CYBERNAUT: The Artist and Technology

HUAS 6320.501 Issues in Contemporary Art
Dr. Charissa N. Terranova
The University of Texas at Dallas
Fall 2008
Monday 6-4:45
terranova@utdallas.edu

Office location and hours at UT Dallas campus, Richardson: JO 5.504, Mondays 2-4
Office location and hours at Downtown satellite campus: Centraltrak, 800 Exposition Ave., Dallas, Texas 75226, Wednesday and Friday 12-2; by appointment

As extensions of the human body, technological tools have shifted our collective sense of self. Conventional ideas of “human nature” and “humanism” are no longer functional or accurate. We move from human to post-human, homo sapiens to robo sapiens, and learn to take ethical responsibility for new modes of experience. This course is a graduate seminar focusing on the artist and technology through time, from the hot-air balloon and the photographic camera to the portopak handheld video camera and contemporary new media technology. Specific attention will be given to the transformation of the human sensorium as a result of technology.

Texts for Purchase

• Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Available digitally through Kindle Edition; 237 KB. New York: Ballantine Books, 2008.
• William Gibson. Neuromancer. New York: Ace Hardcover, 2004.
• N. Katherine Hayles. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
• Siegfried Zielinksi, Deep Time of Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008.
• Marshall McLuhan. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994.

Texts Available On-Line

• Roland Barthes. Mythologies. New York: The Noonday Press, 1972.
• Marshall McLuhan. The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man. Boston: Beacon Press, 1967.
• Marshall McLuhan and Barrington Nevitt. “The Argument: Causality in the Electric World.” Technology and Culture. Vol. 14, No. 1 (Jan. 1973) 1-18.
• Norbert Wiener. “On Learning and Self-Reproducing Machines.” Cybernetics, Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1961. 169-180.
• Peter Galison. “The Ontology of the Enemy: Norbert Wiener and the Cybernetic Vision.” Critical Inquiry. Vol. 21, No. 1 (Autumn 1994) 228-266.
• Elizabeth Grosz. Time Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005.
• Donna Haraway. “The Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century." New York: Routledge Press, 1991. 149-182.
• Friedrich A. Kittler. Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999.
• Roy Ascott. Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness. Edward A. Shanken, Ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003.

Attendance and Preparation

Attendance is mandatory. Students must complete all reading prior to class. There are three primary assignments in the class: each student will lead a seminar in discussion of an assigned text, make a presentation based on a final essay, and write a research paper that engages the subject of the class. You may have one unexcused absence, after which your grade will be lowered by one letter grade with each subsequent absence. You are thus allowed one unexcused absence. Assignments must be turned in on time; for each 24-hour period an assignment is late, one full grade will be deducted (e.g., an “A” paper will become a “B” paper). Appropriate medical and family excuses will be accepted in order to establish new dates for assignments.

Leading a Seminar

Each of you will be required to lead discussion of one or more texts in a given seminar. For this, images are not necessary, though, you may choose to show a few. You must come to class with copies of an outline of discussion points that relate to the assigned textual and/or visual material.

Presentation

Each of you will be required to present your paper topic and thesis. For this, images are necessary. Your presentation should be 45 – 50 minutes in length, confront pertinent issues concerning contemporary issues of art, technology, and cybernetic theory, and instigate lively discussion.

Essay

Each of you will be required to write an essay. The essay may focus on an artist, architect, a film and/or filmmaker, or theories of cybernetics. Please meet with me to discuss your topic before you embark on research. It is due in my mailbox by 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, May 2. The requirements for the essay are the following:

• title page
• 15 pages
• standard margins and 10 or 12 pt. font
• foot- or endnotes
• bibliography with at least 5 sources of which only two may be websites
• images where necessary

Grading

Your grade in the course will be calculated from the following percentages:
Leading Class Discussion/General Participation: 34%
Presentation: 33%
Essay: 33%

Goals of Course

• A rich and specific understanding of the relationship between the artist and technology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
  
• Knowledge of artists who have used technology as a means of making art.
  
• Knowledge of cybernetic theory.
  
• Skills of close reading and critical analysis.
• Improved writing skills.