I310: Multimedia Arts and Technology

Indiana University School of Informatics
Fall Semester, 2005

Instructor:
Dr. Jeffrey Bardzell
jbardzel@indiana.edu
Office hours: Thursday, 1:50 – 2:50 (right after class)

Associate Instructors:
Christian Briggs
chmbrigg@indiana.edu
Office hours: TBD
Will Ryan
wnryan@indiana.edu
Office hours: TBD

Description

This course examines multimedia from two perspectives: multimedia authoring and new media/cyberculture theory. Students will learn and begin authoring in Macromedia Flash, a multimedia authoring application and hot new medium in its own right. Topics will include learning the Flash authoring paradigm, the creation of animations and interactivity, and basic programming in its native ActionScript. Serious multimedia authoring extends beyond mastery of the tools, however, and we will also critically examine the complex relationships between the medium and the message. Specifically, we’ll look at ways new media make possible innovations in human expression and communication, just as the novel, film, and television did before it. In a final project, students will fuse Flash development and media theory to envision an innovative user experience and produce it in Flash.

Textbooks

All of the readings this semester are available in e-reserves.
We will also be using Oncourse, so check there often for updates, copies of handouts, etc.

Participation, Assignments, and Exams

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle claimed that virtue is habitual. That is, the condition of being virtuous is in the formation and keeping of virtuous habits, not in the individual acts themselves. Professional success in the new media arena (or just about any other, for that matter) is the result more of your daily habits than any single accomplishment.
Stated in more practical terms, your success in this class is predicated on regular practice and participation. In some classes, you can slack all semester and then make it all up near the end. This is not that type of class (and that isn’t a very good learning strategy, anyway). Course assignments are designed to facilitate the formation of good habits.

Précis of the Readings

Each week of the semester, there will be one, at most two, required readings. Comprehension of the readings is fundamental to the rest of the course. To facilitate comprehension, each week every student will complete a written précis, or summary, of the readings.
Following are some guidelines about the précis.

• A template to help you compose it will be provided.
• The précis should be up to 2-3 pages in length, double-spaced (including the text from the template, which is over a page by itself).
• The purpose is for you to summarize and describe, not analyze or evaluate, the readings (we’ll analyze and evaluate in class and in exams).
• This assignment is intended to facilitate comprehension, not to become burdensome; once the reading is completed, you should need no more than 30 minutes doing the précis.
• Spelling, grammar, and sentence mechanics don’t count; these are not formal documents.
• Précis are due at the beginning of class each Tuesday. No late précis will be accepted.
• Précis will be graded on an A-C-F basis.
• A reasonable effort to summarize an article that has obviously been read earns an A.
• A minimalist half-hearted attempt to turn something in for credit, which shows at least some familiarity with the reading, earns a C.
• Not turning anything in at all earns an F.
• In other words, précis will be graded generously, as long as there is evidence that you gave it a decent effort.

Flash Mini-Assignments

For the first half of the semester (more or less), all students will complete a Flash assignment each week. The assignment will concentrate on skills learned that week, and it is not intended to be particularly burdensome, but rather to ensure that you are spending some quality time with Flash every week. It will be graded on a pass/fail basis:

• If you do the assignment with a reasonable level of effort (guidelines for what “reasonable” means will be provided), you will pass.
• If you do not turn it in, or if you do not put in a reasonable level of effort, you will fail.
• Unacceptable Flash assignments can be redone for full credit, at the discretion of the instructor (which means, “as long as I don’t think you are abusing this option”).

Participation

Another way your virtuous habits will be evaluated will be based on class participation. Good class participation presupposes that you are actually in class. While I recognize that absences are sometimes inevitable, a solid record of attendance is prerequisite to an A in the class. Accordingly, the participation grade will be heavily influenced by your attendance grade, which is figured as follows:
0-1 absences: A+
2 absences: A
3 absences: A-
4 absences: B+… etc.
Note: Regularly coming to class late may result in a counted absence, at my discretion.
This class is designed to be participatory. We will have discussions, break-outs, workshops, and brief presentations, and these only work if people have done their readings and are willing to share their ideas. Much of what we will discuss has no “right” answers, so our discussions will be speculative and exploratory (and hopefully fun).

