1.1 Lab 1

Start your NMNT Portfolio Page

We think it is very important to document your projects, for starters the work you will be doing as part of the NMNT course. 

On your personal page include some short bio info on you, what inspires you, and what new media, media technology or creative science things you are interested in, potentially projects you have worked on before etc. 

Note that these are portfolio pages so visible to the general public. Please also review Working with Google Sites for info on how to edit, how to create sub pages etc.and respect the 100 GB limit we have so keep images 200KB unless good reasons not to. To get access send me the email address (gmail or otherwise) associated with a Google account.

For each of the subsequent assignments you should create a sub page

[YourName] --> this will hold your short personal bio above

  1.1 Icon: [name of your icon]

  1.2 Fast Rewind: [Project or Artist Name]

  1.3 Rewind: [Project Name] 

  1.4 [Name of your Pay Tribute to Old New Media Project]

Note that 1.1-1.3 are primarily meant to allow you to express your interests, and to get some quick inspiration, and we are just looking for some very concise pieces of text mixed with other media. The majority of your time is to be spent on 1.4 where you will then create a project of yourself.

List Your Old New Media Icon

Pick an (old new media) artist/scientist/researcher you consider an iconic example, doesn't necessarily need to be well known, nor a person you necessarily identify with, and can also be a modern new media / mediatech / creative science example, and provide a short description of him/her or one of their main projects, plus a motivation why this is an inspiring or impactful example for you. Pictures/movies welcome.

Fast Rewind

The two events below are considered some of the first major exhibitions in cybernetic art, electronic art, new media art or whatsoever you would like to call it. Browse through these works and write a short blog post on one or more of them. What makes this work interesting, even today? Even with the limited info on the work, what ideas can it give us for new works, novel research or speculative future scenarios?

If you have a strong preference for picking another work not from these expos to discuss that is also allowed, as long as it is pre 1980.

Rewind

Similar to the previous exercise review Past NMNT Editions and pick a project that triggers you (or a set of projects on a related topic) and write a short review, again emphasizing what makes these projects interesting, and what kind of new ideas we can get from this.

Pay Tribute to Old New Media

Create an art-work / practical creative research project as a tribute to an old New Media technology (pre-1995). Invest at least around 3 days per person in this assignment. All works are to be documented online will be presented and exhibited in the morning of Workshop 2. 

Specific for 2020: You can work solo or in groups of up to 3 people. Please comply with social distancing and any other corona related measures. I will take into account that both a solo project as well as a group project will have its challenges in the current environment. If projects can be experienced online, even better. There is no requirement whatsoever that your project is related to the fast rewind and rewind assignments. If you want to work in a team, form them early on.

Also as an alternative exercise, you can take part in the Pan European Hackathon EUvsVirus on April 24, 25, 26 - as long as it leads to a tangible, documentable result, you can describe your specific contribution, and there is a connection to media technology, creative research or creative coding in the broadest sense of the word.

You can choose any topic as long as it fits the above; say pre 1995 old new media, or a mash up of pre '95 and new. 

Work from your own inspiration, interests & ideas. As some suggestions for additional inspiration on top of what is mentioned above see:

The project can be something playful, something interesting or surprising, we are not looking for technical complexity. If you can achieve something through simple means even better. In other words we will primarily evaluate it on the actual concept as well as the translation into an experience for an openminded and interested audience, not on how it technically works.

No paper versions of Facebook please! 

Take something that really interests you, the below is just a random list.

Important: Documentation Requirements

Give your project a catchy title and document your work on your personal portfolio page on this course website. This year I intend to be stricter with respect to the timeliness and adherence to documentation. I will grade the project from two perspectives: the experience when you present, as well as the experience for someone who will only have seen the documentation.

It should describe the concept (key part), and describe this from say a 'exhibition / web site visitor' point of view, plus some details on the implementation.

It should include at least one visual, ideally at least a link to a video, a motivation and a description of the project. But the richer the better - make videos, photos, share designs, sourcecode,  etc.).

We only have 100MB total for this site, so use links for large files, take care that pictures are appropriately sized etc.

If you work in a team, make sure you mention the team members. You can put the description under the page of 1 of the members, and then refer from the other team member page to the description so that you still have a complete portfolio.

Grading

The grades will be determined by the quality of the project itself and its ranking across the other projects, by looking at the following aspects (more or less in order)

• The strength, novelty, depth, interestingness, originality, clarity, creativity, context of the concept itself (i.e. not taking into account technicalities of how it was built)

• The execution of the project as displayed by the end result

• The (technical) approach of how the project was realized – complexity not necessarily an advantage (maximum of effect with minimum of means).

• The documentation on the course website

Preparation for Workshop 2: install openFrameworks

in preparation for workshop please also have a go at installing openFrameworks - the base install should be pretty straightforward. Note that this will also include a substantial download for a so called IDE such as Xcode or Visual Studio, hence there will not be sufficient time during class to do this.