SAIC WIRED | Digital Tools and Techniques for Artists

Course overview: SAIC Wired

This fourteen-week course introduces the basic concepts, strategies, and techniques associated
with using the laptop computer and the web as a tool for creating art and documenting artistic
research and practice. This course will introduce the basic syntax (HTML) for publishing word,
image, and multimedia on the World Wide Web. The course will also present a basic history of
the WWW as well as analyze and test contemporary tools for research, collaboration, and pro-
duction online.

Curriculum contact: SAIC Wired

Tiffany Holmes, Associate Professor

Chair, Department of Art and Technology Studies
Email: tholme (at) artic (dot) edu

About SAIC Wired

This 1.5 credit hour course is intended to enhance the first year program curriculum by providing struc-
tured, targeted tutorials that introduce students to basic and advanced imaging and web authoring tech-
niques in an academic context that is both critical and celebratory of the new media tools —both proprie-
tary and open-source—to facilitate art production. The tutorials are also designed to assist first year core
faculty in encouraging students to document and share their research and studio projects online with
their peers. The web is a medium that now must be understood and managed by artists from any field; for
this reason, the curriculum is focused on imaging for the web, and authoring (HTML) for the web. The
course also provides a survey of new online collaborative research tools.

Requirements

•10 electronic sketchbook assignments

•Online sketchbook to document weekly laptop sketches (using SAIC web space)

•Occasional readings

•Pre and Post-Surveys; final examination

Attendance Policy

3 or more unexcused absences will result in an incomplete or a grade of “no credit.”

Optional text: All selected items come from Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montforts (eds.) New Media
Reader (NMR), MIT Press, 2003.

Lev Manovich, New Media from Borges to HTML, 2003 (NMR, p.13-25)
Vannevar Bush, As We May Think, 1945 (NMR, p.35-48)
Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of Forking Paths, 1941 (New Media Reader, MIT Press, 2003, p, 29-34)
Marshall McCluhan, The Medium is the Message, 1964 (NMR, p. 203-209)
Stuart Moulthrop's You Say You Want a Revolution, 1991. (NMR, p.692-704)
Tim Berners-Lee, et al. The World Wide Web, 1994 (NMR, p, 791-798)

SAIC WIRED | Syllabus Fall 2006 1

Syllabus: Summary of activities and assignments

Introduction Week 1 Course survey; Introduction to Macintosh desktop, System

Preferences; Introduction of open source or free digital tools:
Free Software and Open Source(FOSS, or FLOS - Free, Li-
bre and Open Software)

>Sketch 1 Digital Archive

>Reading Lev Manovich, New Media from Borges to
HTML, 2003 (New Media Reader (NMR), MIT
Press, 2003, p.13-25)

Digital Imaging Week 2 Analog tools digitized: Pen, pencil, airbrush, paintbrush,
paint bucket. Problem: Digital icons creation.

>Sketch 2 Icon creation

Week 3 Basic digital imaging and compositing

>Sketch 3 Photoshop Tennis: Choose a partner in

class to play a game of Photoshop tennis
with thru email. Flatten and save as JPEG
before emailing each version of the compo-
sition. Also, save an archive of ALL your
emailed JPEGs. You will be using them in
another assignment.

Week 4 Subtractive processes with digital imaging; screenshots.

>Sketch 4 Ad-stract: Remove all text from a popular

webpage.

Week 5 Input and Output (scanning, archiving, backup, burning CDs

and DVDs, CD and DVD label templates, etc.), etc.

>Sketch 5 Check out a digital camera and prepare an

album of photographs that relates to your
research interests

>Reading Vannevar Bush, As We May Think, 1945

(NMR, p.35-48)

Week 6 Input and Output continued: DVDs. Discussion: Vannevar

Bush reading.

>Sketch 6 Use Service Bureau to output one photo-

graph to print. This could be your Photo-
shop Tennis assignment or a collage of
items produced in the Wired class.

SAIC WIRED | Syllabus Fall 2006 2

Syntax of WWW Week 7 Introduction to HTML (1); Text formating and links; absolute
and relative; Discussion of Bush reading.

>Sketch 7 Self-Portrait in HTML

Week 8 Introduction to HTML (2): IMG tag and authoring images for
the web and demo of “Save for Web” protocol in Photoshop.
Introduction to FTP (Secure FTP 2.5)

>Sketch 8 Add images/upload: Self-Portrait in HTML

Week 9 Using a WYSIWYG editor to create web pages: tables, Mul-

timedia: Tags/considerations for streaming media: video,
animation, and sound

>Sketch 9 Preparing an artist’s working sketchbook;

Documenting your work online

Week 10 Intermediate HTML: Using stylesheets (CSS) to control for-

mating and enhance consistency of site design.

>Sketch 9 Preparing an artist’s working sketchbook;

Documenting your work online: Remake
your site using CSS.

WWW Publishing Week 11 Site Prototyping: Website as Documentation Tool: Creating a

web site to document an installation, performance, etc.

>Sketch 9 Preparing an artist’s working sketchbook;

Documenting your work online

>Reading Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of Forking

Paths, 1941 (NMR, p, 29-34)

WWW Community Week 12 Social bookmarking, folksonomies, collaborative archiving as

a research tool. Case study: delicious. Discussion: Borges.

>Sketch 10 Create an online bookmark archive (add 10

bookmarks)

>Reading (4 short pieces)

Stuart Moulthrop, You Say You Want a Revolution, 1991, (NMR,
p.692-704)

Tim Berners-Lee, et al. The World Wide Web, 1994 (NMR, p,

791-798)

Marshall McCluhan, The Medium is the Message, 1964 (NMR, p.

203-209.

Online, read Marshall McCluhan’s “Understanding Media”:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan

SAIC WIRED | Syllabus Fall 2006 3

 Week 13 Concluding discussion: the WWW today; Discussion of
McCluhan, Moulthrop and Berners-Lee

Read + study Terminology for final examination

>Sketch 10 Add to your online archive of del.icio.us

bookmarks

Final Week 14 Final examination and course survey.

If time permits students will show one art-related bookmark

from their del.icio.us archive.

SAIC WIRED | Syllabus Fall 2006 4