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Overview:

in·ter·me·di·ate
1: being or occurring at the middle place, stage, or degree or between extremes
2: one that mediates ;especially : one that mediates between parties at variance
3a: a chemical compound synthesized from simpler compounds and usually intended to be used in later syntheses of more complex products b:a usually short-lived chemical species formed in a reaction as an intermediate step between the starting material and the final product

This is an intermediate studio art course in digital imaging. As such, it primarily involves the production and critique of images. You will continue and refine your exploration of electronic media by making, viewing, and discussing digital works of art. Whereas becoming familiar and proficient with specific technical features of software and hardware is relatively straight-forward (anyone can read a manual and follow directions), wrapping one's mind around what new technologies hold for the future of art and artists is a much more formidable task. Charlie Traub and Jonathan Lipkin write in their new book In the Realm of the Circuit: "Digital tools have simultaneously lowered the price and raised the level of creative exploration to the point that many more people now have access to these powerful means of expression. Because of the ease and seductiveness of these new programs, it is easy to think that one can master these new means of expression. But mastery lies not with the tool, but with what one does with the tool. Learning to type does not make someone a writer any more than learning Photoshop® makes one a photographer."

I have adopted Peter Lunenfeld's excellent text, Snap to Grid: A User's Guide to Digital Arts, Media, and Cultures, to help bring you up to speed as quickly as possible on the aesthetic, cultural, critical and theoretical dimensions of this new artistic terrain. This book, and the isues it raises, will be drawn upon throughout the Digital and Combined Media program at U. Albany and will serve as your road map to understanding contemporary digital theory.

Many of these readings require some reflection and discussion in order to be fully comprehended and although they can be quite entertaining, much effort will be required on your part, at times, to keep up. Consider yourself warned: fall behind at your peril. We will have discussions of readings each week. Reading assignments will average 10 - 20 pages a day, and will begin immediately.

There are three creative projects in this class to which you will produce a response. In addition to these exercises, you will be expected to be continually working on your own portfolio. Your self-directed work is as important, if not more important, than the work you do in response to the three directed projects. Your portfolio will be critiqued in the final formal crit on December 12.

Texts (all available at Mary Jane Books in Albany):

Required:

Snap to Grid: A User's Guide to Digital Arts, Media, and Cultures, by Peter Lunenfeld, MIT Press, ISBN: 0-262-62158-4.

Recommended:

Photoshop CS2 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide, Peter Lourekas and Elaine Weinmann (Berkeley: Peachpit, 2005). ISBN 0-32-133-655-0

FinalCut Pro HD for Macintosh: Visual QuickPro Guide, Lisa Brenneis (Berkeley: Peachpit, 2002).

Flash MX for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide, Katherine Ulrich (Berkeley: Peachpit, 2002).

Dreamweaver MX for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide, J Tarin Towers (Berkeley: Peachpit, 2002).

In the Realm of the Circuit, Charlie Traub and Jonathan Lipkin (Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004).

Single copies of manuals for software packages will genrally be made available in the lab but may not be removed, as we have only a single copy of each. I highly recommend the Peachpit "Visual QuickStart" and "Visual QuickPro" manuals. They are clear, concise and inexpensive. Avoid the $65, 4"-thick ones with CD-ROMs filled with trial versions of useless and cheesy plugins and filters. I suggest you purchase copies of manuals you expect to use a lot. All have been ordered (or can be ordered at a moment's notice) by MaryJane Books.

Attendance:

Please try not to miss any class meetings, as attendance is essential for success in this class. We will move at a very fast pace—much like the art world itself.

Although I do not rigorously audit attendance, it is virtually impossible to pass this course if you miss more than three classes. If you miss class, it is up to you to get notes and/or handouts, and you are responsible for all assigned work regardless of attendance in class. I don't repeat lectures. Lab days are no exception. Come to class prepared to work. If you are working at home or in an off-campus studio, be prepared to show me the progress you are making. I will not permit you to leave on a lab day because you "need to shoot". The goal of a lab day is not only to get work done, but to take advantage of the fact that I am available to help you.

