Re: [-empyre-] ~~NMR

[c.dena@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au]

Dear Anna and empyre gang,

I am a still a student (though teaching this year as well) and so feel impelled
to offer my approach to this issue. I'm studying in the Creative Arts dept in
the university, i attend the Interactive Design Group postgrad sessions with
the IT dept, audit Aritficial Intelligence classes in the Computer Science
dept, lurk on email lists from other Unis... I never saw my research training 
as being 'housed' within the School I'm situated (cross departmental within 
that school). I'm transinstitutional b/c I see all the Unis as supporting the 
new media field. It is impossible to contain and teach in just one course and
really is a choose your own path dynamic.

Christy

In message <l03130302bc2b8de6c599@[203.54.133.43]> Anna Munster <A.Munster@unsw.edu.au>
 writes:
> This is a very interesting and useful discussion and I'm hoping to take
> some of it away to my never-ending attempt to rejig what I teach students
> these days.  The question of whether to teach some computer science in a
> new media course would, I think depend upon the orientation of the new
> media course. That is, some new media courses are media and communications
> based, some are robotics oriented, some are creative practitioner focussed,
> some are design based. I know alot of the discussion on the list around the
> NMR has been to try and hone down what new media is - as a field...and
> hence what a new media course might consist of, and then  what kind of
> texts and resources we use to supoort such a field.
> 
> But the actual growth of nm in artistic, media and institutional contexts
> has been transdisciplinary...which tends to mean that a decision about
> including intro to computer science in a course or not must rest upon
> whether the course itself sees a collaboration with computer science as
> part of the field out of which it has already grown.  I'm not entirely sure
> that a new media course in an art school (which is where I work)
> necessarily benefits from that kind of course. As Henry says, there are
> already a number of *programming* environments that students find easyish
> to use and are already working with them in their art. I tend to think that
> a course in basic electronics, with a bit of extra tech hardware stuff like
> how to hook up sensors, infra-red tracking etc - might be more useful...I
> see alot of students struggling with end-display (and hence basic
> conceptualisation of new media spaces for projects). But that's just from
> an art school viewpoint. Having said that I do think there are some very
> good 'computing for artists' courses around.
> 
> I'm also of the opinion that given new media is a transdisciplinary set of
> fields, much more needs to be done to set up the infrastructure for genuine
> collaborative learning situations. Instead of new media students having to
> do everything ( in the degree I teach into there's a ridiculous expectation
> that students master image, sound, video, 3D, web and interactivity) there
> should be projects and units that bring new media and computer science or
> robotics or database designers together to work on things. I know this
> tends to happen at later stages - often in graduate courses - but I think
> this needs to happen right from the start.  In addition this needs to be
> backed up with theoretical and historical investigations of collaborative
> practices in art, moving into what other models there exist for working
> collaboratively - including film industry, networks, artistic couples
> etc...this may seem self-evident to many of us who perhaps have experience
> of all or some of these, but it isn't self-evident to students at an
> undergraduate level.
> 
> I'd be interested to hear from people who have been involved in anything
> like this - how successful it might have been, etc
> cheers anna
> 
> 
> all bodies are in a perpetual flux like rivers, and parts are entering into
> them and passing out of them continuously.
> Leibniz
> 
> Anna Munster
> Lecturer in Digital Media Theory/
> Postgraduate Coordinator
> School of Art History and Theory
> College of Fine Arts
> University of New South Wales
> PO Box 259
> Paddington 2021
> 
> Phone: 612 9385 0741
> Fax: 612 9385 0615
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre

-- 
School of Creative Arts, University of Melbourne
Email: c.dena@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au
Web: http://www.sca.unimelb.edu.au/staff/index.html
Web: http://members.optusnet.com.au/christydena