I am in the process of redesigning a course titled SA370 Internet Art, a junior-level class in a B. A program in Studio Art-New Media at my institution, Oakland University, in the Detroit-metro area.
Taught online, this intermediate course aims to expose students to the varied artistic expressions and explorations with a focus on or relationship to the Internet, as subject, medium and/or tool. Previous versions of the course focused mostly on the history and artworks done between 1995-2005. For this new edition I want to shift the class away from “historical” models and align projects with contemporary practices (2006-2012). Internet here is understood as any and all interconnected mass media / communications technology that use both text and media, predominantly via wireless signals (not just stuff on a browser).
Here is where I need your help. I want to compile a resource list of projects, completed and in-progress, by artists working with the Internet right now. You may be such artist.
For pedagogical reasons I have created a few categories where I plan on grouping these resources (and projects will be paralleled to them). I understand that these can be quite problematic, but know that these are not set in stone and may be articulated differently later on, or removed altogether. They are, in no particular order:
- email, IM, text art
- data visualization
- open-source / crowd-source
- mobile / gps / augmented reality / app
- web-based / cam performance
- browser art / curatorial space
- social networks
- gaming / virtual spaces / MMORPG
- other / anything else
Again, I am aware that these are not the perfect categorizations, and that some of these have many connections. Once your responses are compiled, they may be organized in a completely different manner.
My goal is to apply this resource list (it will initially be a list of links available for my students) for one or two semesters (Winter/Spring and Summer semesters) and figure out any issues, add more materials, etc, in future iterations of the course.
By the end of Fall 2013 I want to open up this resource to a larger audience, either in the form of a wiki or an e-Book .
If you’d like to be included in this project, please send me a link or links to specific projects and a descriptive paragraph or two (under 500 characters please) in how and where you see your project fitting my call. Rather than sending me a link to your main site and having me decide what to choose, please focus on specific projects so that this process can be more efficient – but do know you may submit as many projects as you want to and be featured in more than one section/category. Alternatively, if you want to send me a pdf file with texts, images, links, etc, that would be workable as well.
My email is whitehea@oakland.edu . Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Link:
http://www.oakland.edu/?id=25765&sid=279
Detroit metro-based Brazilian artist and educator Vagner Mendonça Whitehead works with time-based and traditional media. His work employs original, appropriated and researched multilingual texts, found and created photo-based imagery, their translations and his interpretations as allegorical devices that reframe trans-cultural experiences vis-à-vis mass media and communication technologies.
Vagner has exhibited his work throughout the United States (AZ, CA, FL, GA, IL, KY, MA, ME, MI, MN, NM, NY, OH, OR, TX, VA, VT, WI), abroad (Argentina, Austria, Canada, China, Cyprus, Germany, India, Mexico, Russia, Spain, Switzerland) and online, in solo and group exhibitions and in video and film festivals.
Since Summer 2008 Vagner has been a member of the Detroit-based Changing Cities collective. He was an artist in residence at the Ragdale Foundation in 2002 and a fellow at the Center for Photography at Woodstock in 2006. In Summer 2010 he completed an artist residency at Residencia Corazon in La Plata, Argentina. In addition to presenting his works in regional and national conferences and meetings, Vagner has been a visiting artist at the University of Kansas at Lawrence, Lawrence, KS (2004); University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Eau Claire, WI (2005); San Jose State University, San Jose, CA (2006); Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, Edwardsville, IL (2008); State University of New York-Cortland, Cortland, NY(2010); and Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, Carbondale, IL (2010).
Recent publications of his artwork include Photography Quarterly (#97, Fall 2008) and Nueva Luz (11:1, Summer 2006); Vagner is also a regular contributor at Barcelona-based Art Signal Contemporary Art Magazine. An interview with the artist was featured on Media-N Journal of the New Media caucus in Spring 2009 (link below).
http://www.newmediacaucus.org/journal/issues.php?f=papers&time=2009_spring&page=mendoza
Recent curatorial projects, featuring artists from around the world, include TERGLOBA and Contemporary Flânerie: Reconfiguring Cities at the Oakland University Art Gallery in Rochester, MI, in 2007 and 2009 respectively (catalogues available), and @ at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles, CA in 2009 (video program curator and exhibition co-curator).
Vagner earned a BFA (photography) from The Savannah College of Art and Design in 1995 and an MFA (creative photography and electronic inter-media) from the University of Florida - Gainesville in 2000. He is an Associate Professor of Art at Oakland University, where he heads its New Media specialization. He previously held an Assistant Professor of Photography position at Southern Illinois University - Carbondale. Alongside his teaching and art-making, Vagner maintains two blogs, ART-SIGHT (exhibitions and current events) and E-TERVIEW (interviews).
Gloria Sutton