More importantly, failure to attend any critique will result in an overall reduction of one letter grade for each crit missed. Failure to attend the final critique will result in an automatic "F" in this course, regardless of one's grade average going in to the final project. This policy is not negotiable.

Assignments:

Late projects are generally not accepted. One project of your choosing may be redone to improve the grade. If the work was turned in on time, the higher grade will be recorded. If the work was late, the re-done project grade will be averaged with the late project grade (which is generally an F).

Academic Integrity:

All work turned in must be yours; copying or claiming another's work as your own is specifically prohibited. Any instances will result in an "F" and a recurrence will cause the student to be dropped from the course with an "F" , and possibly to be expelled from the University. (Note: appropriating imagery from the media for purposes of commentary is acceptable, provided it does not violate copyright laws--see me if in doubt.)

Grades:

Grades will be figured on the conventional percentage scale. More importantly, grades are an important indication of how well you are doing in the course. "C" represents the minimum acceptable completion of the work and should be considered "average". You will have to do above average work or superior work to get a "B" or an "A", respectively.

A (90 - 100%) = Outstanding; pushing the limits of both the student's creativity and the assignment.
B (80 - 89%) = Thorough, thoughtful, and creative approach to the assignment.
C (70 - 79%) = AVERAGE; minimum project requirements met.
D (60 - 69%) = Poor; does not meet minimum requirements.
F (0 - 59%) = Fail; failure to complete the assignment.

Grading Criteria:

Extra Credit Options:

Students are invited and encouraged to seek ways to expand upon the basic guidelines of the projects to receive extra credit. If you should feel confined or limited by one of my projects, please contact me at the earliest opportunity so that we might discuss other options. Do not settle for producing work at the minimum level required because you do not feel engaged. There is a grade for such performance, and you probably don't want it (see table above).

Special Needs:

If you require any additional help from me or the facility to accommodate a disability, please do not hesitate to contact me. I will make every effort to insure that you are able to get the work done. We can be incredibly flexible and creative when it comes to finding ways to help students make art.

Materials:

Studio art classes can be quite expensive, as most of you already know. That said, this can be an exceptionally expensive class, depending on the type and amount of work that you choose to do. Please budget carefully to insure that you are able to produce the work required. Students typically spend around $300 (on average) on consummable supplies and materials. Some spend twice as much, some get by on much less. Because digital image making is in its relative infancy, it is still slightly more expensive than traditional analog photography (although this is changing daily). In addition to a working 35mm camera or a reasonably high-resolution digital still or video camera, you will be required to provide the expendable supplies described below. If you choose to work with a digital camera, it must be capable of capturing and easily uploading high-resolution images, therefore I must inspect it before I can give you permission to use it for our projects. Likewise, if you wish to use your own digital video camera, you will need to show it to me before beginning your project so that we may quickly insure that it is compatible with our DV equipment.

You will be charged a non-refundable lab fee of $100.00 to cover ink usage and maintenance on the state-of-the-art archival fine art printers we use in our labs. This fee applies to all digital media students, regardless of whether or not you will be printing. Please note that we cannot allow you to work in the lab until you have paid for your portion of the inks, so keep your receipt. Once the fee is paid, however, you will not be required to pay further for ink usage--with some rare exceptions (as in the case of the student who printed an entire portfolio of "life-size" full-body portraits). If faculty or a lab technician observe you printing well in excess of that which is covered by the fee, will will ask you to pay another fee to cover those materials and maintenance. Fear not, for your materials fee--even if you have to pay two or three times (very rare, unless you are a grad student)--will be much less than if you attempted to produce your work through a local service bureau. I encourage you to compare pricing for large-format archival prints if you are in doubt. We have also established a special relationship with a local vendor of specialty inkjet printing papers to provide you with the papers we most often use at substantial discounts for U. Albany art students. National Graphic Supply at 226 North Allen Street in Albany (518-438-8411) offers Epson's Somerset Velvet Photo Enhanced and Epson's Premium Photo Gloss in both 24", 36" and 44" x 100' rolls and in a variety of cut-sheet sizes, as well as a range of other media. You may purchase other papers, but please know that you may not run any paper through our printers for which I have not given prior approval. Pigment-based archival inks are not compatible with low-end hobbyist papers (such as glossy Kodak, Polaroid, HP, etc.) available at office supply stores. Your results will be disappointing and the printer could actually be damaged. Toilet paper, as one ambitious student learned the hard way, doesn't work too well either.

