FF.140

NEW MEDIA [4D]

Spring 2026

MICA Standard Course Description

3 Credits

The course teaches first-year students fundamental digital skills related to data literacy, lens-based, and time- based media for students to explore new media production. Data literacy includes mapping, infographics, designing information, and media communication. Lens-based includes scanning, camera, screen-based and capturing images from the real world. Time-based media includes video, audio, animation, motion graphics using various software applications. The combined skills help students use information and create multimedia art and design work for various digital and physical outputs with conceptual and ethical framing related to our media-saturated world. 

Undergraduates only.

Intent

Life in the 2020s is characterized by omnipresent algorithmic influence, war economies, and mass data extraction.  As Edd Finn suggests in What Algorithms Want, we’ve developed an algorithmic culture — one where poeisis becomes “content creation,” content becomes data, and data begets death. The machines measure and mold us daily. Their mathematic internal workings render us in the form of Hito Steyerl’s “mean image”…a statistical model that never lives up to the real deal. Companies profit through the production and exploitation of these mean images, extracting billions in value from the statistical reduction of all life. Reduction becomes eradication. Machine learning technology produced under capitalist imperialism is born tainted with a rapacious appetite for natural resources and is steeped in blood. Artists are necessarily concerned with this. Navigating the digitally mediated world requires a cutting edge education in fringe technologies, and an old soul’s appreciation for the ancient and obsolete. In this 15-week engagement, we’ll embrace the Luddites’ stance and assert the politicization of technology. By considering the artist-as-worker, we’ll gain an understanding of the global economy and international politics in the Age of Big Data. We will conspire in the development of artistic interventions, leveraging literacy and letters to sharpen craftsmanship and articulation.

MICA Standard Student Learning Outcomes


Upon completion of this course through oral, written, and studio work, students will:


● Apply file management and digital skills for image making and new media
production.
● Apply combined use of equipment and software for creative digital workflow.
● Demonstrate troubleshooting and problem-solving using digital tools.
● Understand foundation-level ethical collaboration and appropriation, and media culture access and equity.
● Apply ideation, concept, meaning, and story-telling with new media.
● Demonstrate physical and digital interchangeability while developing
multi-dimensional and multimedia experiences.

Students will develop a varied skillset:

Security

Embodies an ability to confidently navigate misinformation and online security risks.

Literacy

Exercises dexterity in interpreting both audiovisual and written works. We’ll work to develop mastery in close reading and inference.

Craft

Displays mastery of medium, discipline, and process. We’ll work with tools  like OBS, the Adobe Suite, analog cameras, depth cameras, TAILS OS, Ableton, and more.

Language

Displays a command of the written word and a degree of philosophical focus in imaged-based communication. We’ll work to produce analytical writing, and develop a sense of visual logic.

Imagination

Demonstrates an ability to manifest and communicate robust perspectives and alternative pathways forward.

Guiding Axioms

axiom (noun) - a statement accepted as true as the basis for argument or interpretation

Axiom 1

Close reading is a foundation of power.

Axiom 2

We exist in an algorithmic culture.

Axiom 3

The artist is culpable.

Axiom 4

Obsolete media is new media.

Assignments

Main Quests (50% of grade)

[Response Paper]

Students will read an excerpt from Hito Steyerl’s Medium Hot, and respond to the assigned prompt. An exemplary response paper will include direct quotes, refer to material outside of the text, and communicate an informed opinion. See rubric in attachment to this syllabus.

[100pt]

[Project Diary]

Students will keep an online archive via Canvas that documents their work on the group project and in pursuing bounty assignments. Graded for completion.

[40pt]

[Short Response]

Students will read a variety of articles and excerpts from larger bodies of work, and diligently engage with the content via 1 page handwritten responses. 5 written responses are required, and each worth 10 points.

[50pt]

Group Project (35% of grade)

[Live Stream]

Together as a class, we’ll pick a day near the end of the semester to host a 3 hour live stream, featuring unscripted live segments, short form video art, music, et cetera. Labor will be divided amongst appropriately sized, specialized groups or pairs. We’ll discuss the roles together, and create a workflow that works for the class.

[100pt]

Bounty (15% of grade)

These projects can be completed independently at any time throughout the course. Students need 35 points at minimum to fulfill expectations. Extra credit possible.

See Bounty Index page for full list.

Materials and Equipment

  • Personal computer

  • 2 lined notebooks

  • Pens, pencils, or other mark-making tools

  • External storage device (SSD, HDD, USB)

Bounty Index

These projects can be completed independently at any time throughout the course. Students need 35 points at minimum to fulfill expectations. All points scored over 35 are counted as extra credit. This can positively affect your grade in a major way.

  • Email me the most niche and funny TikTok you possibly can, and explain why it’s funny in 50-100 words. [5pt]

  • Write a 200 word movie review on Letterboxd [10pt]

    • Selected film must have been produced between 1990 and 2015

    • Review must address sociopolitical context, director’s creative intent, and your own personal opinion and critical interpretation

  • Write a 200 word music review on RateYourMusic [10pt]

    • Selected album must be instrumental (no dominant vocal performance)

    • Review must address sociopolitical context, artist’s creative intent, and your own personal opinion and critical interpretation

  • Create a torrent and seed it to me [10pt]

    • Can include any content — photo, video, text

  • Write a passionate manifesto [15pt]

  • Record a DJ set [20pt]

    • Must be at least 60 minutes long

    • 5 point bonus for borrowing my CDJ-800s to complete the bounty

  • Create a photo diary [30pt]

    • Must use a digicam (portable digital point and shoot) or analog film camera

    • Must include at least 15 photos, with a variety of subjects and content

    • Arrange photos chronologically

  • Record a short film and burn it onto DVD [40pt]

    • Must be between 5 and 15 minutes long

    • No spoken dialogue

    • Use music, foley, and/or ambient sound

    • 10 point bonus for creating a custom DVD menu using Adobe Encore

    • Deliver burned DVD in class