H S on Wed, 26 Feb 2003 22:16:01 +0100 (CET)


[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: [Nettime-nl] MA in Media Design, Piet Zwart Institute


Title: MA in Media Design, Piet Zwart Institute
In devising the targeting plan for a possible war against Iraq, U.S. military planners are hoping to reduce the potential for civilian casualties by using a new computer program called "Bugsplat." The program allows users to plot potential damage patterns from bombs and missiles.
Systems not surfaces
Too often,  media design has simply been the arrangement of pixels and plug-ins.  For us, the computer and the networks are where dynamics that are aesthetic, social, political, technical, spatial, linguistic, rythmic, economic, numerical, meet and shape each other.  The role of the designer is to track, sort and remix these dynamics in relation to others.

Technology, theory, practice
In a working context where software is doing half the thinking and doing for you, where is the divide between theory, technology and practice?  This course is committed to a fundamental revaluation of the division between these terms.  We will look for and invent the technology that is in media philosophy; find the conceptuality of an operating system; and design in a way that synthesises the power of all three.

The course started last year and maintains the excitement of a process that is still being invented.  For participants, work is carried out as a series of group and self-initiated projects.  In certain cases participation in single projects may be arranged. A primary focus of the work is the internet, education in these technologies is a staple part of our work.  Core themes in our programme are: transmission, use, behaviour, and experience; knowledge and memory; the political economy of the information society; citizens and consumers, public and private identities; urban and virtual reality, network and diaspora.