This course is designed to explore a variety of approaches to digital art-making, through lectures, discussions, readings, galleries visits, class presentations, and creative projects, with the aim of further developing student's conceptual skills and artistic practice.

We will look at the work of artists in the field within a historical continuum. Interviews with artists and artist writings on their creative process will be paired with readings and discussions on current topics in digital art criticism and theory.

Students will undertake two individual studio projects and three smaller group projects. Each of these projects will be presented in a group critique and revised at least once thereafter. In addition, field trips, brief written assignments, an individual mid-term review, and an oral presentation will be required for the class.

The course will culminate in a group exhibition put on by the students at the end of the semester.

Attendance

It is extremely important that you attend all classes. Please note also that it is Pratt Institute policy that three unexcused absences constitute grounds for an automatic F for the course, and that two latenesses are considered the equivalent of one absence. Arriving more than 10 minutes after the scheduled start of class will be considered late. Arriving more than one hour after the scheduled start time will be considered absent. Students are 100% responsible for their own attendance and must allow for delays due to subways, traffic, etc. If you miss class because of illness, you should bring in a note from your physician or the Pratt Student Health center to avoid your absence being listed as "unexcused".

If you miss a session, you are 100% responsible for finding out what you missed and making it up.

Artwork Projects

There is one artwork project undertaken by each student individually. This projecty is developed over the course of the entire semester. There are also three shorter team artwork projects. These mini-projects are in the nature of "exercises", and are each of only a few weeks duration.

Exhibition

Beginning in mid-November, students will plan, publicize, and mount an exhibition of their work for the public. The class will agree upon a role for each student to play to facilitate this. Each student will be expected to show at least one revised, finalized piece chosen in conjunction with the professor. All students will be required to be present to install and to de-install their artwork on an agreed-upon date, outside of class time. There will be a gallery opening to which the public and the Pratt community will be invited.

Papers

Each student will complete two writing assignments:

Critical Essay: The first will be a critical essay in which, students describe the experience of viewing three different artworks we visited during our field trip, and compare and contrast each artist's approach. In their essay, students should discuss the effect and efficacy of these pieces and make suggestions for improvements where they see fit. Time permitting, students, with the approval of the instructor, may make an optional presentation to the class of their critical essay material.

Artist Statement: In the second half of the semester, students will be asked to write a set of artist statements, which verbally describes their artwork and process. Students are encouraged to use a wide variety of approaches to writing (examples will be provided), to describe the interests, motivations, ideas, materials, and techniques behind their pieces. Revisions: All projects will be required to be revised at least once after they have been presented in a critique. Revisions for projects completed during the first half of the semester will be submitted to the professor prior to the mid-term review. The second set of revisions will be due a week prior to the end of the term. Pieces included in the class exhibition will be reworked more than once. Students are strongly encouraged to include a third revision of each of their projects on their final course documentation flash drive

Guest Lectures

The Department of Digital Arts hosts a series of guest lectures. These take place at scheduled times but always during the lunch break period, to allow students to attend without conflicting with their class schedules. Students will be required to attend and comment in their blogs on at least three of these guest lectures from the DDA Guest Lectures series.

Gallery Visits

New York City is home to a large number and wide variety of galleries. Students will be expected to visit several galleries and/or museums to view exhibitions and artwork. Students will write a "critical essay" paper toward the end of the semester with some of their thoughts about the artwork they saw.

Blogs

Each student will create a blog page for this course and will keep their blog page up to date with samples of their research, thoughts, tests, work in progress, and reactions to lectures and gallery visits. This blog page is important, as it will serve as a record of your day-to-day and week-to-week progress. Blog pages will be accessible to all students in the class. It serves both to allow me to follow your progress and as a way for you to get feedback from other students in the class. Your blog page for this course must be separate from other blogs you may have. It can be embedded within an existing blog, but it must have a separate link so that we can easily access your entries that are specific to this course. Your blog page should not have a password.

Readings

There is no required textbook. Instead, there will a number of short readings assigned. Most of these will be available on my Pratt website.

You will also be asked to read about and independently research certain topics. This can be done either online or through physical media (e.g, the Pratt Library).

