digital art: theory and practice christian nold 2005
TRANSCRIPT
Digital Art: Theory and Practice Christian Nold 2005
Introductions
Register
How to contact you all
Structure of Unit
2 hours per week contact time
1 hour lecture - I show you some stuff, talk about ways of thinking about it.
1 hour discussion - We communally talk about the stuff I showed as well as things you bring in for discussion – photos, texts etc.
“Students are expected to spend approximately 7 hours a week on independent study, research and seminar presentation.” – Unit Guide
Key Issues:
What is the relationship between technology and art/design ?
How will the two continue to do develop and influence each other?
What role does culture play in all this?
What is the relevance of art/design history to making art?
What themes and approaches do artists take today and why?
Assessment
While we focusing on the practice of art this is a theory module and the assessment is as follows:
Power Point Presentation 25%
1500 word Essay 75%
Crude Media History
4000 BC Cave Painting
2000 BC Hieroglyphs
1000 BC Writing
1200 AD Painting
1500 Printing Press
1839 Photography
1900 Cinema
1950s Television
1990s Internet
2000 … Mobile Media
What is important?
Vermeer, The Milkmaid 1658-60
What is important?
Principle of the Camera Obscura, after Kircher,1671. Madrid
Old vs. New Media?
Analogue
DrawingPrintingPhotographyFilmVideoSound tapeVinyl recording
Digital
Digital ImageDigital AudioDigital VideoCD’sDVD’sWebsites
Analogue and Digital
The principal characteristic of analogue representations is that they are continuous. In contrast, digital representations consist of values measured at discrete intervals. Digital watches are called digital because they go from one value to the next without displaying all intermediate values. In contrast, watches with hands are analogue, because the hands move continuously around the clock face.
Conversion
In general, humans experience the world in an analogue way. Vision, for example, is an analogue experience because we perceive infinitely smooth gradations of shapes and colours. Most analogue events, however, can be simulated digitally.
CD audio for example samples an analogue wave 44100 times per second. Digital formats are useful because they are easy to store and manipulate. On playback this digital data is converted back to analogue sound again.
What is New Media?
Lev Manovich – Language of New Media- 3 copies in the library
Numerical Representation and Manipulation
Modularity
Variability
Cultural Transcoding
Sources of Information
www.low-fi.org.uk
London based curating group - Net Art Locator
www.rhizome.org
US based new media resource - very good mailing list