Syllabus
AR 201, Introduction to Computer Art
Albertus Magnus College
Jerry Nevins, Professor
Email me
Phone: 773-8546, office
Office: 203 Aquinas Hall
Fall, 2011
Grading Criteria... Week by Week Rubric
Day
Student Blog, Fall, 2009
Scroll to bottom and begin there....
CLASS BLOG
Mod 1, 2008
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Course Overview:
The computer has become an essential tool for anyone working in the fields of design, photography, videography, illustration, architecture, industrial design, animation, and multimedia and web design. This course will explore many facets of making art using computer hardware and software. This course will explore how using a computer in a generative, uniquely "computer" way new forms can emerge. We will begin by exploring the state of the art digital tools contained in Adobe's Photoshop CS5. Using appropriated images we will learn to make selections, tonal and color control, apply filters, write action scripts and more. Next, we will try our hand at open source software for fractal rendering, flash animation and recording time based digital art.
This is a working studio class and through demonstrations and hands on work you will learn to solve visual problems using windows based software. This "hands on" experience is the key to success in this class. The primary evidence for progress in this class will be a portfolio of 35+ pieces illustrating concepts learned.
Topics to be covered include:
Introduction to Adobe Photoshop CS3
Selections, clones, serial imagery
Tone and color adjustment
montage, compositing
Printer output/ Creative controls
Fractal Art
Vector drawing
Digital Painting
Digital Design
Flash Applications
Time Based Art
2D Animation
Student Learning Outcomes: ·
To become proficient at creating, editing, posting, and working with digitally
created images.
To develop and practice skills using digital photography tools and the Internet
including emailing and posting to a web site.
To learn to shoot with digital cameras... and learn to maximize the quality of the output from them.
To gain an appreciatiation of digital media through the study of historic and contemporary trends and to apply that appreciation to your own work.
To develop the habit of looking closely at the language of the two dimensional plane around you in order to appreciate it in terms of aesthetics and truth.
To explore time based digital art and create short videos set to music.
Week 1
Write a short Bio and post to the class blog... include a photo of your self to be extra friendly!
Download and Install 30 day trial version of Photoshop CS5
Don't download the whole creative suite... just Photoshop CS5
Visit Lynda.com and watch the first few orientation videos on how to begin working in Photoshop Here
Visit the Museum of Computer Art
Write a short piece about an artist you found interesting at MOCA and
post it to the blog. How did the artist create this work? What software was
used? Include an image from that artist's portfolio. Do that by right clicking
on the image and choose "save image as". A paragraph or two would
be enough. What is the work about? How did they do it?
Week 2
Learn about Filters In Photoshop
1. Working with Filters in Photoshop
Filters: What they are and how they work 01:20
Tips for working with filters 03:34
When filters are ''grayed out'' and unavailable 02:36
The Last Filter command, with and without a dialog box 01:22
2. The “Non-Filter” Filters
Extract 06:58
The Filter Gallery 03:31
Liquify 07:30
Pattern Maker
Choose One Project from the following 3:
Create Oil Painting effect with an action Powerful one click changes
Create an "Andy Warhol" silk screen image... Watch my video here
Pick one Creative Portrait Tutorial using either your own photograph or one found in Google image... there are 35 here.
Visit the Museum of Computer Art
Write a short piece about an artist you found interesting at MOCA and
post it to the blog. How did the artist create this work? What software was
used? Include an image from that artist's portfolio. Do that by right clicking
on the image and choose "save image as". A paragraph or two would
be enough. What is the work about? How did they do it?
Week 3
Scripts and Digital Painting
View my Video I take one of my images and subject it to a series of transformations using photoshop filters...
My "How To" Video will help learn how to do this.... Watch Here
Visit the Museum of Computer Art
Write a short piece about an artist you found interesting at MOCA and
post it to the blog. How did the artist create this work? What software was
used? Include an image from that artist's portfolio. Do that by right clicking
on the image and choose "save image as". A paragraph or two would
be enough. What is the work about? How did they do it?
Week 4, 5
Download Apophysis here: Apophysis.org
Watch Video, Introduction to Apophysis Part 1, Overview
Demonstration of tools... getting started video
Excellent Tutorial on getting started in Apophysis
Visit the Museum of Computer Art
Write a short piece about an artist you found interesting at MOCA and
post it to the blog. How did the artist create this work? What software was
used? Include an image from that artist's portfolio. Do that by right clicking
on the image and choose "save image as". A paragraph or two would
be enough. What is the work about? How did they do it?
Fractal Art
Video Tutorial, Lesson 1, Getting Started with UltraFractal 5.1
Video Tutorial, Lesson 2, Using the gradient editor, working with layer blends
Ultra Fractal
View Pam Blackstone's portfolio of 7 images
Visit the Museum of Computer Art
Write a short piece about an artist you found interesting at MOCA and
post it to the blog. How did the artist create this work? What software was
used? Include an image from that artist's portfolio. Do that by right clicking
on the image and choose "save image as". A paragraph or two would
be enough. What is the work about? How did they do it?
