Digital Culture 2020@ AU
https://hackmd.io/@siusoon/dc2020, prepared by Winnie Soon
Course: Digital Culture (MA level), 10 ECTS
Time: Normally every Tue 1500-1800, 5361 -135 (unless otherwise stated, pls refer to the weekly schedule).
Format: Most of the classes will be conducted in physical space and classroom (as we have less than 25 students and still recomend everyone to practice social/physical distancing). However, due to travel limitation, the experimental publishing and guest lecture will be online.
The purpose of the course is to enable students to understand, explain and discuss how information technology is not just a means to an end, but in itself influences and transforms cultural practices. The course deals with the cultures that develop in relation to information technologies – for example the cultures surrounding social software, free software and networking. The course covers the theoretical issues related to these cultures including the perception and handling of creativity, public life and artistic practice. The course includes historical dimensions, but the primary focus is placed on current digital phenomena and artefacts. Examples could include digital art practices, computer games, digital city spaces, hacker cultures or social or mobile media platforms. In order to develop the students’ skills in independent work, the choice of topics will be influenced by the students’ interests as well as the currency of the topics.
We will use the platform hackmd.io extensively for collaborative writing, discussion, slides, syllabus communication, and your group/individual post.
0. Class Presentation
You will be asked to present in the class in relation to your assignment, assigned readings, etc.
1. Block-assignment (groupwork)
The whole course contains 4 blocks in total (Data+culture, Internet culture, commons and FLOSS, automated and predictive culture). You are required to submit a group assignment for each block that addresses theoretical issues via critical making and/or artefact analysis.
Deadlines:
Block 1: deadline: 20 Sep 11.59
Block 2: deadline: 18 Oct 11.59
Block 3: deadline: 8 Nov 11.59
Block 4: deadline: 22 Nov 11.59
2. Individual Reflection and feedback (MX)
Following the weekly instruction will help you to prepare classes and keep up with the weekly readings. Everyone should write a reflection on the readings of the blocks on hackmd.io. But reflections are not meant to be a summary of the readings, but your own ideas/reflections based on them. They may be written in first person, but an academic style is recommended (usually something within 3000 characters).
3. Final synopsis submission (individual)
The project is an individual work. You are required to identify an object of study (such as data, F/loss platforms/software, Internet, browser, archives, images, datasets, machine learning, algorithms, etc), using the methods of critical making that work with a theoretical perspective to explore, unfold and reflect on a specific digital phenomena that connects to the curriculum. According to the exam requirement, the synopsis must contain a problem statement, a description of the topic and the method, an indication of the main points of discussion and how the selected theories can be incorporated, and a bibliography. In additional to that, add the link for all the MX that you have done (as appendix).
4. Exam
Prerequisite: students must submit and gain approval of a collection of assignments.
The exam is an individual oral exam based on a synopsis. The assessment is based on an overall evaluation of the synopsis and the oral presentation.
Duration of the oral exam: 30 minutes incl. assessment (14-16 Dec 2020)
Knowledge:
Skills:
Competences:
Group block-assignment 1:
Construct/create a computational prototype (processing/p5/unity/3d/physical computing, etc) that helps you to think through/explore the notion of data (or dataset/data processing). Using critical making approaches, how have you explored data materiality and how that processes inform your reflective thinking (address this: a description of the topic and the method(s), an indication of the main points of discussion).
