Preface
Ideas for using Understanding New Media Arts, version 1.0
What is this resource?
A beginning.
A proposal.
A work in progress.
This Open Educational Resource (OER) was initiated by four art history instructors at Portland Community College in Portland, Oregon (U.S.A.). We teach a variety of art history courses including introductory classes that engage students in looking at, thinking about, talking about, and writing about global art and architecture. We collaborated to create this resource to support a 100-level class we teach called “Understanding New Media Arts”. Our goal was to reduce textbook costs for students and provide resources that could be used in a variety of ways in multiple formats. Our intention is to update and expand this book periodically as technologies change, new creative approaches and voices develop, and new historical and theoretical frameworks are proposed in this evolving field of New Media Art.
Organization
This book is divided into chapters based on different processes and approaches in New Media Art. Most chapters begin by defining the medium and/or approach and presenting an introduction to the history of artistic engagement with the featured technology or approach.
Stop & …
Throughout the chapters, the teal-colored boxes labeled “Stop & Reflect” or “Watch & Consider” offer readers a chance to stop and contemplate specific works of art and broader concepts related to New Media Art. Questions in these boxes are designed to encourage looking closely and communicating about the chapter topic. All questions are numbered so instructors can pick and choose what to assign. Most chapters have multiple “Stop & Reflect” boxes, so an instructor may decide to select one “Stop & Reflect” box from each chapter for students to write about on a discussion board. Conversely, an instructor could select multiple boxes and use them to structure in-class synchronous discussions.
Key Terms & Concepts
The orange boxes present key terms and key concepts related to New Media Art and the chapter topic. Key terms are often linked to outside resources, like the Glossary of Art Terms by the Tate Gallery.
In some Key Terms boxes, readers will be directed back to the first chapter “Introduction to New Media Art” where a provisionary list of the Elements of New Media Art are presented. These Elements of New Media Art are meant to provide ways of thinking about and talking about New Media Art that go beyond the visual elements of art often used as a starting point for discussing more traditional art forms.
Chapter Two “Visual Analysis and New Media Art” provides an explanation of these visual elements that have traditionally been used when discussing and critiquing art. In this chapter, we focus on those visual and experiential elements that arise when looking at and experiencing time-based and technology-driven art works like those in this book.
Focus
Each chapter has areas of focus on specific artists and works of art that we often discuss in our classes. We’ve selected certain works because we feel they can help grow an understanding of the chapter topic and challenge readers to find meaning in New Media Art through dialogue and critique. Subheadings labeled “Focus” draw attention to deeper discussions about specific works of art. Some chapters include multiple “Focus” boxes so that instructors have more artists to draw from and can potentially ask students to each select a different artist for an assignment. “Focus” boxes often have “Stop & Consider” boxes embedded within them, to provide discussion questions for in-class or online discussions exploring artists featured in the chapters.
Key Takeaways
The green box labeled “Key Takeaways” at the end of each chapter lists the learning outcomes we hope readers will achieve while working through the material.
About Our Writing Styles
We aimed for a conversational approach in writing this book and purposefully did not try to write in a unified voice. We recognize that our approach is unusual for a textbook and we have embraced the reality of a resource that is multi-vocal and glitchy. As this book continues to be revised, we hope to add even more voices to better align with the collaborative ethos of many approaches to New Media Art.
Here is a list of authors who developed each OER chapter:
Introduction to New Media Art – Christine Weber
Visual Analysis and New Media Art – Elizabeth Bilyeu
Printmaking – Kelsey Ferriera
Photography – Elizabeth Bilyeu
Digital Photography – Christine Weber
Early Film and Animation – Christine Weber
Early Video Art – Luke Peterson
Digital Video Art and Video Installation – Kelsey Ferriera
Light Art, Installation Art and Land Art – Luke Peterson
Institutional Critique – Elizabeth Bilyeu
Social Practice – Elizabeth Bilyeu
Performance Art – Kelsey Ferriera
The Digital Revolution – Christine Weber
Special thanks to PCC students Julio Escarce, Jack Alister and Jordan Vadnais for their editing, feedback and interview work for this book. Some of their work is still in progress and will be published in future editions.
