VM303-01 Studies in Digital Media & Culture

Department of Visual & Media Arts, Emerson College
4 credits
Fall Semester 2020
Class meetings: 8 Sept-24 Nov 6:00-7:40 p.m.
Class location: Paramount 402
Instructor: Dr. Martin Roberts
Office hours (Zoom): Thursday 4:00-5:00 p.m.
Email: martin_roberts@emerson.edu

Description

Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Netflix, Spotify: for most of us, our digital lifestyles are circumscribed by corporate media platforms and operating systems that track every web page we visit, every social media post we make, every movie we choose, then sell that data to advertisers so that they can target us more effectively. At every turn, our ability to share content, or even distribute content we already own across our own devices, is restricted by DRM software and stigmatized as “piracy.” In terms of agency, we are left with little alternative but to choose from the limited menus of options selected with the only criterion of aggregating the largest audiences. There has to be a better way. What if there was?

Rather than simply providing a tour of contemporary social media platforms and their increasingly ingenious methods both of persuading their users to become producers of free entertainment content and monetizing the attention of their audiences, this course seeks to empower those taking it to produce and distribute their content outside the advertising-driven networks of platform capitalism. As content distribution moves increasingly away from centralized platforms to the decentralized infrastructure of blockchain technologies, the online world today can be characterized as a struggle between the current generation of cryptopreneurs, continuing the quest to extract profit more efficiently from largely user-generated content, and those seeking to use it, and a multiplicity of online creative communities organized around very different principles, who largely reject commercial digital software and platforms and are building their own decentralized tools and content as a means of escaping them. From live coders to solarpunks, these communities operate largely outside the spotlight of mainstream digital culture, but their activities are increasingly posing a challenge to it. This course is intended to provide an introduction to these communities and to offer an invitation to join them. Put simply, its purpose is to show that another digital world is not only possible but already out there waiting to be discovered.

Print

Required weekly reading (and/or viewing) assignments will be posted on Canvas, either as PDF copies downloadable from the Canvas site for the class, or links to online sources. Many sources are available as e-books from Iwasaki Library’s online site.

David Golumbia, The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Rightwing Extremism
Nick Montfort, Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction
Bruce Schneier, Click Here To Kill Everybody
Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

Audiovisual

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (Netflix) (2018)
Cryptopia: Bitcoin, Blockchains and the Future of the Internet (2020)
Moleman 2: The Art of the Algorithms (YouTube)
Terms and Conditions May Apply (2013) (YouTube)

The Internet of Everything (2020)
The Harvest (2019) (in-class screening)
Viva Amiga (2017)

Tools & Platforms

Course Components & Assessment

Discussion (2): 20%

Hosting online discussion of weekly course materials (2). Involves an initial short response post, plus responding to at least two other responses. Everyone is required to post at least one weekly response.

Book Review (shared with group): 20%

750-1000 words. Any text from the Booklist (will be posted and updated during the semester). Open deadline, but no later than Week 8.

Memex (shared with group): 20%

Your personal version of Vannevar Bush's Memex. Available online by mid-semester, then updated. This can be just a static page on Canvas or a standalone online web page.

Creative Communities Project (shared with group): 20%

An original digital audiovisual work based on a creative community that you have joined, modeled on any platform or creative work covered in the course. Examples:

Twine interactive narrative
Graphic/photographic/video art work (with author statement)
Game (e.g. Pico-8)
Musical work (e.g. Sonic Pi, HSVC, live coding, with author statement)
Blog/wiki using development platform (GitHub, BitBucket, Codeberg, SourceHut) and web development framework (Jekyll, Hugo, Eleventy, Pelican, etc.), with at least 3 pages/posts

Research Report (collaborative, shared with group, 1500 words): 20%

Co-authored (with 1-2 other students) report on research conducted on any topic relating to the course. Guidelines will be provided after midterm. Deadline: 1 December.

Schedule of Classes

Week 1: Introduction

09-01-20: 18:00-19:45 (Zoom)

Course overview, assignments, and workflow.

Read: Vannevar Bush, As We May Think (1945)
Read: Alan Kay, "A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages"
Read: Brian Merchant, "The Father of Mobile Computing Is Not Impressed"

Week 2: Artificial Memory

09-08-20: 18:00-19:45

Discussion: Memex

Week 3: Cryptopias I

09-15-20: 18:00-19:45

Screening: The Harvest (Misho Antadze, 2019)

Read: Andrew North, "How the Tiny Nation of Georgia Became a Bitcoin Behemoth"
Read: David Golumbia, The Politics of Bitcoin, chs. 1, 3 (required); 6 (optional)
Watch: Cryptocurrencies: Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (12 March 2018)

Week 4: Cryptopias II

09-22-20: 18:00-19:45

Discussion: Bitcoin Ecologies > Screening: Cryptopunks Intro, Decentraland trailer

Read: Arjun Balaji, "A Simple Explanation of Cryptocollectibles"
Web: Decentraland
Project: Install Brave Browser

