About

Course Essentials

Course Description

Media & Performance explores emerging forms of experimental performance practices and audio-visual art that engage live media. There will be a historical overview of performance dating back to the 1960s through an intensive study of seminal projects by pioneering artists involved in Happenings, electronic theater, laptop performance and other multimedia forms. Students will create performance works for both physical and online spaces. The objective of the course is to investigate critical concepts and fundamental artistic concerns inherent in live media and its use in performance through readings, lectures, and the critique of related artworks, and apply these concepts to the creation of new work.

The Webcam: special emphasis this semester will be placed on the use of the Webcam as an instrument and tool for performance, media production, and communications. Each project will explore the use of the Webcam in various ways, such that students will critically re-examine this common audio-visual device and how it plays an important role in our everyday life of media & communications in new, meaningful ways.

Open Source Studio

Open Source Studio courses are taught both locally and online, exploring forms of remote learning through weekly class sessions via Web-conferencing. Students work in a WordPress “multi-site” system designed specifically for the course, a virtual studio environment that integrates a broad range of Web tools for artistic production, collaborative research, and online writing.

Learning Objective

Media & Performance is intended to develop critical and artistic skills for the interpretation and creation of performance art that incorporates electronic media and non-traditional performance techniques. Through readings, lectures, performance projects, and the critique of related work, students are exposed to the aesthetic, historical, social, cultural, and technological issues inherent in the medium of performance art.

Grading & Rubrics

Grading for class participation in broken down into the following:

  • Class Participation and Attendance – 10%
  • WordPress & Social Media – 5%
  • Micro-projects – 15%
  • Research Assignments – 15%
  • Symposium Performance Assignments & Cyberformance Critique – 5%
  • Project Hyperessays – 25%
  • Final Project – 25%

Grades for the course are based on the following general criteria:

  • The commitment to engage the process of online production, research, and dialogue
  • Developing and maintaining a WordPress site, gaining proficiency with assigned techniques and methodologies
  • Incorporate concepts and techniques drawn from the study of media & performance into student work
  • Come to class on time and participate in discussion
  • Complete work on time
  • Points are given for each assignment, such that students are responsible for the accumulation of the final score/grade (much like a game!)
  • Grades are then allocated according to the standard NTU system of percentages

Points will be assigned for all assignments & attendance (this is approximate and subject to change during the semester):

  • 5 individual Micro-projects: each 5 points (total 25 points)
  • 2 Group Projects: each 10 points (total 20 points)
  • 3 Project hyperessays: each 10 points (total 30 points)
  • 4 Research critiques: each 10 points (total 40 points)
  • Final project: 100 points
  • Class attendance: 3 points per class and on time (total 39 points)
  • Miscellaneous points for WordPress and social media

Attendance & Class participation:

Students participate through discussion and presentation during weekly 3-hour class sessions held onsite for weeks 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 13 and online via Adobe Connect for the remaining weeks 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Students are required to attend class and/or login without being late, or else a point will be deducted. Students should plan to login in at 7:30 PM so the class can begin promptly at 7:40 PM. Students are also required to participate in class discussion and to present their work during critique. Students with more than 3 unexcused absences will automatically fail the course, which is a University policy.

Hardware & Software Requirements

  • MacBook Pro (or laptop) with webcam & mic (bring to class each week when at ADM)
  • Broadband connection (for online classes)
  • Headset or earbuds for Adobe Connect
  • Adobe Connect Add-in
  • Firefox browser
  • Max 7 Trial Version

Randall Packer, Visiting Associate Professor

Since the 1980s, multimedia artist, composer, and educator Randall Packer has worked at the intersection of interactive media and live performance. He has received international acclaim for his social and politically infused works, and has performed and exhibited at museums, theaters, and festivals throughout the world. Packer is also a writer and scholar in new media, most notably the co-editor of Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality. He holds an MFA and PhD in music composition and has taught multimedia at the University of California, Berkeley, Maryland Institute College of Art, American University, CalArts, and Johns Hopkins University. Most recently, he developed Open Source Studio (OSS), an international project exploring collaboration and networked learning in the media arts. He is Visiting Associate Professor at the School of Art, Design & Media at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, where he teaches the art of the networked practice. Packer is also an artist educator at the Museum of Modern Art’s Digital Learning: his course, Catalysts: Artists Creating with Video, Sound, and Time, received an award from Museums and the Web as the best educational site of 2014. Packer works and teaches remotely from his studio in Washington, DC.

Blog: Reportage from the Aesthetic Edge
Website: Zakros InterArts