RYERSON UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF IMAGE ARTS
NEW MEDIA
SYLLABUS – FALL 2009
MPM 17A
RESEARCH FOR EXPERIENCE DESIGN
Course Director:
Lila Pine
Office: RCC 337
416-979-5000, ext. 6848
lpine@ryerson.ca;
www.imagearts.ryerson.ca/evolvingstories
Office hours by appointment.
Calendar Description:
MPM 17A - 011 Research for Experience Design-A
This foundational research studio will build upon strategies presented in Introduction to
Computing for Experience Design. Students will develop and hone the intellectual and
learning skills needed to develop professional level abilities in the areas of critical
thinking, proposal writing, project production, and the development of a public
presentation strategy. To this end, students will be exposed to a variety of research,
design and creative processes. Through conceptually and historically grounded
production exercises, students will engage in reflective practices. Working individually
and in small groups, students will be encouraged to evolve their own artistic thematic and
formal concerns through guided production.
Lecture/ Studio: 3 hours.
Course Objectives: In the context of becoming ‘electrate’ this course aims to facilitate
the following:

Ecological thinking skills

Creative research skills

Proposal writing skills

Public presentation skills

Collaborative practices

Introduction to research tools

An understanding of experience design in the context of emerging new media
practices
Course Philosophy: As sensors, data and algorithms join lens-based technologies such
as cameras to make up the communicator’s toolbox, meaning creation, no longer
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restrained to the optical frame, involves fluid relationships among and between subjects
and objects. As the use of networks influence image making practices, topographic
representations are becoming topological. As live data streams replace static data,
algorithms and people co-create instantaneous content, visualizing live relationships. As
experiential media coexist with representation and image making practices, the nature of
media discourses change. As emerging modes of production and distribution bypass the
dominant social classes, new narrative and aesthetic forms emerge creating open-ended
possibilities for different ways of being in the world.
The digitization of culture engenders shifts in thinking, ways of knowing, artistic
practice, cultural production, communication, interactivity, community and identity. To
better understand the culture(s) of cyberspace and the potential of new media students are
invited to participate in the invention of a new literacy referred to by Gregory Ulmer as
‘electracy’, which ‘is to digital media what literacy is to print.’ [Ulmer, 2002] In this
course students begin the process of locating themselves as ‘electrate’ people engaged in
hybrid practices grounded in experience and interactivity.
Academic Focus and Scope: Providing a framework for students to expand their
thinking about new media in relation to experiential design, this course will focus on
research concerned with the elaboration of community, collaboration and dialogical
interaction. Through small imaginative productions and oral presentations students will
articulate concerns within a broad social context that are relevant to developing
understanding of experiential media.
Teaching Mode: The student centered pedagogical approach is intended to enable
students to transform information gathered from a variety of sources into knowledge and
to express that knowledge using appropriate media. Classes are structured in ways that
respect students as thinking artists engaged in the creation of insightful, meaningful and
inventive work. Critical, creative and ecological dialogue is encouraged and expected.
Learning Mode: As active participants in their own educational experience, students will
engage creatively in the process of learning, knowledge invention and problem solving
on their journey towards becoming ‘electrate.’
Modes of Communication: In addition to weekly meetings students and instructor are
expected to contribute to the class blog, at http://2009mpm17.wordpress.com – all
assignments and readings will be posted here. Everyone must activate and use their
Ryerson email account for all official correspondence. The class del.icio.us account is
http://delicious.com/mpm17 – it has links to readings and other relevant stuff. These links
show up in the sidebar of the class blog. Office hours are on Fridays from 10 – 12.
Students may drop by for a chat or make an appointment by email at least 48 hours in
advance.
Assignment Descriptions and Grade Breakdown:
Utopia Now
25%
In The Myth of the Machine, Lewis Mumford writes, “all thinking worthy of the
name must now be ecological.” Working in groups of six, imagine a negotiated
possible, ecologically sound utopia. A unique element of experience design is that
it no longer only creates messages that are image based. Computing, hybridity,
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networks and collaboration are central to new media paradigms. Express your
utopia as a design experience through the organization of your group, in writing, a
still image, a sound, a moving image, a logo and public presentations. The
following steps are required to create your experience of utopia:
1. Brainstorm often.
2. Research your topic – collect material on utopias – writings, art works,
blogs, websites, utopia in second life.
