media + technology
COURSE
SYLLABUS
about the course
WHAT AND WHY
The course would give a wide and broad understanding of what media and technology are, how they exist in different fields, what theories, methodologies and most common terms are used to study them. The course examines the texts of the key philosophers and scholars on these subjects and includes seminars that allow students to set their own goals and track their progress during the course.
The course is dedicated to the key theoretical approaches to the technology. The key problem of the course is what "critical" might mean in different situations.
The structure of the course balances between the readings of classical texts and an exploration of the contemporary approaches.
Each meeting consists of a reading session for which students prepare reports on the suggested papers.
The theorists are read in pairs, so that each session supposes a certain way of reading. In the second part of the course, we continue with seminars and engage with the contexts where these theoretical approaches are employed nowadays.
The course is dedicated to the key theoretical approaches to the technology. The key problem of the course is what "critical" might mean in different situations.
The structure of the course balances between the readings of classical texts and an exploration of the contemporary approaches.
Each meeting consists of a reading session for which students prepare reports on the suggested papers.
The theorists are read in pairs, so that each session supposes a certain way of reading. In the second part of the course, we continue with seminars and engage with the contexts where these theoretical approaches are employed nowadays.
grades
INTERIM ASSESSMENT
At the end of the course there will be a creative test and an exam. The exam will be held in a form of a personal consultation. Exam grades are not obligatory (you may have A without them), but they can help to evaluate your progress throughout the course.
Mfin = Matt (0,2) + A1 (0,3) + A2 (0,4)+ E (0,1)
Matt — attendance
A1 — assignment 1
A2 — assignment 2
E — exam
attendance —
0,1 = 6-8 + lessons attended OR providing a sum up that summarizes and reflects on the previously held classes (will be recorded)
0,2 = >8 lessons attended OR providing a sum up that summarizes and reflects on the previously held classes (will be recorded)
A1 — assignment 1 (MAKE + THINK)
(it is a collaborative assignment, you can join into groups 1-3 persons)
0,1 = the collaborative media/technology is made and the steps are describes
0,2 = the process of collaboration is traced and analysed using the theoretical approaches of the course
A2 — assignment 2 (TRACE + SUM UP)
0,2 = 8-10 classes are summed up (0,1 if 4-7 classes are summed up)
0,1 = the transformation of the change in understanding the key questions is reflected in the sum up
0,1 = person had read and commented on 2-3 peers sum ups AND mentioned other participants (both from the online classes and sum ups)
E — exam
0,05 = the student has an explanatory map of how own trajectory of understanding media/technology/critique transformed during the course
0,05 = the student also has an idea (or several ones) of how does this understanding match with own research project
Mfin = Matt (0,2) + A1 (0,3) + A2 (0,4)+ E (0,1)
Matt — attendance
A1 — assignment 1
A2 — assignment 2
E — exam
attendance —
0,1 = 6-8 + lessons attended OR providing a sum up that summarizes and reflects on the previously held classes (will be recorded)
0,2 = >8 lessons attended OR providing a sum up that summarizes and reflects on the previously held classes (will be recorded)
A1 — assignment 1 (MAKE + THINK)
(it is a collaborative assignment, you can join into groups 1-3 persons)
0,1 = the collaborative media/technology is made and the steps are describes
0,2 = the process of collaboration is traced and analysed using the theoretical approaches of the course
A2 — assignment 2 (TRACE + SUM UP)
0,2 = 8-10 classes are summed up (0,1 if 4-7 classes are summed up)
0,1 = the transformation of the change in understanding the key questions is reflected in the sum up
0,1 = person had read and commented on 2-3 peers sum ups AND mentioned other participants (both from the online classes and sum ups)
E — exam
0,05 = the student has an explanatory map of how own trajectory of understanding media/technology/critique transformed during the course
0,05 = the student also has an idea (or several ones) of how does this understanding match with own research project
assignments
1. please scroll the book (if it is big) or an article. what seems important and touching for you from the first glance? what is it about? what do you expect from the text? write it down.
2. focus on the paper recommended for the reading. is its problem and aim clear for you? do you understand it? what is the intrigue of the text?
(write these first ideas as well)
3. read the paper from the beginning to the end. please mark what you consider to be important, complicated, weird, wonderful, etc. use different colours to mark it and make a draft of your sum up.
4. make a sum up that you can use to recover the text for yourself and peers. make it clear and use footnotes to explain what cannot be clear.
