Code, Decolonized
Parsons School of Design, Design and Technology

Code, Decolonized is a teaching practicum that investigates the ever-shifting roles of software and explore new forms of code pedagogy through queer, black, abolitionist, and intersectional feminist consciousness. We will research, experiment, and practice new ways of learning and teaching programming languages for the web through perspectives that are traditionally overlooked and under recognized in the technical classroom. Following bell hook’s vision of “education as the practice of freedom”, this course equips future-educators with tools to reframe their understanding of traditional computer science education and craft socially-engaged course materials. By the end of the course, we will culminate in an array of syllabi, collaborative tools, assignments, in-class exercises and present them through an end of the semester symposium students will facilitate and attend outside of class time. This COLLAB studio will be joined by mentors from the Processing Foundation and is well suited for students who are invested in pursuing teaching careers after graduation, as well as those looking to deepen their understanding of code and community work.

Media Art Histories and Genealogies
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Art History

An introduction presents an overview of the academic field known as Media Art Histories as well as the specific genealogies of relevant academic disciplines (i.e. of Film Art, Video Art, New Media Art & both filmic and digital Experimental Animation) as well as genealogies of specific media technologies (i.e. cameras, computers and software; electric lights, radio and sound; chemical, magnetic, and digital forms of storage and the industrial and capitalized structures that they require). These interwoven histories of shared theory/ practices are investigated in relationship to independent/experimental/art media in contemporary cultures by asking: How do artists develop methods to work with, against, and around these techno-social forms? Readings will include Kittler, Zelenski, Grau, Gunning, Gaudreault, Musser, Schivelbusch, Auge, Adorno, Kluge, and Krackauer.

Seminar in Contemporary Theory : Systems and Modularity
The University of Illinois at Chicago, Art + Art History

In the SYSTEMS AND MODULARITY seminar, students learn to trace the history of formal and conceptual methods used to organize and automate information in art. We survey how artists in working in a diverse set of mediums use systems, from Hieronymus Bosch’s coded and paneled stories to Pamela Z’s programmed vocal performances. In each, we examine how improvisation, chance, risk, experimentation, intuition, and ritual can be compatible with sets of determined parameters that might traditionally be recognized as incompatible with those qualities.

A key component of this seminar is identifying and crafting systematic processes in students’ own work— and devising modularity within them. Students create and implement their own processes to test, prove, and solve problems or roadblocks they encounter in the studio, learning to navigate the relationships between repetition, structure, and meaning in the process. We will do this work through comparative exercises in writing, object-making scenarios, discussion, and critique. As students work to identify and sharpen the systems and modularity in/of their practices, we collectively interrogate the place of power and control within the work of creating, following, and administering systematic processes.


Sex and Gender in New Media
SAIC Film Video New Media and Animation

This course is concerned with analyzing how masculine, feminine, queer and transgender identities are represented in media culture through examining theoretical and artistic perspectives before and after the internet. Texts from feminist, men?s studies and queer theorists such as Shulamith Firestone, Theresa Senft, Matteo Pasquinelli, Kobena Mercer, Katrien Jacobs, Steve Garlick, and Lauren Berlant and will be discussed to encourage critical thinking towards images of the body, sex (porn literacy), and sexuality in the media. The practical aspects of this class seeks to highlight political and critical uses of technology to challenge and discourse existing ideas of sex and gender. Male, female, and queer-identified students are all welcome.

Introduction to Creative Coding in the New Media Arts
UIC Art + Art History

This is a studio based course that introduces students to computer programming with an emphasis on creative design and experimentation. No previous programming experience is required. Students will learn techniques to generate compelling computer-driven audio and visual projects. Through readings and discussions, the course will also unpack the roles data plays in our lives. Composing a series of projects throughout the semester, students will experiment and develop their own strategies to creatively write code. Students will complete the class with technical skills that will lay the foundation for more advanced programming, scripting, and web development. There are no prerequisites for this course.

Researching Art & Change on the West Side
SAIC Art Therapy

This course is an introduction to self-reflexivity and research in community settings. Students will learn how to question personal and institutional motivations for working in particular contexts?examining issues of power, multiculturalism, urban environments, mythmaking, and spatial imaginaries and realities. From a position of equity and creative citizenship, students will explore the shape and politics of cultural encounters between people, neighborhoods, and institutions. This class will be based at Homan Square, on the West Side of Chicago.

Publishing Online: Wired Writing and Design
SAIC, New Arts Journalism

This studio course introduces graduate students to the historical, theoretical, and practical aspects of publishing on the web. Students will learn basic coding, familiarize themselves with relevant digital platforms, and develop social media approaches that help them build their own online practices. A series of skill- building assignments will culminate in an individual web-based project the students will build according to their own goals and interests.

Media Practices: The Moving Image
SAIC, Film Video New Media and Animation

This course is designed to introduce students to the language and histories of the moving image arts and the diverse ways in which artists have contributed to them. Throughout the semester we will examine a range
of approaches to creating moving image work. We will compare and contrast established norms with radical and experimental approaches to these various media, leading to an understanding of the rich, complex, and evolving landscape upon which individuals have been making, and continue to make, moving image art. Students will engage with this expanded field through lectures, readings, screenings, meetings with visiting artists as well as becoming active in discussions and practitioners in the field via group projects. Working in small groups, students will complete a series of short projects to introduce them to the various pathways of the department. By the end of the semester, students should have gain basic production and postproduction skills as well a good understanding of the key concepts relevant to contemporary film, video, new media, installation and animation.