CTCS 505: Survey of Interactive Media
Fall 2009 – Thursday 2:00-6:00
Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts
Professor Steve Anderson
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Unit I: Post-Cinema // Wagner - Integration

Aug. 27 Introduction: The stakes of Interactive Media

Screening: eXistenZ (1999) David Cronenberg 97 min

Week 2: Technology

Sep. 3
Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"
Bolter and Grusin, Remediation (excerpt)
Screening: Man With a Movie Camera (1929) Dziga Vertov


Week 3: Media historiography


Sep. 10
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media Intro. and Ch. 1
Carolyn Marvin, When Old Technologies Were New Introduction

Screenings:
Outer Space (1999) Peter Tscherkassky 10 min
Fast Film (2003) Virgil Widrich 14 min.
Videodrome (1982) David Cronenberg 87 min

Unit II: Narrative // Wagner - Narrativity

Week 4: Post-Linearity

Sep 17     
Gonzalo Frasca, “Ludology Meets Narratology”
Henry Jenkins, “Game Design as Narrative Architecture”

Screening: The Game (1997) David Fincher 128 min

Week 5: Agency

Sep 24     
Janet Murray, “Agency” from Hamlet on the Holodeck


Week 6: Algorithmic pleasure

Oct. 1
Finish Wagner chapter on Narrativity

Screening:
Screening: Being John Malkovich (1999) Spike Jonze 112 min


Unit III: Bodies // Wagner-Hypermedia

Week 7: Political postmodernism

Oct. 8
Alex Galloway, "Social Realism in Gaming"

Switching (2003) Morten Schjodt (potentially infinite duration)
Soft Cinema (2006) Manovich + Kratky (potentially infinite duration)

October 9-10 Real Time Live with Mia Makela: live cinema performances and workshops at IML


Week 8: Race in digital space

Research paper drafts due!

Oct. 15   
Jennifer Gonzalez, “The Appended Subject: Race and Identity as Digital Assemblage” 

Screening: Alex Rivera, Sleep Dealer (2009)

Week 9: Scopophilia

Oct 22 Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”
Michel Foucault, “Panopticism" from Discipline and Punish
Donna Haraway, "A Manifesto for Cyborgs" (PDF)

Finish reading Wagner Hypermedia chapter

Unit IV: Space/Time // Wagner-Interactivity

Week 10: Remix

Oct 29
Lev Manovich, “Remixing and Remixability”


Screening:
Unsere Afrikareise, Peter Kubelka (1966) 12 min
Remix genre screenings from 24/7 DIY Video Summit (2008)

Week 11: Time

Nov. 5
William Uricchio, “Technologies of Time”

Finish reading Wagner chapter on Interactivity

Screening: Time Machines program from Blur+Sharpen


Unit V: Perception // Wagner - Immersion


Week 12: Immersion

Nov. 12
Field Trip to IMSC sound lab or Velaslavasay Panorama


Week 13: Embodied viewing

Nov. 19
Jonathan Crary, “Techniques of the Observer”
Screenings:   Serene Velocity (1970) Ernie Gehr 23 min
                    Wavelength (1967) Michael Snow 45 min
       
Week 14:
Nov 26 – Thanksgiving – no class!      
  
Week 15: Ubiquity


Dec. 3   
Howard Rheingold, “Mobile and Open: A Manifesto”

Finish reading Wagner chapter on Immersion

Screening:     Enemy of the State (1998) Tony Scott 131 min

Final Exam period: Dec. 10   Final papers/project proposals due


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