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I AT 810 - New Medi a
Fal l 2014 [v.3g]

This course reviews theory, history and current research in the field of new media. Its
core concern is the identification and understanding of the aesthetic principles - the
"poetics" to be more precise - of New Media design and experience. These principles
are applied in the critical analysis of New Media artifacts and environments.

This course requires you to read, reflect on the authors' ideas, and then share your
findings with the class. Weekly preparation for class includes a careful reading all the
assigned texts, giving considerable thought to the content and implications of each
reading.

The weekly readings will collectively provide a conceptual toolkit for the description,
analysis, and understanding of the design of creative works of New Media. When
reading an article, look for the important "take-away" concepts that will inform your
own written work on the design of new media artifacts and experiences. This is a
utilitarian exercise - we are looking for citable concepts that can directly support the
identification and explication of the poetics of New Media. Your task in this class is to
identify and apply these high level concepts. They will be usable as both scholarly
citations and as functional observational tools for the description and analysis of new
media works of art.

We will apply these concepts in practice - the point of this course is to master the use
of these theoretical principles in the analysis of the design of new media artworks. In
general, everyone will be expected to find and discuss examples of new media works
that illustrate these principles. In addition, each week, 1 or 2 people will have the
prime responsibility for identifying exemplary works that instantiate the theoretical
concepts being discussed. They will be expected to present and write briefly - using
the concepts of the weekly reading to describe, analyze and understand the creative
decisions in the new media work you have selected.

You will be graded on the quality of the discussions you lead, and also on your general
participation in the intellectual activity of the class. The criterion in both cases will be
the effective application of the concepts of the course authors in the analysis of new
media art.

The final paper for the class will be a close reading of an exemplary New Media
artifact, site, or environment. A close reading is a detailed deconstruction and
analysis of an experience. The New Media object or experience must be digital, must
be interactive or computationally generative, and should also include some sense of
narrativity. The purpose of the paper is to describe, analyze, and discuss the creative
choices embedded within the design of the experience. The analysis will rely on
concepts drawn from the course readings - these are your toolkit. This toolkit is
robust and large, and will form a solid foundation that you will build upon and add to
over the course of your creative and scholarly career.

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Learning Outcomes
The student will be able to:
identify the key concepts across a range of New Media and related texts. For
the purposes of this course, these concepts will be those that inform the
understanding of the poetics (design) of New Media artifacts, environments,
and experiences.
apply these key concepts in the description and analysis of the poetics (design)
of New Media works.
participate substantively in discussions across the range of texts included in the
course readings.
prepare and deliver a short oral and written presentation summarizing a set of
these concepts and demonstrating their application in explicating the design of
a specific New Media work.
conduct a summative in-depth close reading of an exemplary New Media work.
The close reading will identify, analyze, and discuss the poetics embedded
within the design of the work.


Evaluation:

Short presentation/analysis -- 25
General Participation -- 25
Final Paper -- 50


Policies and Procedures

University and SIAT policies on academic honesty (and all other University
policies) apply to this course. The SFU policies and related procedures on
Teaching & Instruction can be found at:
<www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/teaching.html>. Academic Honesty policies and
procedures are contained within SFU Policies T10.02 and T10.03.

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 also paragraphs below).

Online communication and discussion (including Canvas, email, Skype, and
other platforms that may be added) is an integral part of the class. Check
these channels regularly for details, additional materials, and possible changes
to course procedures. You should also be ready to take part in the online
discussion on the course readings, course concepts, and related events or
topics.

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

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COURSE TOPICS & READINGS:

Required Texts:
The Language of New Media (2002) by Lev Manovich; MIT Press; ISBN
9780262632553
IAT 810 Custom Courseware Package - Fall 2014

Week 1: Introduction
Foreward to Media in Transition Book Series, David Thorburn, editor, Edward Barrett,
Henry Jenkins, associate editors, MIT Press, Cambridge MA

Van Looy, Jan and Baetans, Jan. Close Reading New Media: Analyzing Electronic
Literature, (pgs. 8-13), Leuven University Press, Leuven, Belgium, 2003

Readings from Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, Cambridge MA, MIT Press,
2001 [required text] (pgs. 27-48)


Week 2: Early Days
Innis, H. The Bias of Communication, 1951, Toronto, ON, University of Toronto Press
(pgs. 33- 60)

Standage, Tom. The Victorian Internet NY, Penguin Putnam, 1998, (pgs. 57-65, 100-
04, 145-163, 204-213) <= dropped

Electronic copy of Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the Beer-Belly of the Weimar
Republic, photo-collage, Hannah Hoch, 1919
<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/Hoch-Cut_With_the_Kitchen_Knife.jpg>

Lavin, Maud. The Berlin Dada Photomontages. (pgs. 13-46) from Cut with the
Kitchen Knife: the Weimar Photomontages of Hannah Hoch

Biro, Matthew. "Hannah Hoch's Cut with the Kitchen Knife" (pgs. 65-104) from The
Dada Cyborg: Visions of the New Human in Weimar Berlin, University of Minnesota
Press, Minneapolis, MN, 2009 [not in coursepack] <= added

Gunning, Tom. "The Cinema of Attractions" in Early Cinema: Space, Frame,
Narrative, ed. Thomas Elsaesser, BFI Publishing, London, 1990


Week 3: Complicating the Argument
Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (pgs.
319-333) from Photography in Print, Writings from 1816 to the Present, ed. Vicki
Goldberg, Simon and Shuster, New York NY, 1991

Bakhtin, M.M. "Discourse in the Novel", (pgs. 259-295) The Dialogic Imagination,
Austin, Texas,University of Texas Press, 1981

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Eco, Umberto. The Open Work, (pgs. 1 - 23) Translated by Anna Cancogni, Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1989