5. choose the passage you suggest to read at class. it can be the most obscure or fascinating, or what you feel problematic to read alone.
6. paste the passage to the file, the most cited passage will be read at the class.
2. focus on the paper recommended for the reading. is its problem and aim clear for you? do you understand it? what is the intrigue of the text?
(write these first ideas as well)
3. read the paper from the beginning to the end. please mark what you consider to be important, complicated, weird, wonderful, etc. use different colours to mark it and make a draft of your sum up.
4. make a sum up that you can use to recover the text for yourself and peers. make it clear and use footnotes to explain what cannot be clear.
5. choose the passage you suggest to read at class. it can be the most obscure or fascinating, or what you feel problematic to read alone.
6. paste the passage to the file, the most cited passage will be read at the class.
1 MAKE + THINK
Students are asked to create or mend a technology or media by themselves and then analyse the process in an essay, observing it in the context of different ways of knowing/understanding technology and media.
Useful links and projects for your inspiration:
https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/
https://build.mmm.page/
Nicolas Collins (2006) Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking + how-to youtube channel
http://diydiafilms.art/ (ru)
TBC
please, put your projects here
https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/
https://build.mmm.page/
Nicolas Collins (2006) Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking + how-to youtube channel
http://diydiafilms.art/ (ru)
TBC
please, put your projects here
2 TRACE + SUM UP
During all the seminars students try to make a ground for further critical approaches.
The key questions are:
- What is media and technology? What ways of theoretising are useful to define each one? How are they different from each other?
- What is the context (historical, intellectual, technological) in each situation of theoretising? How does it influence the way of knowing/thinking?
- What is meant by the word 'critical'? How is it used and what meaning is not obvious for you?
- How do your research projects correlate with the stated topics?
The key questions are:
- What is media and technology? What ways of theoretising are useful to define each one? How are they different from each other?
- What is the context (historical, intellectual, technological) in each situation of theoretising? How does it influence the way of knowing/thinking?
- What is meant by the word 'critical'? How is it used and what meaning is not obvious for you?
- How do your research projects correlate with the stated topics?
It is a sum up, you make it in a document during all the course. Documents are stored here.
Here are some ideas on how to make your sum up:
- a diary: what happens when you read and discuss the text
- a scheme: how the ideas and terms are structured + re-understood during each session
- a conversation: you can do it in pairs, having chat about each of the sessions and authors and then ctrl+c ctrl+v in own sum up papers
- lists: e.g. 3 main points, 2 controversial ideas (things you disagree with), and 1 question related to each session
- adventure game: you describe what happens to the key questions as if they were novel heroes
etc.
Here are some ideas on how to make your sum up:
- a diary: what happens when you read and discuss the text
- a scheme: how the ideas and terms are structured + re-understood during each session
- a conversation: you can do it in pairs, having chat about each of the sessions and authors and then ctrl+c ctrl+v in own sum up papers
- lists: e.g. 3 main points, 2 controversial ideas (things you disagree with), and 1 question related to each session
- adventure game: you describe what happens to the key questions as if they were novel heroes
etc.
classes
(the timetable might slightly change)
10.09
Part 1. We start with the discussion of the key controversial topics:
- How the problematization of technology and media might change through the years?
What makes us change our understanding of these topics (books, movies, personal experience, events and news)?
Part 2. A lecture with a very short historical intro-mapping.
- How the problematization of technology and media might change through the years?
What makes us change our understanding of these topics (books, movies, personal experience, events and news)?
Part 2. A lecture with a very short historical intro-mapping.
Overview of the theme. Key terms and controversies.
18.00-21.00
17.09
We read Simondon "On the mode of existence of technical objects" + Wiener "Cybernetics" and focus on the power relations and ability to explore together human, machine and society.
Simondon + Wiener
18.00-19.30
24.09
We read Heidegger "The question concerning technology" + Haraway "Cyborg Manifesto" and discuss the relation between a person/human and extensions/technologies.
(human/technic/nature/being — basic problem areas and ways of criticising)
(human/technic/nature/being — basic problem areas and ways of criticising)
Heidegger + Haraway
18.00-19.30
01.10
We read McLuhan + Kittler on media and focus on the concept of "media" and the idea of media-determinism.
(how "media" is different from "technology"? Which approaches/problems do media inherit from other phenomena?)
(how "media" is different from "technology"? Which approaches/problems do media inherit from other phenomena?)
