Undergraduate Courses
Intermedia II
This course is designed to help students build a self-directed studio practice in intermedia, time-based media,
and the digital arts. Major themes in contemporary creative practice are explored through readings, viewings,
and the creation of original projects. Students will broaden and deepen conceptual and technology skills intro-
duced in Intermedia I and increase the scale, ambition, and finish of their creative works. Enrollment in this
course is encouraged for students who plan to apply for the BFA degree with an emphasis in Intermedia.
Syllabus (pdf): Fall 2009
Making and Meaning
In the last generation, art has exploded off the walls and pedestals, careened across multiple screens, and wandered into the spaces of everyday life. This course provides an integrated introduction for both understanding and creating contemporary media artworks. Students will be introduced to a number of production skills and critical perspectives in order to make imaginative, innovative, and socially relevant artwork. No prior experience in the arts or media production is assumed or required.
Sound, Culture Cinema/Digital Sound and Convergence
While contemporary culture is saturated with visual imagery, it is sound that provides texture to image, experience, and memory. Sound can communicate information, establish atmosphere, evoke emotion, and mobilize identifications. A recent explosion of creative work and scholarship with sound has demonstrated the fascinating, subtle and profound ways that our culture is shaped aurally as well as visually. This course offers students a creative and socially engaged introduction to digital sound with an emphasis on cultural studies and film/video practice. Areas of exploration include digital audio design in the desktop environment; digital recording, editing, and mixing; the history, theory, and practice of sound in cinema and the arts; and the creative, cultural, and legal ramifications of digital sound. The course stresses technical competency, conceptual sophistication, and expressivity.
Spring 2007 course website
Fall 2006 course website
Fall 2005 course website
Introduction to Multimedia Design: Exploring Food Systems
Agriculture has also fundamentally shifted how we picture the natural world, and mediated images help either to perpetuate perhaps quaint preconceptions of nature or to reorder what we are able to see in it. While the history of this mediation through imagery is as old as the creation of images itself, it reached new heights in the age of mass media and is being further refined in the age of customizable Web-based multimedia. This course uses Michael Pollan’s recent book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, as a jumping off point for creating multimedia content for the World Wide Web, developing aesthetic judgment and building technical skills while coming to a new and deeper appreciation of how our meals are mediated by industry as well as imagery. Photoshop, Flash, and Dreamweaver will be the primary tools used in this course, but these tools are only a means to an end, not an end unto themselves. Critical and creative thinking, the exploration of complex ideas, and unconventional approaches to problem-solving will be encouraged.
Introduction to Multimedia Design
Networked media has transformed many arenas of experience: communication, education, commerce, and creative expression to name only a few. This course provides a foundation in creating multimedia content for the World Wide Web emphasizing developing aesthetic judgment, building technical skills, and understanding the historical, cultural, and political background of multimedia technologies. Special attention will be given to arts, humanities, non-commercial and creative applications. Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Dreamweaver will be the primary tools used in this course, along with an introduction to animation with Flash, but these tools are only a means to an end, not an end unto themselves. Critical and creative thinking, the exploration of complex ideas, and unconventional approaches to problem-solving will be encouraged.