Deliverable (deadline: 20 Sep 11.59)
Preparation before class:
Assigned Reading:
☛ Peters, B. 2016. “Introduction” in Digital Keywords, a Vocabulary of Information, Society and Culture.(available online @ AU-lib)
☛ Peters, B. 2016. “Digital” in Digital Keywords, a Vocabulary of Information, Society and Culture. (available online @ AU-lib)
☛ Hayles, N. Katherine. "Prologue: Computing Kin" in My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005, pp. 1-7 (available online @ AU-lib)
Class structure:
Suggested Reading:
☛ Tyżlik-Carver, M., Pritchard, H., & Snodgrass, E. (2018). "Executing Practices" In M. Tyzlik-Carver, H. Pritchard, & E. Snodgrass (Eds.), Executing Practices (pp. 9-21). Open Humanities Press. DATA BROWSER, No. 6. http://www.data-browser.net/db06.html
☛ Coleman, G. 2016. “Hacker” in Digital Keywords, a Vocabulary of Information, Society and Culture. (available online @ AU-lib)
Add-on:
7 Sep (Monday from 0800-1100) 3 hours Workshop @ DD Lab: One-bit computing (1), conducted by Nikolaj Christian Mikkelsen
Have this in mind:
"digital media carry out at least three fundamental categories of actions: digits count the symbolic, they index the real, and, once combined and coordinated, they manipulate the social imaginary." - Benjamin 2016 , p. 94
"Anything one wants to describe–say, content(sensory expeirence), space (coordinates), time (intervals), or instructions (programming, algorithms)–can be expressed in the irreducibly countable alphabet of that one binary difference, 0 or 1." - Benjamin 2016 , p. 95
"the universe is generated through computational processes running on a vast computational mechanism underlying all of physical reality" - Hayles 2005, p.3
Preparation before class:
Assigned reading:
☛ Kitchin, Rob, and Tracey P Lauriault (2014). "Towards critical data studies: Charting and unpacking data assemblages and their work". https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267867447_Towards_critical_data_studies_Charting_and_unpacking_data_assemblages_and_their_work
☛ [Video lecture:] Catherine D’Ignazio & Lauren F. Klein. (2020)
Chapter 3: On Rational, Scientific, Objective Viewpoints from Mythical,
Imaginary, Impossible Standpoints
Principle: Elevate Emotion and Embodiment: http://datafeminism.io/blog/book/data-feminism-reading-group/
☛ Haraway, Donna. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist studies, 14(3), 575-599. (https://philpapers.org/archive/HARSKT.pdf)
Class Structure:
Class activities:
Suggested reading:
☛ Plant, S. (1998) Zeros + Ones: Digital Women and the New Technoculture. London: Forth Estate.
☛ Kitchin, Rob. "Conceptualizing data" in The Data Revolution : Big Data, Open Data, Data Infrastructures and Their Consequences . SAGE, 2014, pp. 1-26 (http://arthistory2015.doingdh.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2015/06/Kitchin-Chapter1.pdf)
Add-on:
14 Sep (Monday from 0800-1100) 3 hours Workshop @ DD Lab: One-bit computing (2), conducted by Nikolaj Christian Mikkelsen
Have this in mind:
"digital media carry out at least three fundamental categories of actions: digits count the symbolic, they index the real, and, once combined and coordinated, they manipulate the social imaginary." - Benjamin 2016 , p. 94
"Anything one wants to describe–say, content(sensory expeirence), space (coordinates), time (intervals), or instructions (programming, algorithms)–can be expressed in the irreducibly countable alphabet of that one binary difference, 0 or 1." - Benjamin 2016 , p. 95
"the universe is generated through computational processes running on a vast computational mechanism underlying all of physical reality" - Hayles 2005, p.3
Preparation before class:
MX004/Individual on hackmd-
Assigned reading:
☛ Carmi, Elinor (2017) Regulating behaviours on the European Union internet, the case of spam versus cookies, International Review of Law, Computers & Technology, 31:3, 289-307, DOI: 10.1080/13600869.2017.1304616
(available online @ AU-lib)
☛ Ratto, Matt & Hertz, Garnet, "Critical Making and Interdisciplinary Learning: Making as a Bridge between Art, Science, Engineering and Social Interventions" In Bogers, Loes, and Letizia Chiappini, eds. The Critical Makers Reader: (Un)Learning Technology. the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 2019, pp. 17-28 (available free online: https://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/the-critical-makers-reader-unlearning-technology/)
Class Structure:
Class activities:
Suggested reading:
☛ Agre, Philip. (1997). "Toward a critical technical practice: Lessons learned in trying to reform AI" in Bowker. G., Star, S., Turner, W., and Gasser, L., eds, Social Science, Technical Systems and Cooperative Work: Beyond the Great Divide, Erlbaum.
