Postgraduate Course: Interdisciplinary Creative Practices 2 (ARCH11085)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | Architecture and Landscape Architecture |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | This course aims to provide a programme of study for its students to develop skills and knowledge in creative practice across disciplines. Recognising the key role of convergent information and communications technology (ICT) in the facilitation of interdisciplinary modes of research and practice such technologies are treated as core to the course, including computer-aided design, interactive media, network and social technologies and other digital media. Students will become conversant with appropriate technologies and research methods and with the creative practices and social contexts within which such technologies are developed and applied. During this Semester 2 course each weekly element will consist of a reading selected from a small number of set texts, a seminar presentation or lecture and a group discussion. Students will be required to contribute to group seminar discussions and to research and co-lead one seminar presentation. |
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | Students MUST NOT also be taking
Media and Culture (ARCH11002)
|
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | No |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
On completing the programme students should be able to
a determine and develop appropriate strategies for working creatively across disciplines, allowing them to advise on the applicability of working methods and ICT systems in a variety of professional contexts
b critically evaluate various disciplinary working methods and technological systems and their applicability to particular tasks
c demonstrate through critical writing an understanding of the cultural and creative value of interdisciplinary working methods
d use information and communication technologies creatively in solving problems and formulating creative expression
e assess the value and applicability of working methods and technological systems in specific contexts
f critically assess general and specialist literature relevant to interdisciplinary creative practice and research. |
Assessment Information
| A 4000 word essay is required. The student presentation will represent 20% of the mark, the abstract for the essay 20% and the final essay 60%. |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
1. Informatics and media
The computer as a technical and conceptual apparatus has established itself as paradigmatic in Western culture. Media have become convergent, effecting how we use them and transforming how we work, communicate, create and play. Interdisciplinary practices have been facilitated through these changes. Our interpersonal relationships have been equally effected, with social technologies emerging as key to how we constitute ourselves as social beings. However, whilst digital systems play an important role in globalisation, access to such technology is by no means fairly distributed. This seminar will engage a number of approaches to these issues from sociological, technical and critical perspectives.
Reading:
Bolter, J. D, and Richard A. G. 1999. Remediation: Understanding New Media. MIT Press
2. Language and transliteracy
This seminar looks at language as a creative field of activity and how shifts in technologies and mediation have effected how we use and are used by language. Language consists of far more than the words and grammars we commonly employ. Our entire experience of the world can be considered as mediated by signs and symbols, many of which now exist primarily within the digital. Many artists are now explicitly engaging this area, whether in electronic literature, digital poetics or interactive art.
Reading:
Ong, W. J. 2002. Writing Restructures Consciousness in Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. Methuen.
3. Technologies of the social
This seminar considers the work of social theorists on the nature of technologically mediated culture. Computers are part of a complex technological apparatus that involves various institutions and practices. The computer fits within a web of interrelated equipment (the phone system, technologies of publication and supply), which is similarly connected to organisations, bureaucracies and social groupings.
Reading:
Castells, M. 1989. The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring, and the Urban-Regional Process. Basil Blackwell.
4. Apparatus of the Visual
What can we see and how? When we can see the invisible we have augmented our capacity for sight, whether seeing around a corner (periscope), seeing into time (film), seeing into space (astronomy), seeing inside the body (MRI) or visualising the non-visual (digitally generated visualisation). What are the implications for the human when our senses are augmented in this manner?
Reading:
Foucault, M. 2007. Panopticism in The Surveillance Studies Reader, Open University Press.
Cartwright, L. 1995. Screening the Body: Tracing Medicine's Visual Culture, University of Minnesota Press.
5. Mind and body
This module will critically engage the long assumed duality between mind and body from a number of points of view that argue for diverse models of self and being. Is self a social construct or a duality founded on a mind/body split? Is self limited to our biological and mental capacities or does it encompass other systems, phenomena and apparatus?
Reading:
Clark, A. & Chalmers, D, 1998, The Extended Mind, in Analysis 58:10-23
Shusterman, R. (2006) Thinking through the Body: Educating for the Humanities: A Plea for Somaesthetics" in the Journal of Aesthetic Education 40.1 (Spring 2006).
6. Nature and Nurture
What is natural? To what degree have we become artificial? Why are we fearful of genetic manipulation? Are we at risk of facilitating the development of a culture where people's futures are predetermined by their genetic make-up and where elite parents are able to select to ensure the success of their progeny? Does gene therapy offer new cures? What can we learn from previous attempts to engineer better humans?
