Course Essay Topic!

C O U R S E   E S S A Y  T O P I C

1.) Writing About A Duet of Working Contemporary New Media Artists

2.) Presenting on A Duet of Working Contemporary New Media Artists

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1) This is a two part final assignment.  You will be creating a 5 to 10 minute presentation for the final class (August 15) and writing a 1200 word paper on the same subject matter. These essays may contain images for reference as well, as the work is highly visual.

Helpful tool! http://www.wordcounttool.com/
Or you can count by hand. One by one.


2) Choose two artists (or artists groups ; collaboratives) from the following websites featuring literally hundreds of artists for you to explore.

http://www.eyebeam.org/people/current 
(search through "fellows" and "residents" for hundreds of amazing artists, links to their websites will generally be on their profile pages)

http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~infoarts/links/wilson.artlinks2.html 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_art 

http://rhizome.org/art/ 

http://www.gamescenes.org/ 



3) Research your chosen artists. Make sure to record citations of where to find the works, links, etc. 


4) Choose ONE representative work from each of your artists for a total of two works to be considered in your paper and presentation - you may choose to include more works by these artists in your visual presentation to the class if applicable.


5) Describe, analyze, interpret, compare and contrast the artist’s works, considering broadly their chosen formal and conceptual strategies, being careful to address genre (film, video, performance, interactive art, simulation, game art, etc) in your general analysis of the works. As part of your research, make an attempt to contact both of your artists to ask questions regarding the work. (If you don't hear back from them please note such in your paper and presentation. In honesty, the success rate of contact is 1/4, but take a chance!)

Important : You must as well reference readings from the class in considering the works in question. The three available : Walter Benjamin, Video Art, and The New Aesthetic. One or multiple references. For the paper/blog post, make appropriate citations following standard academic paper guidelines (MLA or Chicago Manual Style is fine).

Please limit your chosen artists/works to those created after 1980 - the only requirement is that the artists are somehow intrinsically involved in the creative use of digital technologies in their works. That is not to say they may cross over into other realms and mediums too!

The intent here is to give you the opportunity to critically engage in basic research and analysis of artists and artworks while at the same time encouraging a greater depth of experience of various artist’s creative production and contexts. 

Here are some online resources to help you in considering how to critique, compare and contrast your chosen artist's works:


http://writingaboutart.org/pages/introduction.html

http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/comparing-and-contrasting/

http://uwc.utexas.edu/handouts/editing



Grading: 

Your presentation and writing will be graded according to the quality of your research, the originality of your analysis, the clarity of your writing, design, and clarity of your presentation. Presentations (5-10 minutes) may be approached in ways which fit. PowerPoint is common, or if the websites are unique enough they may suffice.

Important to note, going off a rogue presentation from a previous semester : Stay ON POINT. Your subjective theories about personal practice, as unique as it may be, may have little to do with the essay topic on hand. Just be wary of veering off target and you'll be fine.

Due date for presentation and paper : August 15th! Final day of class.