Copyright Information and Adopting, Adapting, or Expanding the Resource
New Media Art continues to challenge us as technologies change and creative approaches and voices develop, including the historicization of the discipline and related cultural theories. Our goal is that future students and colleagues will adopt, adapt and expand this OER, and we will continue to develop it as the field evolves.
Creative Commons License
This OER is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0); it is intended for non-commercial, educational purposes. Whenever possible, images used within this OER are in the public domain or licensed under Creative Commons. Each image caption includes the individual licensing or copyright information.
Educational Fair Use
Due to the nature of the field of art history and New Media Art, some of the works of art covered in this resource are protected by copyright. Images of these works are included with a note in the image caption stating that they are Educational Fair Use. These copyrighted materials should not be printed or reproduced as this may qualify as copyright infringement. Images designated as Educational Fair Use are provided in low resolution which is suitable for display on the screen but is not high quality enough for printing or reproducing. Whenever possible, a link is included to a higher quality version of the image on museum or educational websites. If available, copyright information is also listed on these images.
Some of the images presented in this OER are marked with a Creative Commons license and include a a note in the image caption for Educational Fair Use, especially works of art that have been photographed in museums. The photographs of these art works are licensed by the photographer but the works of art are protected under copyright. The images are therefore meant only for the purpose of education and are included in this resource in low resolution.
Additional Art History Open Educational Resources
UbuWeb is a massive and growing collection of video, sound, animation, performance works, along with writings and other resources created by avant-garde artists and those working in the field of New Media Art. As the creators themselves explain, “UbuWeb is a pirate shadow library consisting of hundreds of thousands of freely downloadable avant-garde artifacts.”
Smarthistory is an extensive OER that is constantly expanding to address new developments in the field of art history.
MoMA Learning provides a wonderful selection of essays on works of modern art and also has assignment suggestions at the bottom of each section.
Art Appreciation Open Educational Resource provides Powerpoint presentations and thematic lessons in art appreciation and art history. Written by Marie Porterfield Barry (Fall 2019), it is part of East Tennessee State’s Digital Commons.
Introduction to Art: Design, Context, and Meaning is an OER designed as a textbook introducing art, history, and analysis for art appreciation courses. Written by Pamela Sachant, Peggy Blood, Jeffery LeMieux, and Rita Tekippe in Fall 2016, it has strong explanations of art processes and techniques.
Obelisk is a free, online art history book with clean design and approachable descriptions of works of art, periods of art history, and fun artist biographies.
Creative Commons Images
If you are utilizing the materials in this OER and would like to add new images that are public domain or licensed under Creative Commons, here are several useful tips for finding images:
The Met Museum: The Met has an option to search for Open Access images within the collection here. Make sure that the “Open Access” box is checked. The image license is CC0 1.0, and will be marked OA Public Domain at the lower left of the image.
Google Images: Google Images has an option under “Settings” > “Advanced Search” to search by “Usage Rights”. Choosing “Free to use share or modify” will allow a search for images suitable for expanding our OER.
Wikimedia Commons: With a strong collection of works of art, Wikimedia Commons is an outstanding resource for finding open source images.
Flickr: Flickr allows users to specify image licenses on uploaded photographs. Click “Some rights reserved” at the lower right of the image to check the licensing. Some images will say “Public Domain” or will be licensed under a Creative Commons (CC) license, allowing for the use in an OER.
Smarthistory Flickr: The Smarthistory Flickr account is an expansive archive of photographed art works with images licensed for educational purposes.
Acknowledgements
Understanding New Media Arts is an OER adapted from existing resources. We honor and appreciate makers and scholars of art and art history, and we have tried to link to and acknowledge this scholarship and art criticism throughout this text. We also know that we present you with a text that is a work in progress, one that can always be edited and improved, adapted and updated. As instructors, we are learning alongside our students who introduce us to new ways of thinking about art and show us how to become better teachers. Likewise, we hope you learn from this book, and we encourage you, the reader, to reach out to us to suggest edits and new content as you adopt, adapt, and expand this OER in your teaching and learning.
Elizabeth Bilyeu (ebilyeu@pcc.edu)
Kelsey Ferreira (kelsey.ferreira@pcc.edu)
Luke Peterson (luke.peterson@pcc.edu)
Christine Weber (christine.weber15@pcc.edu)
Understanding New Media Arts, version 1.0, June 2022
