TECHNOCULTURE STUDIES

TCS MAJOR

To view major requirements, go to the registrar's page.

[TCS courses for Fall 2012]

TCS COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
TCS 001: Introduction to Technocultural Studies
Contemporary developments in the fine and performing arts, media arts, digital arts, and literature as they relate to technological and scientific practices.

TCS 002: Critiques of Media
Introduction to different forms of critical analysis of media, with focus on creative responses to the media within visual arts, media arts, and net culture. Response of artists to the power of mass media, from early forms of photomontage through contemporary "culture-jamming" and alternative media networks.

TCS 004: Parallels in Art and Science
Issues arising from historical and contemporary encounters between the arts and sciences, with emphasis on comparative notions of research, experimentation, and progress.

TCS 005: Media Archaeology
Evolution of media technologies and practices beginning in the 19th Century as they relate to contemporary digital arts practices. Special focus on the reconstruction of the social and artistic possibilities of lost and obsolete media technologies.

TCS 006: Technoculture and the Popular Imagination
Issues of technological and scientific developments as conveyed through mass media and popular culture with special attention to public spectacle, exhibitions, broadcasts, performances, demonstrations and literary fictions and journalistic accounts .

TCS 007(A-E): Technical Workshops
Workshops in technocultural digital skills: (A) Digital Imaging; (B) Digital Video; (C) Digital Sound; (D) Web Design; (E) Topics in Digital Production.

TCS 100: Experimental Digital Cinema I
Experimental approaches to the making of film and video in the age of digital technologies. Opportunities for independent producers arising from new media. Instruction in technical, conceptual and creative skills for taking a project from idea to fruition.

TCS 101: Experimental Digital Cinema II
Continuation of course 100 with further exploration of digital cinema creation. Additional topics include new modes of distribution, streaming, installation and exhibition.

TCS 103: Interactivity and Animation
This course will introduce students to the fundamentals of creating interactive screen-based work. Subjects will include theories of interactivity, linear versus non-linear structures and audience involvement and participation. Students will utilize various digital production tools to produce class projects.

TCS 104: Documentary Production
Production course in both traditional and new forms of documentary, with a content focus on technocultural issues. Course focuses on skills and strategies for producing work in various media. Students will progress through all stages of production, from conception through post-production to critique.

TCS 110: Object-oriented Programming for Artists
Introduction to object-oriented programming for artists. Focus on understanding the metaphors and potential of object-oriented programming for sound, video, performance, and interactive installations.

TCS 111: Community Media Production
History and practice of media production focusing on how media makers use video and new media tools to address social issues among neighborhood and community groups. Students will utilize basic video, sound, and lighting techniques as they work with local groups in a group video project.

TCS 112: New Radio Features and Documentary
New feature and documentary production for radio and other audiophonic media, including audio streaming websites and installation. Emphasis will be on new and experimental approaches to audio production, for broadcast on community radio and international arts programming.

TCS 113: Community Networks
Course examines impact and implications of computer-based networks in community, civic and social life. Subjects may include community-access computer sites, neighborhood wireless networks, the digital divide, open-source software, and citizen action.

TCS 120: History of Sound in the Arts
A survey of the use of sound, voice, noise, and modes of listening in the modernist, avante-garde, and experimental arts, from the late 19th Century to the present. Focus on audiophonic and audiovisual technologies.

TCS 121: Introduction to Sonic Arts
An introduction to the use of sound within the arts. Class will introduce the techniques and aesthetics of experimental contemporary practices and will result in the creation of original sound works.

TCS 122: Intermediate Sonic Arts
Techniques of recording, editing, mixing and synthesis will be used to combine voice, field recordings and electronic signals. Students will learn to incorporate a broad spectrum of live, recorded and found sounds to create multidimensional stories and present them as live performances, audio recordings and sound installations.

TCS 123: Sight and Sound Track
Class will examine the use of sound to articulate, lend mood or subconsciously underscore visual, environmental or performative situations. Students will learn to effectively combine music, voice, sound effects and other noises to create sound designs that enhance, alter or support action and movement occurring on other perceptual planes.

