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ART 400V Special Topics: Internet Authoring and Design
 Instructors: Anne Bush, Karen White, John Zuern
Credit Course: 3 credits
Prerequisites: ART 363 or instructors' consent
Semester: Spring 1997
Time: MWF 4:00-6:00
Room: ART 336 (Design Lab)
Repeatable: no
Grade Option: A-F
Other: Writing Intensive


Description:

This studio/lecture course will introduce advanced students to internet design and publishing. Students will develop an on-line journal devoted to design criticism and cultural studies in the Pacific region. The course incorporates a practical design component, a research component, and a writing component.

The goal of the course is the production of an on-line journal which will be composed of student-generated material: a forum-style discussion of a set of specific questions regarding art and technology; articles on the impact of technology on cultural production in the Pacific region; and reviews of particular artworks, web sites, books, or other forms of contemporary cultural production in the Pacific. Throughout the semester, all of the work that will appear in the journal will be submitted to the instructors for evaluation.

The first and second weeks will be devoted to introducing fundamental concepts and reviewing basic techniques for authoring internet publications. In the first weeks, students will choose a location within the Pacific region as a focus for their research into the questions of art, technology, design, and cultural production in a specific context. Concurrently, students will be reading a selection of texts on art and technology and will be conducting an on-going discussion of the questions these texts raise. This forum will be carried out on-line; it will then will be edited and collated by the group and incorporated into the on-line journal.

The class will be divided into planning groups of three or four students. For the first half of the semester, the planning groups will meet to develop an overall format for the journal, including graphic and editorial styles; their proposals will then be reviewed by the entire class.

Students will be required to conduct individual research on a particular region of the Pacific. This work will look at both issues and artefacts and will culminate in two forms. First, the students will work on composing a review of particular instances of cultural production in their chosen location. The instructors will assign readings and examples to guide students in formulating their reviews. The finished reviews will be submitted to the instructors for evaluation and will be incorporated into the journal. Second, the students will be required to write a research paper on an issue regarding cultural production, design, and technology in their region. These papers will serve as the main articles of the final journal and, like the reviews, be submitted to the instructors for evaluation.

The last half of the semester will also be devoted to building the web site for the journal and working out any technical, design, editorial problems that might arise. Students will also be required to edit the work of their peers for typographical, factual, and other errors.

As a final assignment, each class member will be required to submit a one-page mission statement for the journal. The group will select one of these statements, or combine several of them, for the statement that will appear on the publication's masthead. Like the other written exercises, this assignment will be evaluated by the instructors.

Throughout the semester, a workshop environment, under the supervision of the instructors, will promote discussion, cooperation, and initiative in participating students.

We foresee a strong interest in this course not only among students in graphic design, but in future collaborations on the journal, among undergraduates in English and Communications, departments in which a demand for more engagement with developing technologies has been articulated.

Evaluation

Students will be evaluated on the following:

Course Syllabus

Week 1

1) Introduction to the internet: history and technology. Central questions include:


2) Hand out text to be used for on-line discussion:

3) Assigned Readings:

Week 2

1) Discussion of readings.

Week 3

1) Introduction to research methods and on-line sources.


2) Analyzing sources and methods:
3) Choose regions, begin research.
4) Generate list serve and begin on-line discussion of Heidegger reading.
5) Assigned Readings:

6) Examples for class:

Week 4

1) Presentation : Pat Matsueda (Assistant Managing Editor of Manoa)


2) Discussion: print formats to hypertext formats.

Week 5

1) Collaboration: Dialogue as form.
2) Examples for class:


3) Divide into design working groups

4) Assigned reading/examples of formats
Week 6

1) Discussion of readings and work to date.
2) Presentation: Alvin Wong (Web page designer for Cybercom)

Week 7

1) HTML programming: lecture and demo
2) Example for class:


3) Assigned reading:

4) Exercise: begin sample site design for McLuhan text.

Week 8

1) Collation and planning of group discussion on Heidegger text.


2) PIN-UP: Group designs for the overall publication.

Week 9

1) Progress reports on individual research.

Week 10

1) Progress reports on individual research.

Week 11

1) Advanced HTML: technology and authoring
2) PIN-UP: Group designs for the overall publication.

Week 12

1) Review site exercises on Mcluhan text.

Week 13

1) PIN-UP: FINAL Group designs for the overall publication.

Week 14

1) Production

Week 15

1) Production
2) Develop mission statements for the masthead (how journal will represent itself)

Week 16

1) Individual research paper due (to be put on-line)
2) Evaluation and analysis
3) Collect all files for on-line publication

Suggested Reading

Journals: Visual Resources