3. Name your utopia.
4. Write a manifesto declaring the values and guiding principles of your
utopia – this could take the form of a conventional manifesto, a poem, a
song – whatever naturally grows out of the utopia.
5. Organize your group members according to the guiding principles of your
utopia.
6. Create or find an image that best expresses your utopia. Use that image to
come up with a logo.
7. Create or find a sound that best expresses your utopia.
8. Produce a moving image with or without sound that expresses your utopia.
9. Design a playful public experience that expresses your utopia – this could
be physical, virtual or both.
Q & A Reflections
20%:
In a collective class blog you are to set up your own individual profile and engage
in online responses to weekly questions. Each student will respond to each
question by synthesizing at least seven sources.
Example: What is new media? Synthesize seven definitions of new media to
create your own. Please feel free to interview faculty members, students in the
upper years of the program and/or new media practitioners; read books or articles;
or use any other creative research methods to find your answers. Make sure you
credit all sources.
Q & A Production Project 40%
Choose one question from the above assignment. Express your response to the
question in a short video in the genre of your choice. Post your video on the class
blog.
Out There
15%
Art is not created in a bubble. We live, work, study and make art in the world. To
think about making work in context it is useful to experience the work of other
artists. For this assignment you will visit one of the following exhibitions:
Codetalkers of the Digital Divide (or why we didn’t become “roadkill
on the information superhighway”) – An exhibition contextualizing
Aboriginal New Media practice in the current web 2.0 paradigm to be held
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between September 18 – October 24, 2009 @ A Space Gallery, 401
Richmond Street West, Suite 110. You are strongly encouraged to attend
the Artist and Curator Talk on Friday October 16th, 5-7pm @ the
gallery.
Song Show – An Exhibition of Media Art Based on Popular Song to be
held between October 30 – November 21, 2009 @ The Artlab, John
Labatts Visual Arts Centre, The University of Western Ontario, London,
Ontario, Canada.
Find a work from one of the above exhibitions that speaks to you in some way.
Create a response to the work that shows you understand its context. The form of
your response is up to you.
Suggested Readings:
Amerika, Mark. META/DATA: A Digital Poetics (Leonardo Books). London:
The Mit Press, 2007.
Chalke, S. Early Home Cinema: The Origins of Alternative Spectatorship in
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media
Technologies, 2007.
Elkins, James. Why Art Cannot Be Taught. Chicago: University of Illinois Press,
2001.
Gordon, J. The Mobile Phone and the Public Sphere: Mobile Phone Usage in
Three Critical Situations in Convergence: The International Journal of Research
into New Media Technologies, 2007.
Moggridge, Bill. Designing Interactions. London: The Mit Press, 2007.
Munster, Anna. Materializing new media, embodiment information aesthetics.
Lebanon, NH. Dartmouth College Press, 2006.
O’Sullivan, Dan and Igoe, Tom. Physical Computing, Sensing and Controlling the
Physical World with Computers. Boston: Thomson, 2004.
Poremba, C. Point and Shoot: Remediating Photography in Gamespace, in Games
and Culture, Vol. 2, No. 1, 49-58, 2007.
Evaluation: During the last class students and instructor will have an opportunity to
share the highs and lows of the collective learning experience. At the end of each
assignment students will be provided with a written assessment as well as a number
grade. A letter grade for the course will be posted on Blackboard at the end of the term.
Grades will be assigned in accordance with the Course Performance Designations
published in the Ryerson Calendar for 2008-2009.
The Ryerson University course survey will be administered online.
Please note: All academic policies related to the course and the program are available on
the Ryerson website.
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Course Schedule:
Assignment Due
Question – post
answer on blog
before next class
Blog Entry
What is new media?
Library Research Workshop
Blog Entry
Meet with Utopia Group for
brainstorming session
Step 2 of Utopia
What is experience
design?
Codetalkers Exhibition
Blog Entry
Date
Topic
Sept. 10 / 11
Introductions
Safety Clearance
Orientation Tour
Sept. 17 / 18
Ecological Thinking
Manifesto Workshop
Utopia Brainstorm
Sept. 24 / 25
Oct. 1 / 2
Name your Utopia
Oct. 8 / 9
Student Presentations of
Utopia, including research
findings, manifesto, name,
group organization, still
image and sound.
Blog Entry
Steps 3 – 6 of Utopia
posted on blog
What is ecological
thinking?
What does it mean to
become ‘electrate’?
Play
Oct. 15 / 16
Video Camera Workshop
Blog Entry
What does it mean to
say that topographic
representations are
becoming topological?
Oct. 17 / 18
Final Cut Workshop
Blog Entry
What is play?
Step 7 of Utopia
Oct. 29 / 30
Final Cut Workshop
Blog Entry
Nov. 5 / 6
Song Show Exhibition
Nov. 12 / 13
Student Presentations of
Utopia Moving Image
Step 8 of Utopia
Nov. 19 / 20
Utopia Experience – student
presentations
Step 9 of Utopia
Nov. 26 / 27
Q & A Video Presentations
Q & A Production
Project Posted
Dec. 3/4
Evaluation Circle
Out There
What is hybridity?
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