Students wishing to print large-format (larger than 24 x 30") should consider splitting the cost of a roll of paper with other students. Click here for the latest pricing on roll and sheet stock of the most common fine-art inkjet papers we use.

Additionally, you may be required to purchase several of the following items:

• 4 to 10 CDR or CDRW disks, 650 or 700 MB w/jewel case
• 2 to 6 DVD-R 4.7 GB disks (available online at Apple Store for Higher Education)
• 2 to 6 MiniDV cassettes

The lab fee is to be paid at CAS Technical Services, which is located in the Chemistry Building, room B-44. Once you pay the lab fee for inks and maintenance, you are given a voucher that you must present to me before you will be allowed to print. The paper can be purchased directly through National Graphic. For questions, contact George Liang. If you need to special-order papers, they can usually have them the same week. Both the CAS Store and National Graphic Supply take all major credit cards.

You may also need a roll or two of 35mm slide film and a working 35mm camera. For higher-resolution output options, you will have the opportunity to take advantage of several service bureaus with whom I have established relationships for high-end output such as Lightjet digital photographic prints, Iris giclee prints, Fuji Pictrographic prints, and super-high-resolution film recordings (negatives--from which traditional photographic enlargements may be made). I will inform you further of these options as the need arises. This type of high-end output is usually prohibitively expensive, yet is often worth it when superior image quality is the goal. It is by no means required, however, to pay for any additional output outside of our lab.

Other Requirements:

Because we have no technical support staff (save for yours truly and Grad TA extraordinaire Jason Martinez) for these art classes, all intermediate and advanced students in Digital Media and Color Photography students must volunteer to monitor the lab a minimum of three hours a week. In exchange for this work, you will receive a code which enables you to 24/7 access to both imaging labs. Your duties will include: monitoring access to facilities and preventing unauthorized users from accessing the lab, routine cleaning and maintenance. We have a fantastic studio facility and, if we all pitch in just a little, it will remain so.

You may also create and maintain a portfolio website and we will definitely hold discussions via class listserv. In order to participate in these activities, you will be required to establish an e-mail account on campus (if you do not already have one). I encourage you to post routine questions to this list, so that all may benefit from the information. If, however, you need to send private messages to me, do not post them to the list, but rather send them to dgoodwin@albany.edu. This is by far the most reliable means of contacting me. While calling me at home late at night may earn you points for "creative risk" (see grade requirements above), it is in truth a very bad idea.

NOTE: This is a working syllabus and, as such, is subject to change. You will be notified via the class listserv of any minor changes to this schedule. Major updates will be posted here at www.albany.edu/faculty/dgoodwin/aart350 A word about class participation:

Participation is mandatory and an important part of your grade (see Grading Criteria above). This includes: arriving on time and prepared, respecting the communal aspect of the lab, a willingness to participate in class and online discussions and critiques, having an energetic and positive attitude and using in-class time wisely. Regular and punctual attendance alone will earn you a passing grade (C) in class participation. In order to receive an A or a B you will be required to fully participate in all discussions/critiques/readings/lab days. You will, in other words, be required to put in your two-cents'-worth. This includes discussions that occur in the online forum (listserv). Furthermore, I can't strongly enough stress how important the group critique forum is to your progress as an artist--your full attention and participation is mandatory (I dare you to try checking e-mail or jacking in to your iPod during a crit if you wish to test my resolve on this issue).