☛ Soon, Winnie. (2015). "Zombification: The Living Dead in Spam". APRJA 4:1, available at: https://aprja.net//article/view/116106
☛ Nouwens, M., Liccardi, I., Veale, M., Karger, D., & Kagal, L. (2020, April). Dark patterns after the GDPR: Scraping consent pop-ups and demonstrating their influence. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-13). https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10088400/1/CHI1912.pdf
Group block-assignment 2:
Deliverable (deadline: 18 Oct 11.59)
Preparation before class:
MX006/Individual or group- Read the assigned reading, and locate the tactical qualities (as described in both text) of Internet art that you found in any one of the Internet artworks (i.e artefact analysis by using the perspective of tactical qualities). To what extent the artist is using the approach of critical making? What's the link between critical making and tactical media? Initiate 1-2 questions for further discussion in the class.
Assigned reading:
☛ Galloway, Alexander R (2004). "Internet Art" in Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization. Leonardo. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, pp. 208-238 (available in the library at Katrinebjerg in the Nygaard building > Digital Culture bookshelf)
☛ Fuller, Matthew. "A Means of Mutation: Notes on I/O/D 4: The Web Stalker" In Behind the Blip: Essays on the Culture of Software. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 2003, pp. 51-67 (available in the library at Katrinebjerg in the Nygaard building > Digital Culture bookshelf > Articles) It may be also useful to try out the web stalker simulator to follow the text, see below.
Class Structure:
Class activity:
Suggested reading:
☛ Bosma, Josephine. "Let’s Talk Net Art" in Nettitudes : let's talk net art., NAi Publishers, Institute of Network Cultures, 2011, pp. 22-61
Preparation before class:
MX008/Individual or group- Simply read the assigned readings, and come up with a reflection regarding what the web is now? (reflect on the early web 1.0, 2.0, vernacular one and ask: how do you see, or analyze, the present web in 2020.)
Assigned reading:
☛ O'Reilly, Tim. What is Web 2.0, 1995, web https://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html
☛ [There are many pages, click next till the end] Lialina, Olia. A Vernacular Web: The Indigenous and The Barbarians, 2005, web http://art.teleportacia.org/observation/vernacular/
☛ [short one:] Lialina, Olia. Vernacular Web 2, 2007, web http://contemporary-home-computing.org/vernacular-web-2/
☛ [short one:] Lialina, Olia. Prof. Dr. Style: Top 10 Web Design Styles of 1993 (Vernacular web 3), 2010, web http://contemporary-home-computing.org/prof-dr-style/
Class Structure:
Suggested reading:
☛ Lialina, Olia (2014). The Only Thing We Know About Cyberspace is That its 640x480, online lecture: https://www.youtube.com/embed/AetzK1FbGHI
Preparation before class:
MX010/Individual- The articles examine archival practice regarding information technologies and internet art in digital culture e.g the web, browser issues, databases, metadata, content management systems, etc. Can you locate the articles' problem statements? How do the authors contextualize the issues? Beyond internet art, what other forms of archives are challenging but interesting to you? Why do we need archives in digital culture, and what's the role of archival practice in wider digital cuture?
Assigned reading:
☛ [a short one] Sluis, Katrina (2017). "Accumulate, Aggregate, Destroy: Database Fever and the Archival Web" in Dekker, A., ed, Lost and Living (in) Archives, Collectively Shaping New Memories, pp. 28-41, web https://openresearch.lsbu.ac.uk/download/2057497e2257aae4a78f52a88d791aa11bc5a0f35fd2fb1f8225ebdc143767fc/87600/lostandliving_binnen_sluis.pdf
☛ [Download the pdf: 118 pages - consider this as more a case study, you don't need to know every single paragraph in deep] Rossenova, Lozana (2020). Artbase Archive: Context & History, rhizome.org, web https://sites.rhizome.org/artbase-re-design/report-1.html
Class Structure:
Activities:
MX011/group- each person in your group look at one archival method/technique/tool and reflect upon the assigned readings. Together as a group, what are the issues and cultural phenomenon that the archival techniques are addressing? What is an archive? What are they archiving? What are the potential and limitation of these techniques? How do these techniques allow you to think about internet culture differently?
