Theoretical Perspectives on Interactivity
H79.2440 (Douglas Rushkoff)
The emergence of interactive technologies has profoundly altered our relationship to media and art from the position of passive spectators to that of active players. For longer than we might imagine, cultural theorists have foreseen these shifts, feared them, fought for them, celebrated them, and, clearly, misunderstood them.
In this seminar, we will explore the thread of interactivity in cultural media as well as the opportunities and perils posed by the associated rise of mass interpretation, authorship, and bottom-up organization. We will trace the interactive imperative, from animated cave paintings and the alphabet to cut-and-paste novels and open source programming. We will encounter literary perspectives from Walter Benjamin to William Burroughs, media theory from Walter Ong to Baudrillard, social critique from Adorno to Deleuze, cultural programming from William Burroughs to Donna Harraway, and play theory from Huizinga to Howard Rheingold, all in the context of the relationship of interactivity to autonomy and agency.
We will also cover the ideas and intentions of some of networking technology's pioneers, from Vannevar Bush to Norbert Weiner. Students will be required to read approximately one book per week, lead one class discussion, supplement one class discussion with audio-visual resources, and write two short papers arguing a cogent theoretical perspective on new media. The tentative reading list for this course will be found at: http://www.rushkoff.com/itp/theory2006.html
How to decide what to read and when to buy a book
Week One: Interactivity, Agency, and Change
Introduction to Course.
Week Two: Dawn of Interactivity
Packer, Randall and Ken Jordan. Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality. New York: Norton, 2001. ISBN: 0393049795
Chapters covered:
Foreward
Overture
Weiner
Licklider
Vannevar Bush
Englebart and interview at
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.01/mouse.html
Week Three: Applications
Packer, Randall and Ken Jordan. Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality. New York: Norton, 2001. ISBN: 0393049795
Chapters covered:
Nelson
Berners-Lee
Canter
Viola
Curtis
Week Four: Hot and Cool
McLuhan, Marshall. The Essential McLuhan. Eric McLuhan and Frank Zingrone, eds. New York: Basic Books, 1995. ISBN: 0465019951 (Focus on chapters 8, 9 10, and 13 - read the Playboy Interview first). (I'll see if I can have all this xeroxed for you) {BAVER/PERICH}
Week Five: Transition to Literacy
Ong, Walter.
Orality and Literacy. New
York: Routledge, 2002. ISBN: 0415281296 {DUC/PRATT}
read at least selections to be announced in class.
Week Six: Media, Technology, and Power
Walter Benjamin:
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction {FEDER/BARDEN}
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm
Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer (1944): The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception {KLEIN/DEWEY-H} http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/adorno.htm
Week Seven: Readers and Receptions
Read intro material by John Lye at:
http://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/4F70/author.html
and http://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/4F70/rr.html
Then read Robert Fiske's piece at:
http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/vampkiss.html
BOTH OF ABOVE: {LONDON/SCHNEIDER]
Roland Barthes: Myth Today (Handout - from "Mythologies"){MOSHE/BAUER}
WRITE 800-word papers. The assignment is to make any argument about media or new media, in about 800 words. See standard OpEd formats in any of Rushkoff's columns at the end of Cyberia, or on http://www.rushkoff.com
===Spring Break===
Week Eight: In-class Discussion of papers.
Week Nine:
Play AND Panic
Huizinga: Introduction to Homo Ludens. (Handout) {MILLER/SEWARD}
Baudrillard. Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation. {NOON/SIFUENTES} Translatedby : Sheila Faria Glaser. (please try to use this edition) Read Precession of Simulacra and at least 2 other pieces of your choice.
Week Ten:
Cut and Paste
RE/Search #4/5: W.S. Burroughs, Brian Gyson{PERICH/FEDER}
Week Eleven: Plastic Identity
Orlan http://www.orlan.net/
Donna Harraway Cyborg
Manifesto {YOON/DUC}
Week Twelve: Designer Reality
Rushkoff, Douglas. Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Cyberspace. {TSENG-PLANAS/PHIFFER}Clinamen Press Ltd., April 2002. ISBN: 1903083249 original text also available online at http://www.rushkoff.com/cyberia.html
Week Thirteen: Immersion and Interactivity
Handout From: Ryan, Marie-Laure, Wendy Steiner and Gerald Prince Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, November 2003. ISBN: 0801877539 {SIFUENTES/YOON}
Handout: Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. "Rhizome," in A
Thousand Plateaus. {SCHNEIDER/TSENG-PLANAS}
also available at http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/kellner/deleuze.html
PDF of Rushkoff, Open Source Democracy
http://www.rushkoff.com/downloads/opensourcedemocracy.pdf {PRATT/MILLER}
Week Fourteen: Final Discussions
Turn in and "present" final papers. 15 minute discussion each. Final paper format and criteria will be discussed in class after the midterm papers are read an evaluated.
Required Reading (buy or borrow these books):
Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation. Translated: Sheila Faria Glaser.
Packer, Randall and Ken Jordan. Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality. New York: Norton, 2001. ISBN: 0393049795
McLuhan, Marshall. The Essential McLuhan. Eric McLuhan and Frank Zingrone, eds. New York: Basic Books, 1995. ISBN: 0465019951
Ong, Walter. Orality and Literacy. New York: Routledge, 2002. ISBN: 0415281296 (Selections)
RE/Search #4/5: W.S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Throbbing Gristle. ISBN: 0965046915
Rushkoff, Douglas. Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Cyberspace. Clinamen Press Ltd., April 2002. ISBN: 1903083249
Ryan, Marie-Laure, Wendy Steiner and Gerald Prince Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, November 2003. ISBN: 0801877539
Recommended Reading:
Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens : A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1971. ISBN: 0807046817
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media - The Critical Edition.
ISBN 1584230738
Rheingold, Howard. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. ISBN: 0738208612
Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. New York: Noonday Press, 1973. ISBN: 0374521506
Foucault, Michel. The Foucault Reader. Paul Ranibow, ed. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 1984. ISBN: 0394713400
Horkheimer, Max, Theodore Adorno and Gunzelin Schmid Noerr. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Stanford Univ. Press, 2002. ISBN: 0804736332
de la Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General Linguistics. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co., 1988. ISBN: 0812690230
Spinoza, Benedict De. A Spinoza Reader. E. M. Curley, ed. Princeton Univ. Press, February, 1994. ISBN: 0691000670
Himanen, Pekka. The Hacker Ethic. 0375505660
Book of Lies, Disinformation. ISBN: 7998725
In the Beginning was the Command Line, Neal Stephenson. ISBN: 0380815931
Leary, Timothy. Chaos and Cyberculture. ISBN: 0914171771 (used only)
Laurel, Brenda. Computers as Theatre. ISBN: 0201550601
Strate, Jacobson, and Gibson, editors. Communication and Cyberspace, second edition. ISBN: 1572733934.
Futureritual. Publication Date: September 1995 ISBN: 1573531073
Electronic Revolution, Publication Date: December 1998, ISBN: 388030002X
Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation. UMP; (February 15, 1995) ISBN: 0472065211
Back in No Time : The Brion Gysin Reader, Publication Date: January 2002, ISBN: 0819565296
Raymond, Eric S. The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary. ISBN: 0596001088
Rushkoff, Douglas, Open Source Democracy. Demos: UK Open Source Publisher. http://www.demos.co.uk
Rushkoff, Douglas. Media Virus: Hidden Agendas in Popular Culture. ISBN: 0345397746
Rushkoff, Douglas. Coercion: Why We Listen to What "They" Say. ISBN: 157322829X