Communications Lab

Mondays 6:30PM-9:00PM

Instructor: Spencer Kiser

Course Description: An introductory course designed to provide students with hands-on experience using various technologies (online communities, digital imaging, audio, video, animation, authoring environments and the World Wide Web.) The forms and uses of new communications technologies are explored in a laboratory context of experimentation and discussion. The technologies are examined as tools that can be employed in a variety of situations and experiences. Principles of interpersonal communications, media theory, and human factors are introduced. Weekly assignments, team and independent projects, and project reports are required.

Grading is based on successful completion of all assignments, class webjournals, class participation and attendance.

This syllabus will be updated weekly with links and notes. You can reach me with any questions at spencer at spencerkiser dot com.

Required Texts: Orality and Literacy by Walter Ong, Understanding Media by Marshall Mcluhan, Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud

Class blogs

CommLab Mixtape- a collection of music and sounds related to what we discuss in class.

Class 1: Monday, September 8

• Class Introductions
• Overview of course
• Discussion/Demonstration:
• Basic html and resources:
  • W3schools
  • HTML Validators
  • Webmonkey
  • HTML Goodies
  • HTML Code Tutorial
  • Web Things
• Basic css and resources:
  • W3schools
  • Firefox plugins
  • CSS Validators
  • A List Apart
  • CSS Tutorial
• Assignment:
• Create two simple web pages using styles, and FTP them into your ITP account.
• Visit the Waterfalls. (www.nycwaterfalls.org), or check out David Byrne's "Playing the Building". Post response on your site.
• Read Walter Ong - Orality and Literacy Chapters 1 - 4 (The Orality of Language, The modern discovery of primary Oral Cultures, Some Psychodynamics of Orality, Writing Restructures Consciousness) and
• Post response to Ong on your site. Be prepared to discuss in class.
• Email me the url by Saturday.

Class 2: Monday, September 15

• Discussion:
• Ong Reading
• Review HTML and CSS
• Demonstration
• What is a blog?
• Wordpress's introduction to blogging
• How to install Wordpress
• Wordpress Multiuser at ITP
• Wordpress themes and plugins
• What is PHP? Using PHPMyAdmin.
• Assignment:
• Install Wordpress on your ITP account or create a blog in ITP's multiuser environment. Document this process in your blog.
• Transfer first week's assignment to your blog
• Find three blogs you like and create links to them in your sidebar
• Document your process as an entry in your blog.
• Send me the URL for your blog by Saturday
• Read articles: "Malwebolence: The World of Web Trolling" NYTimes, Mattathias Schwartz, and "I'm So Digitally Close To You" NYTimes, Clive Thompson. Be prepared to discuss in class.

Class 3: Monday, September 22

• Discussion:
• Discuss blog setup process
• Discuss video sharing / reposting
• Jonas Mekas - 365 Films
• The Show with Ze Frank
• Rocketboom
• Blip.tv
• YouTube
• Demonstration:
• Using the Xacti cameras
• In-class Assignment:
• 30-minute film festival:
  In teams of 3-4 you have 45 minutes to create a short video that contains a simple narrative arc. Create a blip account. Upload your video. Embed it into your blog. We'll have a short film festival.
• Assignment:
• Continue working on the design of your site. Begin experimenting with graphics and embedding them.
• Using the Xacti cameras, document a project in another class. Upload it to your blog.
• Read Walter Benjamin's "Art in the Age of Reproduction". Post a response to your blog.

Class 4: Monday, October 6

• Discussion:
• Discuss Benjamin reading
• Demonstration:
• Photoshop / Image Manipulation
• Brian Dilg Photography
• The Art of DeTouch
• Photoshop and Art - Del.icio.us links from David Hart
• Photo Tampering Throughout History
• You Suck at Photoshop
• Photoshop techniques
• Discussion:
• Modern day examples of Sequential Imaging : Alien Loves Predator, Demian5
• Assignment:
1. Read Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics
2. In teams of two, tell a story in 4-10 sequential images. Upload to your blog.

Class 5: Saturday, October 11

• Critique Sequential Images
• Discussion:
• Pixilation & Stop Motion
• View: Norman McLaren's "Neighbors" Michel Gondry/White Stripes The Hardest Button to Button
• Demonstration: an Introduction to Final Cut
• Assignment:
• In teams of two create a 30-second time-lapse or pixillation animation
• Upload version to your blip.tv account and embed it to your blog.
• Bring high quality DV file to class.

Class 6: Monday, October 20

• Critique pixilation and stop motion animation
• Discussion: John Cage's "Future of Music", Musique concrète, World Soundscape Project
• Discussion of digital audio - sampling and distribution
The story of DJ Danger Mouse's "The Grey Album" and Negativland v. U2 - download sound files
• Demonstration: Collection of sounds and the M-Audio Recorder
• Assignment:
• In teams of two, begin the collection of sounds for a 1-minute sound piece (due in 2 weeks). This piece can be environmental, create a space or mood, or tell a story through sound.
• Read Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media, Chapter 1: The Media is the Message and Chapter 2: Media Hot and Cold
• Read Chapter 8, "Breaking Constraints", Acoustic Communication by Barry Truax.
• On your blog, post response to the readings.

Class 7: Monday, October 27

• Discussion: Review readings and responses
• Demonstration: Basic digital audio: Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/)
• Demonstration: Make it loop! - Midi and Garageband
• Putting it all together.
• Assignment:
• In teams of two create a 1-minute sound piece in any of the environments we looked at. Again, this piece should can be environmental, create space or mood, tell a story through sound. Upload it to your site in mp3 format. Bring either the audacity or GarageBand files with all tracks to class.

Class 8: Monday, November 3

• Critique audio pieces
• Discuss storyboards, their function and use
• View: Robert Castillo's "SPIC, The Storyboard of My Life"
• Assignment:
• Read Steven Katz "Film Directing Shot by Shot" chapter on storyboards.
• Break into teams of four to plan for video project. Create storyboard in preparation of videoshoot. Be prepared to discuss in class. Upload to blog.

• Review storyboards
• Demonstration: The video camera and the basics of shooting video: audio, composition, lighting.
• Assignment:
• Go out and shoot your video.
• Read "Basic Sequence" by Tom Schroeppel

• How did your shoot go?
• Logging your footage and the paper edit - Edit Worksheet
• Demonstration: FinalCut Pro
• Assignment:
• Edit two-minute video.
• Upload version to BlipTV account and embed file into your blog.
• Bring high quality QuicktimeDV file in class.

Class 11: Monday, November 24

• Critique video pieces
• Discuss storyboards, collage animation and cutouts
• View: Jonas Odell/U2's Window in the Sky, Run Wrake's Rabbit (read more about the making of Rabbit) and The Control Master, Miho Hatori's Barracuda, Left Channel's Blissful
• Assignment:
• In teams of two, create storyboard for one-minute animation. Upload to class site.
• Listen to David Lynch interview; be prepared to discuss in class on Wednesday (11/26).
• Read excerpt from The Media Equation; be prepared to discuss in class on Monday (12/1).

Class 12: Wednesday, November 26

• Review storyboards
• Demonstration: Basic After Effects
• Assignment:
• Create one-minute animation using AfterEffects.
• Upload version to BlipTV account and embed file into your blog.
• Bring high quality QuicktimeDV file in class

Class 13: Monday, December 1

• Critique animations
• Assignment:
• Review all your past assignments. Was there one particular area that really interested you? Was there something you wish you could do over again? Pick one area or assignment and do it over. By yourself. For next week.

• Critique final individual works.