Make a response at hackmd (use the text that you have read before)
check https://hackmd.io/@siusoon/dc2020-notes (digital culture #6)
Suggested reading:
n/a
Group block-assignment 3:
Choose a free and open source platform/software/organization/design (such as wikipedia, monoskop, gitlab, github, GIMP, http://runme.org/, p5.js, processing, pad, open office, etc), analyze it and make a podcast/video (within 15 mins): focus around on how you incorporate some of the concepts of commons from the assigned materials/workshops (e.g openness, license, authorship/ownership, resources, curating, feminist technology, infrastructure/server, knowledge production, freedom and control etc) to help understanding the cultural phenomena of FLOSS/Commons.
Deliverable (deadline: 8 Nov 11.59)
Preparation before class:
MX012/individual:
Assigned reading:
☛ [Video/1:51:54]: Art & Speculative Commons (2017) by Cornelia Sollfrank, https://vimeo.com/216611321
☛ Tyzlik-Carver, M. 'In search of common forms and curatorial epistemologies. On the exhibition OPEN SCORES: How to program the commons’ in Aesthetics of Commons. (eds) C. Sollfrank an F. Stalder (forthcoming 2021) [on Blackboard/Literature] (Meanwhile, the text is related to the exhibition called OPEN SCORES, see: http://creatingcommons.zhdk.ch/open-scores-how-to-program-the-commons-exhibition-catalogue/)
Class Structure:
What are commons today when increasingly life is mediated via digital devices and networked technologies? If we work with the defintion of commons that organises commons according to the three categories: communities, resources, and practice of commoning, how these forms manifest in the contemporary digital millieu and what kind of commons they engender?
Suggested reading:
☛ An Architektur. (2010). On the Commons: A Public Interview with Massimo De Angelis and Stavros Stavrides. E-Flux, 17 https://www.e-flux.com/journal/17/67351/on-the-commons-a-public-interview-with-massimo-de-angelis-and-stavros-stavrides/
☛ Runme.org
☛ Monoskop: https://monoskop.org
☛ [Video/1:05:46] Knowlege for all: from public to free, Lecture (2014) by Felix Stalder, http://creatingcommons.zhdk.ch/knowledge-for-all-from-public-to-free/
Add-on:
n/a
Preparation before class:
MX013/Individual or group: Simply read the assigned reading, and try to understand the cultural phenomena of FLOSS. What kind of free and open source software that you like? Why? If you have to choose to discuss one aspects of FLOSS, how would you approach this?
Just a reminder to do homework/group:
Discuss other group’s work on block assignment 2, and prepare a short response in the class. (5->4->3->2->1->5)
- how does the group address the theme/brief?
- Which part do you like the most, and why?
- how do they use the literature (in the curriculum?)
- how’s the link (sense-making) between theory and practice?
Assigned reading:
☛ [Video/41:58]Forms of Ongoingness, interview with Femke Snelting and Spideralex (2019),https://vimeo.com/302087898
☛ Mansoux, Aymeric. (2017)."In Search of Pluralism" in Sandbox Culture: A Study of the Application of Free and Open Source Software Licensing Ideas to Art and Cultural Production, pp. 76-112, available at:
https://www.bleu255.com/~aymeric/dump/aymeric_mansoux-sandbox_culture_phd_thesis-2017.pdf
☛ Fuller, Matthew, Goffery, Andrew, Mackenzie, Adrian, Mills, Richard & Sharples, Stuart.(2017). "Big Diff, Granularity, Incoherence, and Production in the Github Software Repository" in Fuller, M (ed) How to be a Geek, Polity Press.
Class Structure:
Activities:
How would you approach these questions again with the specific context of free and open source culture?
Suggested reading:
☛ Tkacz, Nathaniel. (2014). "Open Politics" in Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness. University of Chicago Press, pp.14-41.
