot, "Physical Cinema: Curatorial Strategies at the New Frontier," 7:30-9PM, 160 Kroeber Hall
February 15 Academic and Administrative Holiday - NO CLASS
February 22 Discuss Shari Frilot lecture
March 1 Introduce Leo Villareal
Read: "Leo Villareal" Conner Contemporary Art review in Artforum (February 2007); N. Katherine Hayles's "The Regime of Computation" in My Mother Was a Computer (2005)
Browse: Leo Villareal's web site; National Gallery of Art's "Dan Flavin: A Retrospective"
March 8 Introduce Anne Walsh and Chris Kubick
Read: TBA; TBA
Browse: Projects on the ARCHIVE web site
March 15 Present research and questions for Leo Villareal

ATC Lecture: Leo Villareal, "Complex Simplicity: Investigating the Medium of Light," 7:30-9PM, 160 Kroeber Hall
March 22 Academic and Administrative Holiday - NO CLASS
March 29 Discuss Leo Villareal lecture
Read: Wendy Chun's introduction to New Media, Old Media
April 5 Present research and questions for Anne Walsh and Chris Kubick

ATC Lecture: Anne Walsh and Chris Kubick, "Conversing, Considering, Condensing, Conjuring: 7 Years of Collaboration," 7:30-9PM, 160 Kroeber Hall
April 12 Discuss Anne Walsh and Chris Kubick lecture
April 19 Introduce Eugene Thacker
Read: "Biophilosophy for the 21st Century"
April 26 Final class and wrap-up
Present research and questions for Eugene Thacker

ATC Lecture: Eugene Thacker, "Darklife," 7:30-9PM, 160 Kroeber Hall
May 3 Reading/Review/Recitation Period - NO CLASS