Final Project

Students will each complete a large project, due near the end of the semester. This project will be completed in Flash and will utilize theories explored during the course of the semester. The details of the semester project will be provided a few weeks into the semester.

Examinations

There will be a midterm exam and a final exam. These exams will focus on the readings and our discussions about these readings. Both exams will be essay-based, because I am more interested in your ability to apply the theories you learned in the readings than your ability to regurgitate canned definitions of terms and the dates of important events. Regular participation in class discussions, as opposed to last-minute cramming, is the best preparation for these exams.

Grading

Your final grade will be figured as follows:

Assignment	% of Final Grade
Class participation	20
Weekly précis	15
Weekly Flash assignments	10
Midterm Exam	15
Final Project : The Project	20
Final Exam	20

Policies

Classroom Behavior

I expect everyone to conduct themselves in a professional manner during class. That includes showing up to class on time; late arrivals distract everyone. It also means treating others with respect, even if you disagree with them.

Timeliness

Timeliness is critical in professional settings. Managers and clients don’t like to pay for work that’s turned in late, and they aren’t interested in hearing about why something is late. Start early and manage your projects so that you have plenty of time at the end to deal with unexpected surprises, failed disks, blackouts, cord-eating cats, misfiring romances, persistent coughs, PlayStation injuries, unstable roommates, flat tires, religious conversions, and jury duty. Please don’t be the source of the next excuse (pedestrian or bizarre) to add to the above list.
Your grade on the semester project will decline one full grade (10 points) for each day it is late, unless I explicitly approve the delay in advance.

Academic Misconduct

We are morally and procedurally bound by IU’s policies on academic misconduct, the details of which you can read about here: http://www.dsa.indiana.edu/Code/index1.html. If necessary, I will follow these policies to the letter.

Religious Observation

In accordance with the Office of the Dean of Faculties, any student who wishes to receive an excused absence from class must submit a request form available from the Dean of Faculties for each day to be absent. This form must be presented to the course professor by the end of the second week of the semester. A separate form must be submitted for each day. The form must be signed by the instructor, a copy retained by instructor, and original returned to the student.
Information about the policy on religious observation can be found at the following web site: http://www.indiana.edu/~deanfac/holidays.html#reco.

Schedule

The following schedule specifies the readings and classroom activities for the entire semester, subject to change.

