DIGM 475: Seminar: Future Digital Media
Spring Term: 2004-2005
Instructor: Paul Diefenbach
Office Hours: Tuesday 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM and by appointment.
Office: Room: 608 Nesbitt Hall
Telephone: 215-895-1618 (emergency cell: 215.514.1386)
email: pjdief@drexel.edu
Seminar: Future Digital Media:
Uses for digital media continue to expand. The impact and ramifications of the much heralded digital revolution transcends “mediating technologies,” it ripples through our daily lives influencing the way we learn, play and interact, while questioning traditional notions of property, ownership and power.
“Ever since computers started communicating across the ether, geek pundits, nerd poets, and online philosophers have talked about The Future The Net Will Bring, foreseeing that the lightening-speed distributive power of the Medium will wreak creative havoc on the world. A few of these predictions have already come true, a few haven’t. For the most part we’ve been waiting, impatient and hopeful.”
( John Heilemann p232 Wired: 8.10.2000)
Rather than wait “impatient and hopeful” participants in this class will investigate the changing landscape online and offline as we actively explore how digital designers can best bring our influence to bear on the 21st century’s version of the “Brave New World.” This seminar will examine the way in which media theorists, social critics, professional media practitioners, artists, and business people attempt to analyze the past and explain the present in their various efforts to anticipate and “invent” the future.
Course Objectives
· Gain critical thinking skills.
· Broaden understanding of the historical development of digital media.
· Survey short term and long term expectations concerning field development.
· Raise awareness about digital age social and cultural issues and concerns.
Class Format, Participation and Requirements:
The class will consist of informed discussions based on weekly reading assignments, presentations and screenings. Students are responsible for all weekly reading assignments. In addition, each week, a team will be designated, “authoritative readers” for a particular reading selection. Authoritative readers will be responsible for leading the following week’s discussion as it pertains to the assigned selection. Active and informed class participation is expected and mandatory. Participation includes completing weekly readings, web assignments, active and informed participation in class discussions and writing 2 short essays, each 5 to 7 pages based on all the assignments and class discussions.
Written Assignments
The first paper will be due in the sixth week of the term. The second paper will be due during finals week.
Plagiarism will result in at minimum a failing of the assignment and an automatic decrease of one letter grade for your final grade, and may result in your failing the course. Cheating and plagiarism are often done not due to sinister intentions, but because of laziness, fear, lack of preparation, overloaded schedule, or other reasons. If you are having a problem in class and are fearful that your grade may suffer, please, please come talk to me about it rather than attempting some shortcut. I am always eager to try to help, and I do not want to have to fail anyone. See the following for a description of how to avoid plagiarism: http://www.library.drexel.edu/resources/tutorials/plagiarism/plagiarism.html
About grades:
Active informed class participation will constitute 33% of the grade; 66% will be based on the 2 essays.
Required readings:
Unless otherwise stated all reading assignments will be available online.
Class Schedule
Week 1: March 29th
Class Overview
Readings due week 2
Critical Thinking week 2
Mitchell, William J.(Editor)
Beyond Productivity: Information, Technology, Innovation, and Creativity
Chapter 2 Creativity pp 30-58. Available online http://www.library.drexel.edu/ select E-books scroll down to E click on ebrary conduct an advance search using title or author.
Drexler, K. Eric
Engines of Creation
Chapter 3: Predicting and Projecting
Available at:
http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0124.html
Grasping the Future: Comparing Scenarios to Other Techniques
http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0178.html
Joy, Bill
“Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us”
Available at:
2050 Global Normative Scenarios
http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0448.html
Week 2: April 5th
Class Discussion: Critically thinking about digital media
Due week 3:
Copyright
Readings will include:
Go to http://www.wired.com/wired/ scroll down to Browse Issue archive and from Issue-Date select 8.10-Oct 00 then select go button. In issue 8.10 read “The Future is Now” by John Heilemann, “The Next Economy of Ideas” by John Perry Barlow and “David Boies The Wired Interview” by John Heilmann.
Go to http://www.eff.org/
Read “About” and the following topics:
· A History of Protecting Freedom Where Law and Technology Collide
· Representing the Rights of People
· Helping Others Know Their Rights
On the site also read about Read about MGM vs Grokster. http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/
Also read the following 2 articles linked to eff.org:
“Tech Dodges a Bullet” by Fred von Lohmann
In Law Com 8.27.04 available at:
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1090180416759
and “Betamax was a steppingstone:1984 COURT RULING LAUNCHED A TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION” by Fred von Lohmann
available at:
Go to http://www.library.drexel.edu/
Click on “E-books” search for “Title” Copyright and Multimedia Products read pages 3 – 15
Chapter 1 Placing multimedia products within the scope of copyright.
Go to http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/research_publication_series
Select:
Why DRM Should Be Cause for Concern: An Economic and Legal Analysis of the Effect of Digital Technology on the Music Industry, Paul Petrick, 2004.
Fisher, William W.
Promises to keep: Technology, Law, and the Future of Entertainment. Chapter 3 only. "What Went Awry" pp 83 to 133.
Available online http://www.library.drexel.edu/ select ”E-books” scroll down to the letter “E” click on ebrary conduct an advance search using title or author.
Guest Speaker 2005 Rankin Scholar-in-Residence, Ebon Fisher
“The Nervepool”
Due week 4:
Evolving a code of Social Morals for a digital age
Available online http://www.library.drexel.edu/ select E-books scroll down to E click on ebrary conduct an advance search using title or author.