Barthes, Roland; Death of the Author, pgs. 142 - 148 in Image-Music-Text, Roland
Barthes, [transl. Stephen Heath], NY, Hill and Wang, 1997 [not in coursepack]

Week 4: Populist Theorists
McLeod, Scott Timeframes (pgs. 94-117) in Understanding Comics, 1993, Harper-
Collins

McLuhan, Marshall. "The Playboy Interview" (pgs. 233-269) in The Essential McLuhan,
ed. Eric McLuhan and Frank Zingrone, NY, Harper Collins, 1998

McLuhan, Erik. "The New Science and the Old", Canadian Journal of Communications,
Vol 14 #4, 1989, pgs. 80 - 91


Week 5 - 6: Narrative & Interactivity

Introduction to Narrative Concepts: Jim Bizzocchi author & editor (includes excerpts
from David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, Gary Larson, and others) [Not in coursepack
- see IAT 810 Canvas Modules - "Foundational Narrative Concepts", "Character,
Conflict, and Art", "Knowledge, Plot and the Reader"]

Bizzocchi, Jim. "Games and Narrative: an Analytical Framework", Loading, Online
Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association, Vol 1, No 1 (2007),
<http://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/> [Not in coursepack]

Ryan, Marie-Laure. Avatars of Story (pgs. 6 - 16), Minneapolis MN, University of
Minnesota Press, 2006

Ryan, Marie-Laure, "Will New Media produce New Narratives", (pgs. 337-359) in
Narratives across Media: the Languages of Storytelling, ed. Marie-Laure Ryan, Lincoln
Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 2004

Crawford, Chris. The Art of Interactive Design. (pgs. 77-90), No Starch Press, San
Francisco, 2003

Zimmerman, Eric. "Narrative, Interactivity, Play, and Games", (pgs.154-164), in First
Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, Wardrip-Fruin, Noah and
Harrigan, Pat, Cambridge MA, MIT Press, 2004

Zimmerman, Eric. Against Hypertext, [not in coursepack]
<http://www.ericzimmerman.com/texts/Against_Hypertext.htm>


Week 7 - 8: Remediation & Murray
Bolter, J. David & Grusin, Richard. "Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation",
(pgs. 20 - 50), from Remediation, Cambridge MA, MIT Press, 1999
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Murray, Janet. "The Aesthetics of the Medium", pgs. 97 - 153 (was 97 -182), from
Hamlet on the Holodeck, Cambridge MA, MIT Press, 1998.

Murray, Janet. pgs 56-92, Inventing the Medium, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press,

Week 9: Manovich 1
Readings from Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, Cambridge MA, MIT Press,
2001 [required text]
Pg. 49-61
Pg. 88-115
Pg. 116-175


Week 10: Manovich 2
Readings from Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, Cambridge MA, MIT Press,
2001 [required text]
Pg. 176-212
Pg. 212-285
Pg. 314-333


Week 11: Embodiment
Dourish, Paul. pgs. 127-154 in Where the Action Is: the Foundations of Embodied
Interaction, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004

Bolter, David Jay & Gromala, Diane. pgs 114-129 in Windows and Mirrors, MIT Press,
Cambridge, MA, 2003


Week 12: It's only a game
Eskelinen, Markku. "Towards Computer Game Studies", pgs. 36-44 in in First Person:
New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, Wardrip-Fruin, Noah and Harrigan, Pat.
Cambridge MA, MIT Press, 2004

Jenkins, Henry. "Game Design as Narrative Architecture", pgs. 118 - 130, in in First
Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, Wardrip-Fruin, Noah and
Harrigan, Pat, Cambridge MA, MIT Press, 2004

Juul, Jesper. "Introduction to Game Time", pgs. 131-142 in First Person: New Media
as Story, Performance, and Game, Wardrip-Fruin, Noah and Harrigan, Pat, Cambridge
MA, MIT Press, 2004

Ermi, Laura & Myr, Frans (2005) "Fundamental Components of the Gameplay
Experience: Analysing Immersion". In: Selected Papers Proceedings of DiGRA 2005
Conference: Changing Views Worlds in Play, Vancouver: DiGRA & Simon Fraser
University, 2005. [not in coursepack]
<http://people.uta.fi/~frans.mayra/gameplay_experience.pdf>

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Week 13 - Networked Media and Transmedia [Not in coursepack]
O'Reilly, Tim - What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next
Generation of Software", Communications and Strategies, No. 65, pgs. 18-37, 1st
Quarter, 2007 <http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/4580/1/MPRA_paper_4580.pdf>
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Warschauer, Mark and Grimes, Douglas - "Audience, Authorship and Artifact: The
Emergent Semiotics of Web 2.0", Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (2007) 27, 1
23. Cambridge University Press 0267-1905/08 doi: 10.1017/S0267190508070013
<http://www.gse.uci.edu/person/warschauer_m/docs/aaa.pdf>
Millard, David and Ross, Martin, "Web 2.0: Hypertext by Any other Name?",
HYPERTEXT '06 Proceedings of the seventeenth conference on Hypertext and
hypermedia, Pages 27-30 , ACM New York, 2006 ISBN:1-59593-417-0
Jenkins, Henry - Transmedia Storytelling 101, Confessions of an Aca-Fan: The Official
Weblog of Henry Jenkins. March 22, 2007,
<http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html>
Jenkins, Henry - Revenge of the Origami Unicorn [part one], Confessions of an Aca-
Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins. December 12, 2009,
<http://henryjenkins.org/2009/12/the_revenge_of_the_origami_uni.html>
Jenkins, Henry - Revenge of the Origami Unicorn [part two], Confessions of an Aca-
Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins. December 12, 2009,
<http://henryjenkins.org/2009/12/revenge_of_the_origami_unicorn.html>