Date	Readings	Topic
Tuesday 8/30	None	Intro to class
Thursday 9/1	Frank Rose. “ESPN Thinks Outside the Box.” Wired. pp. 113-7.	Discussion: What is new media?
Friday 9/2	None	Intro to digital graphics, Flash overview Not your phather’s Photoshop: The Flash paradigm A look under the hood: what can Flash do and why?
Tuesday 9/6	Steven Johnson, “Preface: Electric Speed” and “Bitmapping.” Interface Culture. pp. 1-40.	Lecture: How to read theory without self-inflicted injuries Workshop: Practicing with a précis (no précis is due at the beginning of class today)
Thursday 9/8	None	Discussion: How media helps shape (control?) our perceptions and thought
Friday 9/9	Andrew Mundi, “Principles of Graphic Design” http://www.mundidesign.com/presentation/index2F.html	Drawing in Flash Basic principles of graphic design
Tuesday 9/12	Marshall McLuhan, “The Medium is the Message.” Understanding Media. pp. 203-9.	Lecture: Homeric epic as medium
Thursday 9/14	None	Workshop: Media as extensions of perception
Friday 9/15	None	Drawing in Flash (cont’d) Drawing tools of the trade
Tuesday 9/19	Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, “Networks of Remediation.” Remediation. pp. 64-88.	Lecture: Walter Benjamin, technological determinism, and digital materialism
Thursday 9/21	None	Discussion: Technological determinism and MMO media forms
Friday 9/22	None	Drawing in Flash (cont’d) Drawing tips and tricks Vector vs. raster smackdown
Tuesday 9/26	Lev Manovich. Excerpt from “What is New Media?” Language of New Media pp. 27-48.	Lecture: 5 principles of new media
Thursday 9/28	None	Discussion: Transcoding and “computer imagination”
Friday 9/29	None	Structuring a movie Further up and further in: layers and frames Objects of desire: symbols and buttons
Tuesday 10/4	Jay David Bolter, “Hypertext and the Remediation of Print,” Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print. pp. 27-46.	Lecture: Print versus hypertext
Thursday 10/6	None	Workshop: How to take an essay exam
Friday 10/7	None	Structuring a movie (cont’d) More objects: movie clips Movies within movies
Tuesday 10/11	MIDTERM EXAM
Thursday 10/13	None	Lecture: Introducing postmodern thought
friday 10/14	none	Making the move: animation Timeline-based animation Motion and shape tweening
Tuesday 10/18	Roland Barthes, “The Author is Dead.” Image-Music-Text. George Landow. “Hypertext: An Introduction.” Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. pp. 1-32.	Lecture: The meaning of “the author is dead” (Heidegger, Foucault, Barthes) and how it helps designer creativity
Thursday 10/20	None	Workshop: Practicing structural analyses of newgrounds Flash and/or machinima
friday 10/21	none	Making the move: Animation (cont’d) The loop cycle Layering animated elements for fun and profit
Tuesday 10/25	Peter Lunenfeld, “Unfinished Business.” The Digital Divide: New Essays on New Media. pp. 6-23.	Lecture: Unfinished aesthetics: commentary (blogs, parody) and participant-created content (Second Life, machinima)
Thursday 10/27	None	Workshop: Brainstorming unfinished media forms
Friday 10/28	None	Hooked on phonics: Adding sound Adding sound to your movie Synchronizing sound and visuals
Tuesday 11/1	Richard Bartle. Excerpt from “It’s Not a Game, It’s a…” Designing Virtual Worlds. 473-526.	Lecture: Virtual worlds as an interdisciplinary problem
Thursday 11/3	None	Workshop: Comparative critiques of an existing virtual environment
Friday 11/4	None	Interactivity in Flash: Adding basic ActionScript Events and event handlers Events and objects
Tuesday 11/8	Katherine Hayles. “Prologue” and excerpt from “Toward Embodied Virtuality.” How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. pp. xi-xiv; 3-12.	Lecture: Digital embodiment and metaphors of disembodiment
Thursday 11/9	None	Discussion: Embodied versus disembodied notions of information
Friday	None	Interactivity in Flash: Adding ActionScript (cont’d) Variables and Flash The almighty function
Tuesday 11/15	Andy Clark. “Introduction.” Natural Born Cyborgs. pp. 3-12.	Lecture: Cyborgs: Science fiction or “external cognition”?
Thursday 11/16	None	Discussion: Are we cyborgs?
friday 11/17	none	Putting it all together: Building a simple flash app from scratch Design: where to begin Develop: creating elements and actions Deploy: how to publish
Tuesday 11/22	Donna Harraway, excerpt from “A Manifesto for Cyborgs.” Reading Digital Culture. pp. 28-37	Lecture: Gender in cyberculture
Thursday 11/23	THANKSGIVING BREAK
Friday 11/24
Tuesday 11/29	Sherry Turkle, “Who Am We?” Reading Digital Culture. pp. 236-50.	At the intersection of feminism and media theory: Technological determinism and the fashioning of identity
Thursday 11/30	None	Workshop: Constructing group avatars
Friday 11/31	None	Open for project help
Tuesday 12/6	Lisa Nakamura. Excerpts from “Cybertyping and the Work of Race in the Age of Digital Reproduction.” Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. pp. 1-14, 20-30.	Lecture: The practice and meaning of racial stereotypes online
Thursday 12/7	None	Open
Friday 12/8	None	Open FINAL PROJECTS DUE AT 5:00 PM.
Thursday 12/15 at 1:00 PM	FINAL EXAM