Davis, Erik
Techgnosis
Chapter VI “ A most enchanting machine”
Davis, Erik
Techgnosis
Chapter VII “ Cyberspace: the virtual craft”
Davis, Erik
Techgnosis
Chapter VIII “ The Alien Call”
Liestøl, Gunnar, Andrew Morrison and Terje Rasmussen
“Introduction” pp 1-14 in Digital Media Revisited Theoretical and Conceptual Innovations in Digital Domains. Available at:
Bolter, Jay David
“Theory and Practice in New Media Studies” pp 15- 34 in Digital Media Revisited Theoretical and Conceptual Innovations in Digital Domains. Available at:
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?sid=46653BE9-5A00-404C-A571-639AEFF02268&ttype=2&tid=9550&mode=tocDue week 5: Applications of Digital Media
A collect of articles under the heading “Me TV: Finally, you are in control"
Available at: http://news.com.com/2009-1041-5649372.html?tag=ne.sr.tvnav
Scroll down to the PDF icon “Download full report”
Borland, John et al
A collection of articles under the heading “Broadband Breaking the digital gridlock"
Available at: http://news.com.com/2009-1041-5649372.html?tag=ne.sr.tvnav
Scroll down to the PDF icon “Download full report”
Available at: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/postmodern_culture/v014/14.2banash.html
Postmodern Culture volume 14 number 2. January 2004
Available at: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/pmc/v014/14.2hayot_wesp.html
Due week 6:
Readings:
Cyberspace and VR
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1) Introduction of term in Neuromancer Contemporary revision of the argument given by Descartes in Meditations on First Philosophy that he could not trust his perceptions on the grounds that an evil demon might, conceivably, be controlling his every experience.
2) Plato’s Allegory of the Cave: http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_1/plato.html Turing Test: http://cogprints.org/499/00/turing.html
3) Philosophical skepticism vs. scientific: Brain-in-a-vat Hilary Putnam from Reason, Truth, and History, chapter 1, pp. 1-21 (Cambridge University Press: 1982): http://www.uwichill.edu.bb/bnccde/ph29a/putnam.html
(also found here)
4) ICT: http://www.ict.usc.edu/publications/integration-paper15.pdf
5) Foundation in MOOs and MUDs (all sections) |
Due week 7:
Technology Trends - Find 3 articles, online stories, press releases, etc. about current technology trends related to Digital Media, including but not limited to any of the following examples:
Display Technology:
- Stereo Monitors
- HUDs
- Flexible screens/OLEDs
Computing Power:
- Moore’s Law
- Quantum computing
- Photon computing
- Grid computing
Artificial Intelligence:
- the use of machine learning to create games that adapt and extend their own capabilities
- the creation of game characters that can communicate with the player through speech and natural language
- intelligent techniques for creating Hollywood-style camera control in games
- the use of AI to create interactive stories where the player is part of an ongoing drama.
3D Graphics:
- real-time rendering
- multi-pass rendering
Content Creation:
- 3D scanning
- Image Based Modeling
User Interfaces
Location-Based:
- RFID
- GPS
Networking
Content
Etc.
Due week 8:
1) Model Acquisition
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| Modeling & collision: 3D modeling of trees from freehand sketches | ||
| July 2003 |
Proceedings of the SIGGRAPH 2003 conference on Sketches &
applications: in conjunction with the 30th annual conference on
Computer graphics and interactive techniques
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2) Rendering
| Real-time rendering: Selective quality rendering by exploiting human inattentional blindness: looking but not seeing | ||
| November 2002 |
Proceedings of the ACM symposium on Virtual reality software
and technology
|
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8pgs
| WYSIWYG NPR: drawing strokes directly on 3D models | ||
| July 2002 |
ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) , Proceedings of the 29th
annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques,
Volume 21 Issue 3
|
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| Architectures: Realtime ray tracing of dynamic scenes on an FPGA chip | ||
| August 2004 |
Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH/EUROGRAPHICS conference on
Graphics hardware
|
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3) Animation
| Animation: From linear to interactive animation: how autonomous characters change the process and product of animating | ||
| March 2005 |
Computers in Entertainment (CIE),
Volume 3 Issue 1
|
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| Games: Non-photorealistic rendering techniques for motion in computer games | ||
| October 2004 |
Computers in Entertainment (CIE),
Volume 2 Issue 4
|
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4) Web
| Making chalk and talk accessible | ||
| June 2002 |
ACM SIGCAPH Computers and the Physically Handicapped ,
Proceedings of the 2003 conference on Universal usability,
Issue 73-74
|
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| Ubiquitous hypermedia: Integrating the web and the world: contextual trails on the move | ||
| August 2004 |
Proceedings of the fifteenth ACM conference on Hypertext &
hypermedia
|
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| Brave new topics - session 1: multimedia service composition: Web services selection for distributed composition of multimedia content | ||
| October 2004 |
Proceedings of the 12th annual ACM international conference
on Multimedia
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5) HCI
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| On tangible user interfaces, humans and spatiality | ||
| September 2004 |
Personal and Ubiquitous Computing,
Volume 8 Issue 5
|
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| An environment for developing adaptive, multi-device user interfaces | ||
| February 2003 |
Proceedings of the Fourth Australian user interface
conference on User interfaces 2003 - Volume 18
|
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Due week 9:
Future of Gaming:
Technology Trends - Find 3 articles, online stories, press releases, etc. about current technology trends related to Digital Gaming, including but not limited to any of the following examples:
Xbox 360 v. Playstation 3 v. Nintendo Revolution
Handhelds
Consoles as Media Center
Ubiquitous Gaming
Augmented Reality
Pervasive Games
Gaming AI
Some Sources:
Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH) Proceedings available as ejournal through Drexel's library.
Game Developer Conference (www.gdconf.com)
Serious Games Conference (seriousgames.org)
Game Developer Magazine
Due week 10: Final Presentations