You are encouraged to consult the critical paradigms material I have posted on my Pratt website to help you with your research and readings. Password for the diagram is morpratt.

Students will be responsible for procuring whatever physical materials they need for their artwork projects.

Grading will be based on the originality, visual sophistication, conceptual depth, technical skill, and timely completion of projects. For team projects, the individual student's grade will be based both on the quality of the team project and on his/her individual contribution to that project.

The weighting of grades for this course is as follows:

Team projects_______________30% (10% each)
Individual project_____________35%
Critical Essay_________________8%
Artist Statements______________7%

Active participation____________20%
in classes, blogs,
discussions,
exhibition preparation

All assignments must be handed in on the due date. If you have not finished your work or as much as you had intended, you should hand in whatever you have finished up to that point. Your work will be graded based on whatever portion you have handed in as of the due date. Please note that technical problems, lab problems, or being “really busy” do not constitute an excuse for unfinished work. Such issues are part of life and life with computers, and you should assume they will occur. It is your responsibility to schedule your time and your work to allow for this sort of problem and still get your work done well and on time.

See this link for Pratt's official guidelines for Grading.

Given that graduate students must keep an overall GPA of 3.0 (B), this can be interpreted as follows:

A = Extremely good work
A- = Very good work
B+ = Good work, better than average
B = Reasonably good, but not outstanding
B- = OK, somewhat short of satisfactory
C+ = Slightly better than minimally passing, not acceptable quality
C = Minimally passing, not acceptable quality

Grades below C are considered non-passing at the graduate level

File Storage

As with all DDA courses, each student is 100% responsible for storing all of his or her files on their own removable storage media. You must make permanent backups of your files on regular basis onto your own storage media (Flash, CD, DVD, external HD, etc.). When you do so, please remember to make two backups -- the first is your "original", and the second is your "backup"

STUDENTS WITH LEARNING ISSUES

If you have a significant learning issue or disability, you are strongly encouraged to work with the Offiice of Disability Services (Main Bldg, Tel: 718 636 3711). Through them you can get guidance and support and request special accomodations if appropriate. You are also very strongly encouraged to notifiy your instructor if you have a special learning difficulty, as we cannot help you or make accomodations unless we know what your situation is.

CLASSROOM ASSIGNMENTS

It is Pratt Institute policy that work done in one class cannot be submitted to fulfill assignments in another class. It is very possible to do work that overlaps or is closely related in two different courses, but you cannot fulfill two assignment requirements with one piece of work. If you have any questions, discuss the issue with all the instructors involved before proceeding.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

(The following is copied from the Pratt Institute website.)

Pratt Institute considers Academic Integrity highly important. Instances of cheating, plagiarism, and wrongful use of intellectual property will not be tolerated.

• Faculty members will report each incident to the registrar for inclusion in studentsí files.
• More than one report to the registrar during a studentís program of study at Pratt will result in a hearing before the Academic Integrity Board, at which time appropriate sanctions will be decided. These may include dismissal from the Institute.
• The nature and severity of the infraction will be determined by faculty members who can: ask students to repeat an assignment, fail students on the assignment, fail students in the course and/or refer the incident to the Academic Integrity Board.

For more details about these procedures please see the Pratt Student Handbook, the Pratt Bulletins, and the pamphlet entitled Judicial Procedures at Pratt.

CHEATING

If students use dishonest methods to fulfill course requirements, they are cheating. Examples of this include, but are not limited to:

• Obtaining or offering copies of exams or information about the content of exams in advance.
• Bringing notes in any form to a closed book exam.
• Looking at another studentís paper during an exam.
• Receiving or communicating any information from or to another student during an exam.

PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism is a bit more complicated, but the rules of documentation and citation are very specific and are tailored to different academic disciplines. Types of plagiarism include:

• Including any material from any source other than you in a paper or project without proper attribution. This includes material from the Internet, books, papers, or projects by other students, and from any other source.
• Using your own work to fulfill requirements for more than one course
• The extensive use of the ideas of others in your work without proper attribution.
• Turning in work done by another person or a fellow student as one's own.

Please remember that all work must be the student's own. If it is not, the source should be cited and documented appropriately.

If there are aspects of this statement that are not understood, ask faculty members for help.