☛ Lessig, Lawrence. (2004). Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity, http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/
Add-on:
n/a
Preparation before class:
Read the short text, and mentally prepare for the full week and start working with your block assignment
Assigned reading:
☛ Mansoux, Aymeric & Abbing, Roel R. (2020). "Seven Theses on The Fediverse and The Becoming of FLOSS" in Gansing, K & Luchs, I (eds) The Eternal Network, Institute of network cultures & transmediale/art&digitalculture.
Class Structure:
Homework in/after class (on/offline):
n/a
Suggested reading:
☛ Golline, Krystin & Browning, Abigail, “Towards an Intersectional Feminist Crtical Making” In Bogers, Loes, and Letizia Chiappini, eds. The Critical Makers Reader: (Un)Learning Technology. the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 2019, pp. 227-236 (available free online)
Add-on:
-Online workshop by Aymeric Mansoux on Wed: 0900-1200; 14.00-17.00
Group block-assignment 4:
Come up with a research question around automated and predictive culture that you think you can work on for your final synopsis (see how to construct a precise and interesting research question: https://www.scribbr.com/research-process/research-questions/). But for a proper development, I recommend you to look at the physical book "The Craft of Research" (chapter 3 - From Topics to Questions & chapter 4 - From Questions to a Problem).
(See an example of a research question development: https://wikieducator.org/How_to_get_started_on_research/Evaluating_a_research_question, and try to evaluate your own research question and how that fits into the context of a larger theme of automated and Predictive Culture?)
Deliverable (deadline: 22 Nov 11.59)
Preparation before class:
MX014/group: Read the assigned reading, and try to come up with a glossary of the terms: "data", "machine learning" and "datasets". Write your glossary here: https://hackmd.io/Upka9dCsRRGOD40u6HMGfA?both (It is fine if you want to mix other earlier and relevant assigned/suggested readings too)
Assigned reading:
☛ Mackenzie, Adrian . (2017). "Introduction: Into the Data" in Machine Learners: Archaeology of a Data Practice, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, pp. 1-19
☛ Malevéan, Nicolas. (2019). "An Introduction to Image Datasets", unthinking photography, web, https://unthinking.photography/articles/an-introduction-to-image-datasets
Class Structure:
Activities:
MX015/group- By trying out Teachable Machine version 1 (https://teachablemachine.withgoogle.com/v1/), discuss what is your understanding of machine learning, what interest you during the tinkering processes? Reflect on possible critical questions/angles that we can raise.
Suggested reading:
n/a
Preparation before class:
MX016/Individual- Simply read the assigned reading and write a short reflection in terms of what interest you with the text. Finally put up 1-2 questions for inquiry. (We will use this MX in the class activity)
MX017/Group - Follow this group feedback sequence (2->4->1->3->5->2), provide a peer feedback of block assignment 3 (comment on their hackmd),
Assigned reading:
☛ Noble Safiya. (2018). “A society, searching”, in Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism.
☛ Renée Ridgway, “Against a personalisation of the self“, ephemera (17)2, 2017. (this is more the focus on experiments as a form of critical making, and how that can open up scholarly discussion)
Class structure:
MX018/individual:
Submit the draft of the synopsis by 25 Nov (noon) + peer feedback on the supervision date
Suggested reading:
Add-on:
n/a
group supervision, schedule will follow
Pls also prepare an oral peer-feedback to other members in your new assigned group on the day of your supervision.
Where? Zoom, go to Blackboard > Zoom > click on any one of the schedule link.
Date | Timeslot | who |
---|---|---|
30 Nov (Mon) | 10.00-10.45 | Catherine P + Johannes WP + Erik H |
30 Nov (Mon) | 11.00-11.45 | Anne G + Rikke B + Magnus J |
30 Nov (Mon) | 12.00-12.45 | Martin H + Mathias T + Nicoline C |
1 Dec (Tue) | 09.00-09.45 | Camilla B + Line J + Mathilde N |
1 Dec (Tue) | 10.00-10.45 | Mikael P + Nina M + Mark N |
1 Dec (Tue) | 11.00-11.45 | Margrete R + Ester A + Nanna S + Majken S |