McLuhan + Kittler
18.00-19.30
09.10
PART 1
We read Marx about machinery and technology, Latour about the limits of critique and constructivism and focus on how critique can and should be performed, and what is the role of the critical researcher.
(what is 'transformation'? how do different groups and entities organise in order to enable knowledge and action towards technology/media?)
We read Marx about machinery and technology, Latour about the limits of critique and constructivism and focus on how critique can and should be performed, and what is the role of the critical researcher.
(what is 'transformation'? how do different groups and entities organise in order to enable knowledge and action towards technology/media?)
Marx + Latour
18.00-19.30
15.10
Systematization
We discuss how things go and try to systematize all the concepts.
We discuss how things go and try to systematize all the concepts.
Sum up of the first part
18.00-21.00
29.10
We discuss theories in contemporary + original context and plan the Make+Mend task
New part of the course
18.00-21.00
05.11
We read Marx + Haraway and continue the conversation with Alla Mitrofanova.
Guest: Alla Mitrofanova
Do critical approaches matter
18.10-21.00
(asynchronous)
(asynchronous)
12.11
We discuss Haraway, Latour and Simondon and try to work with the problem of everything connected (technology+media+nature etc)
Everything is hybrid
18.00-19.00
19.11
We revise Marx and Kittler and try to establish own ideas of determinism.
On Determinism
18.00-19.00
26.11
We discuss whether we need these Dead (and alive) White men (and women) and canon approaches and what is critique
At the workshop part we try to demonstrate our own technologies and media and analyze how it does (not work) and how do we feel about it and how can we transform this.
Critique + Mend
18.00-21.00
persons + texts
Friedrich
Kittler
Kittler
The history of communication media. Communication theory, 7-30.
+ (additional) Towards an ontology of media.
+ (additional) Towards an ontology of media.
literature
Context
- Mitchell, W. J. T., & Hansen, M. B. (Eds.). (2010). Critical terms for media studies. University of Chicago Press.
- Latour, B. (2012). We have never been modern. Harvard university press.
- Suchman, L. (2007). Human-machine reconfigurations: Plans and situated actions. Cambridge university press.
- Stiegler, Bernard, and Irit Rogoff. 2009. Transindividuation. https://www.e-flux.com/journal/14/61314/transindividuation/
- Winner, L. (1980). Do artifacts have politics?. Daedalus, 121-136.
- Winthrop-Young, G., & Gane, N. (2006). Friedrich Kittler: an introduction. Theory, Culture & Society, 23(7-8), 5-16.
- Braidotti, R. (1996). Cyberfeminism with a difference. Futures of critical theory: Dreams of difference, 239-259.
- Hui, Y. (2012). What is a digital object?. Metaphilosophy, 43(4), 380-395.
- Lovink, G. (2012). What is the social in social media. E-flux Journal, 40(12), 2012.
- Morozov, E. (2012) To Save Everything, Click Here.
- Mumford, L. (1971). Technics and human development: the myth of the machine, vol. I (pp. 381-410). Harvest Books.
- Srnicek, N. (2017). Platform capitalism. John Wiley & Sons.
- Geert Lovink and Yuk Hui - Digital Objects and Metadata Scheme (to read together with Heidegger and Simondon)
- Geert Lovink - Cybernetics for the Twenty-First Century: An Interview with Philosopher Yuk Hui
- Patarakin, E., Shevchuk, Yu., (1997) Отражение учебного процесса в зеркале новых технологий. Педагогическая информатика N1,. 51 - 63
- Akrich, M. (1992). The de-scription of technical objects.
- Gillespie, T., Boczkowski, P. J., & Foot, K. A. (Eds.). (2014). Media technologies: Essays on communication, materiality, and society. MIT Press.
- Grint, K., & Woolgar, S. (1997). Configuring the user: inventing new technologies. The machine at work: Technology, work and organization, 65-94.
- Pinch, T. J., & Bijker, W. E. (1984). The social construction of facts and artefacts: Or how the sociology of science and the sociology of technology might benefit each other. Social studies of science, 14(3), 399-441.
- Wyatt, S. Technological Determinism Is Dead; Long Live Technological Determinism
- Wyatt, S. Non-users also matter: The construction of users and non-users of the Internet.
- Olia Lialina. A Vernacular web. Indigenous and Barbarians.
- Sneakernet
- Garlic=Rich Air project
- Low tech magazine
- Hot Ninja by ::vtol::
- Decentralisation projects, like https://solid.mit.edu/.
- Interface alternatives, e.g. internet without browser.
