The day of cinema as a static container of data
is almost over; digital media is converting cinema into a medium of active
exchange. Whether narratively-base or not, these now digital objects will
become increasingly active within the viewing experience and with each
other. This course aims to provide students with the critical apparatus
and the conceptual means necessary to articulate this revolutionary shift.
We will read key critical texts alongside films and new media in order to delineate their changing social and cultural functions. A medium already indelibly marked by technology, cinemaís technization through digital technologies has altered its very meaning, this transformation reflects the fundamental changes going on in other cultural spheres. In order to understand these aesthetic and technical shifts we will be examining the depiction of technology by cinema and technology's effects upon it.
Specific topics covered will include the concepts and technology that underlie this new active media paradigm, especially the Internet and so called "Peer to Peer technologies." Critical Theory, Post-Fordism, and Post-structural theories of reproduction and information will be addressed. Readings will include texts by Benjamin, Baudrillard, De Lauretis, William Gibson, Jameson , McLuhan, Avital Ronell as well as more recent writings on the technical aesthetic, and political implications of new media. Among the films to be discussed: Metropolis, A Clockwork Orange, 2001, Blade Runner, The Conversation, Videodrome, The Terminator, Robocop.
Students from all disciplines are encouraged to attend; the coursework has implications within a wide variety of discourses, including Computer Science, Anthropology, Law, Rhetoric and Film.