Media History: Art, Design, and Technology

The seminar provides a historical, technical, and theoretical overview of communications media. Touching on historical milestones from their earliest inception, the focus of the course is on the development of media arts alongside their respective technical innovations in in print, sound, photography, telecommunications, cinema, and broadcast leading up to the accelerated changes with the introduction of the computer as an artistic medium for digital and interactive art and design in the last decades of the 20th century. Accompanying texts and discussions aim to create an understanding of the interconnectedness of art and technology - of the impact of social structures on culture - of the shared philosophies driving innovation on art, architecture and design; photography, film, music, television and theatre.