Currents: Coding the Self
Spring 2021
Taught By: Jonathan Thirkield
Section: A
CRN: 3606
Credits: 3
This course investigates the potential of coding as a form of self-expression. The dominant forms of computationally-driven digital media operate by defining our identities for us and mining our selves as data. This course seeks to evaluate and experiment with the potential of code and the interface as media for self-definition and artistic practice. Artists and writers throughout history have explored the means by which their art forms construct, deconstruct, subvert and disseminate individual and group identities. Through readings, discussions, writing and project-building we will explore how code, the interface and the Internet create engines, visions and networks of the self and selves. Readings will engage a variety of creative and critical perspectives on representations of the self and identity from contemporary poetry, fiction, history, critical theory, and visual art. We will study how writers and visual artists harness their chosen forms to represent and imagine individual, lived and collective experience. We will read critical texts that situate the "I" within computational media, and examine how data and computation drive our culture, and by extension our sense of self. The central question of this class we be: what does it mean to have a voice as a writer of code? How can a program or application express and include new perspectives and point-of-views through its programming, data architecture and visual design? All acts of coding reflect the assumptions, biases, experience and ideologies of the coder on some level, often leading to outcomes that are termed unconscious, unintended or unexpected. This class will seek to bring these biases and ideologies to the direct and conscious level, and collectively develop approaches for building more inclusive and polyvocal forms of code, data, visual and interactive experience. The basics of code will be introduced through Processing/P5js and we will embark on projects that speculate on, represent, express and imagine the possibilities of coding new voices and perspectives.
College: Parsons School of Design (PS)
Department: Art, Media & Technology (PSAM)
Campus: Online (DL)
Course Format: Studio (S)
Max Enrollment: 20
Add/Drop Deadline: February 8, 2021 (Monday)
Online Withdrawal Deadline: April 13, 2021 (Tuesday)
Seats Available: Yes
Status: Closed*
* Status information is updated every five minutes. The status of this course may have changed since the last update. Open seats may have restrictions that will prevent some students from registering. Updated: 1:27pm 3/3/2021 EST