Instructor’s Course Guideline – Winter 2008
Instructor: Daniel Dugas
Course: MADT 101 - Exploring Digital Environments
Office #: 517
Office Hours: By appointment after 5PM on Wednesday
E-MAIL: daniel.dugas@acad.ca
Description - MADT 315
This course introduces students to the tools to process video and audio in real time. It is recommended for anyone interested in real-time video processing for performance or interactive installations. Students will develop installations and performances in which data, video and audio generation, transformation and playback responds in real time to a performer or viewer's actions. Presentations of artists' work will introduce students to the histories and possibilities of interactive performance and installation. Throughout the semester students are encouraged to apply the principles they have learned to the needs of their personal practice.
Description - MADT 415
A continuation and development of the ideas and practices investigated in MADT.315, students will engage in a personal investigation of performance and installation forms using interactive video and audio elements. The course is comprised of individual investigation and study guided and facilitated by the Instructor.
Objectives - MADT 315
Upon successful completion of this course, students will have gained experience and skill in working with live or interactive video and audio in ways that allow for real time processing of images, sound, and other data by the artist and/or viewer. Students will have a working knowledge of software and hardware used to manipulate video, audio and digital objects in real time.
Objectives - MADT 415
Upon successful completion of this course, students will have gained experience and skill in working with live or interactive video and audio in ways that allow for real time processing of images, sound, and other data by the artist and/or viewer. Students will have an advanced knowledge of software and hardware to manipulate video, audio and digital objects in real time and will have applied the principles they have learned to the needs of their personal practice.
Projects / Assignments
Students will be evaluated on assigned work. Evaluation and assignment of grades will be based on the successful completion of assignments and on the student's commitment to the objectives of the course.
Evaluation will be based upon the following breakdown:
1 - Assignment MAX 10%
2 - Assignment MSP 10%
3 - Assignment JITTER 10%
4 - Group project - LOOPER / EMMAX
Live presentation 10%
5 - Project audio or video for performance 20%
Project due: March 17, 2008
6 - Project audio or video for installation 20%
Project due: April 21, 2008
5 - Quiz, April 2, 2007 10%
7 - Attendance and participation: 10%.
Total 100%
Late assignments:
Unless otherwise specified, assignments will be due in class on the
date as indicated above. Assignments late without valid reason, and
without prior consultation with the instructor, will be penalized by
one grade point for every day late past the due date.(e.g.: A becomes
A-, etc.) An informal mid term evaluation will be given.
Have fun! Questions are welcomed at all times.
Readings:
Baz
Kershaw:
The Radical Performance (books.google.com)
Oliver
Grau:
Virtual Art, From Illusion to Immersion
Chapter 4: Intermedia Stages of Virtual Reality in the Twentieth Century:
Art as Inspiration of Evolving Media - p 140 - 176
from: books.google.com
Erkki Huhtamo
Seven Ways of Misunderstanding Interactive Art
Valerie
LeBlanc:
Intervention / Breaking loops, escaping into the streets 
From: MPB
Curates 2007
Todd
Winkler:
Audience Participation and Response in Movement-Sensing Installations
2000
Don
Ritter
My Finger's getting tired, 1997
David Rokerby:
Transforming Mirrors: Subjectivity and Control in Interactive Media
Kim
Cascone:
Laptop Music counterfeiting aura in the age of infinite reproduction
Timetable
download
timeline - last update 12 01 08
JAN 7
AM: Syllabus
Reading assignment: Baz Kershaw: Radical Performance
JAN 14
AM:
Reading discussion
Website: Teaching and Freeware
Note: workshop of David McCullum on Tuesday and Wednesday
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PM: MAX overview
Project 1: MAX - 10%
Reading assignment: Oliver Grau:
Virtual Art, From Illusion to Immersion
JAN 21
AM: Reading Discussion
Look at assignment 1
Screen: Hébert + Ostertag + Rider sheet
Visiting artsist: Peter Redecoop
Reading assignment:
Erkki Huhtamo - Seven Ways of Misunderstanding Interactive Art 2007
PM: MSP overview
Project 2: MSP - 10%
JAN 28
AM: Reading Discussion
Look at Project 2
Reading assignment: Todd Winkler:
Audience Participation and Response in Movement-Sensing Installations
2000
PM:
JITTER overview
Project 2: JITTER - 10%
FEB 4
AM: Reading Discussion
Look at Project 3
PM: SENSORS
FEB 11
EMMAX GROUP PROJECT - 10%
Give out Project 4: Project audio or video for performance -a live gig
- 20%
FEB 18 FAMILY WEEK-NO CLASS
FEB 25
AM: Remix and Copyright issues
PM: Individual Meetings
Reading assignment: Valerie LeBlanc:
Intervention / Breaking loops, escaping into the streets 2007
Screen: Good copy Bad Copy
MAR 3
AM: Reading Discussion
Screen MPB photo clips
MAR 10
Reading assignment: Kim Cascone:
Laptop Music counterfeiting aura in the age of infinite reproduction
MAR 17
AM: CRITIQUE: PROJECT 4
Give out Project 5: Project audio or video for Installation - 20%
PM: Individual meetings
MAR 24 - no class
MAR 31
AM:
PM:
APR 7
AM:
PM:
APR 14
AM: Quiz - 10%
PM: Individual work time
APR 21
CRITIQUE
Attendance - Participation - 10%
College/Program/Department Policies and Procedures:
Students and faculty should refer to the College’s website for up to date information concerning academic and campus regulations. Students and faculty are responsible for familiarizing themselves and complying with all College policies, procedures and regulations as well as specific Program and/or Department regulations as distributed. Program regulations will normally be distributed within the first week of classes.