Week 6
Line Rider
Create a 45 second to 1 minute video of the sledder moving in time, doing
at least 1 flip and coming to a full stop without crashing....
View my video on getting started here
Download Hypercam here The download is free... The program will put a small logo at the bottom of your movie until you pay for a license.
Visit the Museum of Computer Art
Write a short piece about an artist you found interesting at MOCA and
post it to the blog. How did the artist create this work? What software was
used? Include an image from that artist's portfolio. Do that by right clicking
on the image and choose "save image as". A paragraph or two would
be enough. What is the work about? How did they do it?
Week 7
Grappa... The Gestural Moment
Delayed Trace... Orange yellow on black... beautiful!
View a video I created using Grappa and an online synthesizer
Instructional Video on how to do this week's project
Visit the Museum of Computer Art
Write a short piece about an artist you found interesting at MOCA and
post it to the blog. How did the artist create this work? What software was
used? Include an image from that artist's portfolio. Do that by right clicking
on the image and choose "save image as". A paragraph or two would
be enough. What is the work about? How did they do it?
Week 8
Finish up your portfolio, add images to it, revisit a past project to improve it, etc.
Academic Expectations:
Post work each week, including 1 artist review found at MOCA and 1 or 2 of your personal work. Check into the blog to create a post and leave comments for your classmates at least twice a week, , care about your work, make progress in the medium, help and cooperate with your classmates, take risks, make mistakes. Your grade will be based on a portfolio of 35 or more pieces due at the end of the session. As this is a workshop class, good attendance is assumed. Care about the quality as well as quantity of your creative work, help and collaborate with others in the class, communicate openly with me…. Do your best. Your portfolio posted to Fotothing will be the tangible evidence of your progress in the medium but your overall contributions will play a role in determining your grade as well. Don't wait until near the end, then run around and try to get your work done in a rush... that's like skipping class all semester.
Important Web Resources
http://www.tate.org.uk/netart/default.htm
SFMOMA e-space
http://www.sfmoma.org
Gallery 9 : Walker Art Center
http://gallery9.walkerart.org/
MIT Media Lab
http://www.media.mit.edu/
International Museum of Collage
http://collagemuseum.com/
Digital Art Museum
http://www.dam.org/index.htm
The American Sign Museum
http://www.signmuseum.com/
Institute for New Media Studies
inms.umn.edu
http://www.mediahistory.umn.edu/
Institute of International Visual Arts x-space
http://www.iniva.org/xspace/
The Alternative Museum
http://www.alternativemuseum.org/
Austin Museum of Digital Art
http://www.amoda.org/
Whitney Museum Art Port
http://www.whitney.org/artport/exhibitions/index.shtml
Net Art Web Sites:
UBUWEB
http://www.ubu.com/
BBC / Digital Artists
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/art/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/multimedia/guestartists/
Soundtoys
http://www.soundtoys.net/
Turbulence
http://www.turbulence.org/
New York Digital Salon
http://www.nydigitalsalon.org/
The low-fi Net Art Locator
http://www.low-fi.org.uk
DIAN (Digital Interactive Artists Network)
http://dian-network.com/
Teleportacia
http://art.teleportacia.org/
The Ars Electronica Festival
http://www.aec.at/de/festival/index.asp
Banff New Media Institute (BNMI)
http://www.banffcentre.ca/bnmi/
Magazines
+ Online Journals:
Born Magazine
http://www.bornmagazine.com/
Net Art Review
http://www.netartreview.net
CTHEORY multimedia
http://ctheorymultimedia.cornell.edu
Poems That Go
http://www.poemsthatgo.com/
frAme: Online Journal of Culture and Technology:
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/frAme/index.cfm?article=51
New Media Encyclopedia
http://www.newmedia-art.org/sommaire/english/sommaire.h!26m
Organizations:
SIGGRAPH Conference
http://www.siggraph.org/s2005/index.php
SIGGRAPH EXHIBITIONS
http://www.siggraph.org/artdesign/
Ars Electronica Center
http://www.aec.at/en/index.asp
Digital Storytelling
http://www.storycenter.org/
http://www.dstory.com/dsfsedona_04/links.html
trAce Online Writing Centre
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/
RunMe Software Art Repository
http://www.runme.org/
Rhizome
http://rhizome.org
Electronic Literature Organization
http://www.eliterature.org/
: Museum of Computer Art
Virtual Training Co's Adobe training
movies
Lynda.com's free
online training Movies
Computer Arts in the UK
Artpromote... Links
to Computer generated art, fractals and more
Suggested Reading:
Wucius Wong, Principles of Two Dimensional Design
- Designing with the Computer
Linnea Dayton, Jack Travis, The Photoshop WOW! Book,
Luanne Seymour Cohen, Russell Brown and Tanya Wendling, Imaging Essentials.
Gosney, Odam and Benson, The Gray Book, Designing in Black and White
on Your Computer.
Fractal Symmetry
Computer generated Image