Reading:
Paul, D. 1998. The Politics of Heredity: Essays on Eugenics, Biomedicine, and the Nature-Nurture Debate, SUNY Press.
Stengers, I and Prigogine, I. 1984. Order out of Chaos, Man's new dialogue with nature, Random House.
7. Simulation and automation
It has been argued that we now live in a world of simulations where the ideas of authenticity and the original have been lost to us, if they ever existed. This point of view emerged from the areas of phenomenology and semiotics. However, in a world of automata and distributed computing it is possible that the materiality around us has been transformed into a simulacra of things. What does it mean when things carry within them complex data sets that function to situate them in the world and objects are aware of and can communicate with one another?
Reading:
Baudrillard, J. 2001. Simulacra and Simulations. In Selected Writings, ed. Mark Poster. Polity.
8. Everywhere and nowhere
Novel network, wireless, sensor and nano-technologies lead to the physical and cognitive disappearance of the computer and its interface. Objects, environments and people are augmented through computation, memory, sensors, displays and actuators. In this context the natural practices of our physical and socially embodied interactions become central. Digital media provide us with new embodiments. Do these new forms of digital mediation constitute new tools or lead to new meaning and digital selves which might act and think in novel ways?
Reading:
Dourish, P. 1999. Embodied Interaction: Exploring the Foundations of a New Approach to HCI, http://www.dourish.com/embodied/embodied99.pdf
9. Special Effects and the Uncanny
How is our sense of the real affected by advances in visualisation and other representational technologies? How do we relate to a robot that appears to be and behaves as if it is human? Does such an interaction alter the manner in which we conceived of ourselves and other humans? This seminar includes a screening of the 1982 film Bladerunner.
Reading:
Freud, S. 2003. The Uncanny, Penguin.
Rottman, B. 2008. Becoming Beside Ourselves: The Alphabet, Ghosts, and Distributed Human Being, Duke University Press.
10. Ethics and authorship
The law is the instrument of our social agreements and contracts, our shared moral and ethical frameworks. In the multi-cultural context of today's globalised society our capacity to formulate and implement shared laws is profoundly challenged. What is the role of the creative practitioner in this? What are the limits to free speech, representation or protest, if any? Do people have absolute rights or, within a relative world-view, are our rights only those we can negotiate or seize? Whose law is the law? Is it possible to practice as an artist, fulfilling a particular social role, without being complicit? This seminar includes a screening of The Yes Men Fix The World.
Reading:
Lessig, L. 2005. Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity, Penguin.
11. Are we there yet?
Yes, we are ... a round up of the course, where we will seek to draw connections between the various topics and disciplines engaged and reflect upon how they have affected and are engaged through the practical and written work produced by students during the programme. This week will include a re-reading of C.P. Snow's Two Cultures.
Reading:
Snow, C.P. 1959. Two Cultures, Cambridge University Press.
Leach, J. Modes of Creativity
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| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Attali, J. 1985. Noise: The Political Economy of Music Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Augoyard, J.F. and Torgue, H. 2005. Sonic Experience: A Guide to Everyday Sounds, Montréal: McGill-Queen's University Press.
Bergson, H. 1998. Creative Evolution, Dover.
Biagioli, M and Galison, P. 2003. Scientific Authorship, Routledge.
Bichlbaum A. and Bonanno, M. 2008. Yes Men Fix the World. DVD. Dogwoof Pictures.
Biggs, S. 2008. Transculturation, Transliteracy and Generative Poetics. http://hosted.simonbiggs.easynet.co.uk/texts/trans.pdf
Biggs, S. and Leach, J. 2004. Autopoiesis: novelty, meaning and value. Artwords London.
Block, F. and Wenz, K. P0es1s, Aesthetics of Digital Poetry, Hatje Cantz.
Borges, JL. 2003 (1941). The Garden of Forking Paths, in New Media Reader, eds. Wardrip-Fruin and Montfort, MIT Press.
Bush, V. 2003 (1945).As we may think, in New Media Reader, eds. Wardrip-Fruin and Montfort, MIT Press
Clark, A. 1997. Being There: Putting Brain, Body and World Together Again. MIT Press.
Chion, M. 1994. Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen, New York: Columbia University Press.
Cox, C. and Warner, D. eds. 2004. Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music, New York: Continuum.
Critical Art Ensemble. 2001. Digital Resistance: Explorations in Digital Media. Autonomedia.
Cytowic, R. E. 1995. Synesthesia: Phenomenology And Neuropsychology - A Review of Current Knowledge, PSYCHE, 2(10), July 1995. http://psyche.csse.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-10-cytowic.html
Debord, G. 1992. Society of the Spectacle. Rebel Press.
Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. 2004. A Thousand Plateaus, Continuum
Dodge, M and Kitchin, R. 2001. Atlas of Cyberspace, Addison Wesley.
Dourish, P. 2001. Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. MIT Press.
Douzinas, C. and Nead, L. 1999. Law and the Image. University of Chicago Press. Electronic Book Review, http://www.electronicbookreview.com/
Eco, U. 1989. The Open Work, Harvard University Press.
Eco, U. 1986, Travels in Hyper-reality, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Feigenson, N. and Spiesel, C. 2009, Law on Display. New York University Press.
Foucault, M. 1991. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Penguin.
Greene, R. 2004. Internet Art. Thames and Hudson.
Halbert, D. J. 2005. Resisting Intellectual Property, (2005) Routledge.
Haraway, D. J. 1995. Cyborgs and symbionts: living together in the new world order, in C. H. Gray (ed.) The Cyborg Handbook, xi-xx, New York: Routledge.
Hayles, N.K. 1999. How We Became Posthuman, University of Chicago Press
Heidegger, M. 1977. The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. trans. W. Lovitt. Harper and Row.
Heim, M. 1987. Electric Language: A Philosophical Study of Word Processing, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Huizinga, J. 1955. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture, Beacon Press.
Ihde, D. 2009. Postphenomenology and Technoscience, SUNY Press
Kearns, P. 1998. The legal concept of art, Hart, Oxford.
Kittler, F. 1999. Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, Stanford University Press.
Krueger, M. 2003 (1977). Responsive Environments, in New Media Reader, eds. Wardrip-Fruin and Montfort, MIT Press.
Landow, G. P. 1994. Hypertext as collage-writing, in P. Delany, and G. P. Landow (eds.), Hypermedia and Literary Studies: 150-170. MIT Press.
Latour, B. 2001. Reassembling the Social, Oxford University Press.
Leach, J. 2003. Creative Land: Place and procreation of the Rai Coast of Papua New Guinea, Berghahn Books.
Lindley, C. 2005. The Semiotics of Time Structure in Ludic Space As a Foundation for Analysis and Design, in Game Studies, Volume 5, number 1, accessible at http://www.gamestudies.org/0501/lindley/
Lyotard, J-F. 1986. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Manchester University Press.
Maturana, H. and Varela F. 1991.Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living, Springer.
McClean, D. 2007 Trials of Art, Ridinghouse.
McLuhan, M. 1962. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man, University of Toronto Press.
McLuhan, M. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Milburn, C. 2002. Nanovision: Engineering the Future, Duke University Press.
Minsky, M. 1985. The Society of Mind, Simon and Schuster.
Mitchell, W. J. 1995. City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn. MIT Press.
Moravec, H. 1988. Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence, Harvard University Press.
Popper, F. 2007. From Technological to Virtual Art. MIT Press
Poster, M. 1992. The Mode of Information. Polity Press.
Rabinow, P. 1999. French DNA, University of Chicago Press.
Rabinow, P. 2004. A machine to make the future: bio-tech Chronicles, Princeton.
Ruskin, J. 2003. True and the Beautiful in Nature, Art, Morals and Religion. Kessinger Publishing.
Schubert, K. & McClean, D. 2002 Dear Images: Art, Copyright and
Culture, (2002) Ridinghouse.
Scott, R. 1982. Bladerunner, Warner Home Video
Stone, A. R. 1995. The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age, MIT Press.
Sutherland, I. 2003 (1963). Sketchpad: A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System, in New Media Reader, eds. Wardrip-Fruin and Montfort, MIT Press.
Tenzer, M. 2006. Analytical Studies in World Music: Analytical Studies in World Music, Oxford University Press.
Turing, A. 2003 (1950). Computing Machinery and Intelligence, in New Media Reader, eds. Wardrip-Fruin and Montfort, MIT Press.
Varela,J.V., Thompson, E & Rosch, E. 1993. The Embodied Mind. MIT Press
Webber, S. 1996. Mass Mediauras: Essays on Form, Technics and Media, Stanford University Press.
Wiener, N. 1950. The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society. Houghton Mifflin.
Winograd, T. and Flores, F. 1998. Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design. Addison Wesley.
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| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | interdisciplinarity creativity art practice critical convergence media transliteracy |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr John Lee
Tel: (0131 6)50 4420
Email: J.Lee@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mr Adam Collier
Tel: (0131 6)51 5773
Email: Adam.Collier@ed.ac.uk |
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