MID-TERM MARKS PROCESS
MADT Department:
• All MADT instructors will provide students with a clear indication
of their academic standing at mid-term;
• Depending on the nature of the courses, this may or may not include
grades, but will always indicate excellent, satisfactory, or unsatisfactory
progress; and
• In the case of unsatisfactory progress, students will be sent a letter
advising them of their failure to meet the standards required in the
course.
MID-TERM MARKS PROCESS
First Year Studies Department
In the first week of October and the first week of March the Registrar’s
Office will provide faculty who are teaching courses in First Year Studies
with a class list for each of their classes. The list will have an appropriate
space to record a mid-term grade for each student. Faculty will then
fill out and return the form to the Registrar on or before the date
indicated by the Registrar.
The Registrar's Office will record mid-term marks and generate a statement
of midterm grades for each First Year Studies student. The statements
of midterm grades for First Year Studies classes will be available to
each student through the ACAD WebService.
Faculty can then make arrangements to discuss with students their progress
to mid-term. This process will be completed in time to allow students
to make informed decisions whether or not to withdraw from a class before
the deadline to withdraw without failure.
Midterm grades will not appear on students’ records and will only act
as an indicator of students’ progress in each of the classes in which
they are enrolled.
This structure standardizes the delivery of midterm grades and supports
Procedure 500.07.1 – Grading and Progression, which states, “Instructors
are responsible for providing students with feedback on their progress
in the course at or before mid-term of the semester so that students
may, on the basis of instructor feedback, make an informed decision
to continue or withdraw from the course. Where the nature of the course
does not lend itself to a formal mid-term evaluation, instructors are
required to notify those students whose progression to that date is
not satisfactory by way of a “Warning Letter” issued through the Registrar’s
Office.”
The standardization of the process will insure that students are treated
in the same manner and will ensure that students can track their progression
in each of their courses. It will also assist faculty and students in
cases of a misunderstanding or in cases where the final grade is appealed.
Instructors’ Course Guidelines will inform students that unofficial
(do not appear on official student record) midterm marks will be released
to students through ACAD Web Service.
Disposal / Storage of Student’s Work
1. At the end of each semester, all students must remove their work
from the college premises before 5.00 pm on the last day grades are
submitted to the registrar. Any work left after that date is subject
to disposal.
2. All faculty are responsible to notify their students of the calendar
date of this deadline clearly within their course syllabus.
3. Faculty who require any student projects to be held outside of class
time for evaluation must arrange to receive that work, take responsibility
for its safe storage, and be responsible for the secure pick up of that
work.
4. Heads of Majors are responsible for ensuring the clear posting of
signage that details the calendar date of the last day in that semester
that grades are submitted to the registrar, and the consequences for
student’s artwork that is left on the College premises past that date.
5. Heads of Majors are responsible for communicating in writing with
all of their Technicians and support staff in their area the calendar
date for the disposal of student artwork.
6. Department Chairs are responsible for ensuring that all Heads communicate
in writing with their Faculty, Technicians and support staff the calendar
dates for the disposal of student work in each semester.
7. The Director of Facilities/Ancillary Services is responsible at the
beginning of each semester to communicate in writing to all relevant
Facilities staff in the College the calendar date for the disposal of
student art for that semester.
8. ACAD is not responsible for backing up or storing digital files.
ACAD does not accept responsibility for lost digital work, nor does
it guarantee against occasional, unforeseen and inevitable file server
crashes. To guard against data loss, students and faculty must use external
drives, DVDs or other means of personal storage to back up their work.
Local hard drives on College computers are considered temporary workspaces,
and files on these drives can be deleted at any time.