Week 5: Security

09-29-22: 18:00-19:45

Discussion: Cryptocollectibles

Read: Bruce Schneier, Click Here To Kill Everybody, Introduction, chaper 1, chapter 6, Plan B (PDF)

Schneier on Security (Bruce Schneier's blog)

Dan Goodin, "When coffeemakers are demanding a ransom, you know IoT is screwed"

Project: Install a password manager (if you haven't already)
Example: Bitwarden

Week 6: Behind the Curtain: Surveillance Capitalism

10-06-20: 18:00-19:45

Discussion: Security. Screening: The Internet of Everything

Read: Shoshana Zuboff, "Introduction: Home or Exile in the Digital Future" (in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism) (other chapters will be posted)

Cory Doctorow, How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism

Shoshana Zuboff on Surveillance Capitalism (YouTube, 50m) YouTube: Terms and Conditions May Apply

Week 7: Hypertext: Interactive Fiction

10-13-20: 18:00-19:45

Discussion: Surveillance Capitalism

Nick Montfort, preface, ch. 4, ch. 8 of Little Twisty Passages
Jorge Luis Borges, "The Garden of Forking Paths" (1962 [1944])

"Branching Narrative from Borges to the Hypertext
M.C. DeMarco, Hyperfictionary

See also: P. David Liebling, Marc S. Blank, Timothy A. Anderson, "Zork: A Computerized Fantasy Simulation Game"
Elizabeth Woyke, "The Enduring Legacy of Zork"

Week 8: Hypermedia: Interactive Television

10-20-20: 18:00-19:45

Workshop: Intro to Twine

Netflix: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch
Web: Tasha Robinson, "The Reddit detectives are hard at work decoding Black Mirror: Bandersnatch"
Web: Simon Parkin, "The Bandersnatch Episode of Black Mirror and the Pitfalls of Interactive Fiction"

Week 9: Hypercard: Interactive Gaming

10-27-20: 18:00-19:45

Workshop: Discussion: Bandersnatch > Intro to Twine II

About the Merveilles Hyperjam (read first)

How It's Made: Hyper P.T. (about how one entry was produced)

Merveilles Hyperjam entries

Project: Install Mini vMac on your laptop, download and play games. Use this video and see links below it for links to online sources.

Week 10: Scenes: Creative Communities

11-03-20: 18:00-19:45

Workshop: Hypercard Jam > Screening: Viva Amiga

Read: Karen Collins, "'Loops and Bloops:' Music of the Commodore 64 Games"
"The Sound of SID: 35 Years of chiptune's influence on electronic music"
Read: High Voltage SID Collection
Watch: Beep: A Documentary History of Game Sound
YouTube: Moleman 2: The Art of the Algorithms

Week 11: Solarpunks: Sustainable Futures

11-10-20: 18:00-19:45

Discussion > Workshop: Commodore 64/Amiga music > Pico-8 > Live Coding

Brian Merchant, "Lion Batteries: Plugging into the Fuel Source of Modern Life" (ch. 5 of The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2017).

Low Tech Magazine, selected articles
Jennifer Hamilton, "Explainer: 'solarpunk', or how to be an optimistic radical"
"What Is Solarpunk?"
Ville-Matias Heikillä, Permacomputing
Devine Lu Linvega, Notes on Longtermism and Sustainability

Drew Devault, How to Store Data Forever

Project: Install Beaker Browser
Getting Started With Beaker

Week 12: Projects

11-17-20: 18:00-19:45

Discussion: Solarpunks > Workshop: Hypercast

Week 13: Projects

11-24-20: 18:00-19:45

Workshop: Creative Projects

Thanksgiving Holiday

Week 14: Conclusion

12-01-20: 18:00-19:45

Discussion: Research Reports (via Zoom)

Academic Honesty

It is the responsibility of all Emerson students to know and adhere to the College's policy on plagiarism which is available on the Emerson web site. If you have any question concerning the Emerson plagiarism policy or about documentation of sources in work you produce in this course, you should speak to your instructor. Any instance of plagiarism, cheating or academic dishonesty will result in an F on the assignment and potential disciplinary action by the administration.

Diversity

Every student in this class will be honored and respected as an individual with distinct experiences, talents, and backgrounds. Students will be treated fairly regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identification, disability, socio-economic status, or national identity. Issues of diversity may be a part of class discussion, assigned material, and projects. The instructor will make every effort to ensure that an inclusive environment exists for all students. If you have any concerns or suggestions for improving the classroom climate, please do not hesitate to speak with the course instructor or to contact the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at 617-824-8528 or by email at diversity_inclusion@emerson.edu.

Disability

If you believe you have a disability that may warrant accommodations in this class, I urge you to register with the disability Services Coordinator, D. Anthony Bashir at 216 Tremont Street, 5th floor (617-824-8415) so that, together, you can work to develop methods of addressing needed accommodations in this class.

Writing and Academic Resource Center

Students are encouraged to visit and utilize the staff and resources of Emerson’s Writing Center, particularly if they are struggling with written assignments. The Writing Center is located at 216 Tremont Street on the 5th floor (tel. 617-824-7874).