2023 Tokyo University of the Arts Art media Center 「Media Art Programming II」（Fall-Winter　Friday 4）

2023 Tokyo University of the Arts Art media Center 「Media Art Programming II」 #

（Fall-Winter　Friday 4）

Lecturer: Matsuura Tomoya

Room：Art Media Center Classroom 1,2

Class Summary #

This class aims to acquire basic knowledge for expression that takes a critical perspective on technology through various practices that use programming as a means of expression. Among the works which are sometimes called “media art,” this class focuses on those in which programming and the use of computers themselves are questions and themes of expression, rather than those in which visuals and music are created using computers. The following three major themes will be covered in the 15 classes.

  1. Poetry and Computing
  2. Recursion and Programming Languages
  3. The Internet and Public Properties

Purpose and Goal #

The goal of this class is for students to gain a more advanced understanding of the mechanisms of information devices called computers through practice, focusing on programming, and to be able to introduce computers as a means of creating their own works.

Another goal is for students to gain a critical perspective on today’s computer-centered information society.

Schedule #

Contents are subject to change depending on the progress of the program.

  1. Orientation
  2. Working with terminals/10 Print
  3. Sound from text: Bytebeat
  4. Introduction to glitch: translation between image and sound
  5. Letting the computer write poetry
  6. Esoteric programming languages and art
  7. Two-dimensional programming (Befunge) 8.
  8. Making a programming language itself.2
  9. Making a programming language itself.2
  10. The Internet and Public Properties.1 (HTML and Web)
  11. The Internet and Public Properties.2 (Scraping)
  12. Guest lecture
  13. Studio work for the assignment 1
  14. Studio work for the assignment 2
  15. Assignment presentation, critique, conclusion

Reference Books. #

“Code as Creative Medium A Handbook for Computational Art and Design”, (2021) by Golan Levin and Tega Brain, MIT Press.

“Cracked Media - The Sound of Malfunction” (2009) by Caleb Kelly, MIT Press

Reference book in Japanese. 「遙かなる他者のためのデザイン 久保田晃弘の思索と実装」(2017) 久保田 晃弘、BNN

Required Preparation for the Class #

At the end of each lecture, the contents of the preparation for the next lecture will be presented.

The materials for each lecture will be posted on the website so that students can review them on their own as necessary.

If you bring your own computer in the class, sometimes you will be need to install softwares according to the instruction by the lecturer beforehand. You need to finish installation before the class begin.

Grading #

Grades will be graded as follows: 30% for attendance, 30% for small assignments presented several times during the class, and 40% for assignments. Attendance points will be counted by submitting your comments and questions on the Google Form at the end of each class.

For the short assignment, you will submit the work you have done in class as it is in data format or as a document including photos, videos, etc. in physical format via Google Classroom.

The final assignment must be one of the following by the 15th class session.

  • A brushed-up version of the small work created in class
  • Free work (a work that reflects the knowledge gained in class on your own work)

Both individual and group work is acceptable for the assignment.

The final assignment should be submitted as data that can be viewed on the Web, or if submitted in physical media, it should be submitted as a document in data format with photos, videos, text, etc., as an archive. More detailed instructions will be given in class.

The grade for the final project will be based on what you intended to produce rather than on the degree of completion.

Unsubmitted work will receive a grade of zero, and work submitted after the due date will receive a grade reduction.

Message for the Participants #

The class will be basically done in Japanese. However, the teacher can help and answer to individual question in English. If you are worrying whether you should take the class or not, do not hesitate contact to the teacher to ask about it (teach[at]matsuuratomoya.com).

In this class, students will learn to think critically about the relationship between artistic expression and technology through the practice of using various types of programming.

For example, students will have computers write poetry, crawl the Web, and create their own original languages.

Computers are not necessarily meant only to be utilized as useful tools. By daring to use them in wrong/absurd/wasteful ways, you will get a hint of how technology is treated in society. The knowledge gained in class may not be immediately useful. On the contrary, we expect students who want to acquire a non-obsolete way of thinking to work on expressions that use technology and do not rely on specific tools to do so.

  • Prerequisite knowledge and expected class participation

No programming experience is required. The content of this class is not linked to Media Art Programming I, so it can be taken independently. Those who have programming experience are expected to actively support beginners.

  • Software-related equipment

Basically, we will use Mac mini (M1, Late 2020) computers in the AMC lab. The following software is likely to be used at this time.

You may bring your own laptop to work on. However, please be aware that we may not be able to immediately accommodate differences in behavior or bugs that may occur with non-macOS operating systems, different OS versions, or different hardware. For Windows, you can use most of the tools by using WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), but it is difficult for faculty to provide support, so please use it only if you know how to use it (the same applies if you bring your own Linux machine).

The following software is likely to be used at this time.

GUI application

Visual Studio Code ( https://code.visualstudio.com/) We will use the “Hex Editor” extension. ( https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vscode.hexeditor) Audacity ( https://www.audacityteam.org/)

Command line tools(installation instructions will be provided) FFmpeg v5.1.2 Node.js v19.7.0

These software packages will generally be provided with installation instructions in Google Classroom by the Monday of the week of class. Whenever possible, please make every effort to have the required software installed at the start of class.

The computers in the lab will erase data when they are shut down, so please save your work data to a USB memory stick or similar device as appropriate.

  • Communication Tools

All communication regarding class cancellations, reference materials, and assignment data will be conducted via Google Classroom. Please be sure to register by the second week before your course registration is confirmed.

Contacts #

teach[at]matsuuratomoya.com

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