TCS 125: Advanced Sound: Performance and Improvisation (4) Workshop 3 hours; practice 3 hours. Prerequisite: courses 121 and 122 or consent of instructor. Culmination of TCS sound courses. Class will focus on performance and improvisation, culminating in a final public performance. Students will be expected to do extensive reading and rehearsal outside of class time. III. (III.) Ostertag

TCS 130. Fundamentals of 3D Computer Graphics (4) Lecture 3 hours; laboratory 3 hours. A foundation course that teaches students the theory of three dimensional computer graphics, including modeling, rendering and animation. Development of practical skills through the use of professional software to create computer graphics. I. (I.) Neff (new course Neff. spring 08)

TCS 131. Character Animation (4) Lecture 3 hours; laboratory 3 hours. Prerequisite: course 130 or consent of instructor. The art of character animation in three dimensional computer animation. Movement theory, principles of animation, animation timing. Development of technical and practical skills. III. (III.) Neff (new course Neff. spring 08)

TCS 150: Introduction to Theories of Technoculture
Survey of major cultural theories of technology with an emphasis on media, communications and the arts. Explores the changing relationship between technologies, humans, and culture. Special focus on the evolution of modern technologies and their reception within popular and applied contexts.

TCS 151: Topics in Virtuality
Social, political, economic, and aesthetic factors in virtual reality. Artificial environments, telepresence, and simulated experience. Focus on contemporary artists' work and writing.

TCS 152: New Trends in Technocultural Arts
This course will investigate current work at the intersection of the arts, culture, science and technology including biological and medical sciences, computer science and communications and artificial intelligence and digital media.

TCS 153: Concepts of Innovative Soundtracks
Course addresses innovative and unconventional soundtracks within cinema, media arts and fine arts. The course will also introduce basic analytical skills for the understanding of how sound-image relationships operate.

TCS 154: Outsider Machines
An examination of the invention, adaptation and use of technologies outside the mainstream, outside commonsense, and even outside the realm of possibility. Students will examine instances of great ingenuity in the cause of simple survival, machines as metaphor and embodied thought, invention as compulsion, eccentric customizing, and many more.

TCS 155: Introduction to Documentary Studies
Class explores the many new ways that documentary work has evolved in recent years, examining forms such as the personal essay film, found-footage/appropriation work, non-linear, multi-media forms, spoken word, storytelling, and oral history recordings and other examples of documentary expression.

TCS 158: Technology and the Modern American Body
The history and analysis of the relationships between human bodies and technologies in modern society. Dominant and eccentric examples of how human bodies and technologies influence one another and reveal underlying cultural assumptions. GE Credit, Arts and Humanities. Cross-listed with American Studies 158.

TCS 159: Media Subcultures
Class will investigate the inter-relationship of subcultural groups and media technologies, in particular how media often serves as the cohesive and persuasive force of subcultural activities. Students will examine and participate in such activities as list-servs, websites, free radio, fan 'zines, hip-hop culture, and other activities.

TCS 170 (A-E): Technical Workshops
Prerequisite: TCS 007 A-E or equivalent.
Lab workshops in advanced digital media skills. (A) Imaging (B) Video (C) Sound (D) Web (E) Open.

TCS 190: Research Methods in Technocultural Studies
Introduction to basic research methods for Technocultural Studies. Class expands notion of research to include electronic and archived images, sounds and data. Class will also introduce students to satellite downlinking, radiowave scanning and oral history techniques.

TCS 191: Writing Across Media
An introduction to experimental approaches to making meaning across different media and artistic practices. The course will consist of a survey and application of techniques relating image to text to sound, as used in digital and media production and in new essayistic forms. Students will engage in individual and group exercises to extend the scope of their writing skills to experimental techniques.

TCS 192: Internship
Supervised internship on or off campus in area relevant to Technocultural Studies.

TCS 198: Directed Group Study
Course will involve group discussion and critique of final student work for TCS major. The final project for the critical studies emphasis consists of a substantial research paper. The final project for the creative production emphasis will be a major individual or collaborative work. Plans for final projects must be approved in advance.

[Go to the registrar to see the TCS Spring 2011 courses]