Final Essay Topic

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E S S A Y

a.k.a. Topic a Month in Advance

a.k.a. Writing About A Duet of Working Contemporary New Media Artists

a.k.a Presenting on A Duet of Working Contemporary New Media Artists

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1) This is a two part final assignment.  You will be creating a 5 to 10 minute presentation for class and a 1500 word Illustrated Blog Post/Paper on the same subject matter. 
http://www.wordcounttool.com/
Or you can count by hand.



2) Choose two artists (or artists groups ; collaboratives) from the following websites featuring literally hundreds of artists for you to explore.  You are to make an attempt to choose artists we have not covered in class: 

http://www.eyebeam.org/people/current 
(search through "fellows" and "residents" for hundreds of amazing artists, links to their websites will generally be on their profile pages)

http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~infoarts/links/wilson.artlinks2.html 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_art 

http://rhizome.org/art/ 

http://www.gamescenes.org/ 



3) Research your chosen artists. Make sure to record citations of where to find the works, links, etc. 



4) Choose ONE representative work from each of your artists for a total of two works to be considered in your paper and presentation - you may choose to include more works by these artists in your visual presentation to the class. 



5) Describe, analyze, interpret, compare and contrast the artist’s works, considering broadly their chosen formal and conceptual strategies, being careful to address genre (film, video, performance, interactive art, simulation, game art, etc) in your general analysis of the works. As part of your research, make an attempt to contact both of your artists to ask questions regarding the work. (If you don't hear back from them please note such in your paper and presentation). You must as well reference the readings from the class in considering the works in question. Manovich. The Shallows. Video Art. Walter Benjamin. For the paper/blog post, make appropriate citations following standard academic paper guidelines (MLA or Chicago Manual Style).

Please limit your chosen artists/works to those created after 1980 - the only requirement is that the artists are somehow intrinsically involved in the creative use of digital technologies in their works. 

The intent here is to give you the opportunity to critically engage in basic research and analysis of artists and artworks while at the same time encouraging a greater depth of experience of various artist’s creative production and contexts. 

The paper is to be in the form of an extended blog post - include illustrations, videos where appropriate, etc. 

Here are some online resources to help you in considering how to critique, compare and contrast your chosen artist's works:


http://writingaboutart.org/pages/introduction.html


http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/comparing-and-contrasting/

http://uwc.utexas.edu/handouts/editing



Grading: 
Your presentation and writing will be graded according to the quality of your research, the originality of your analysis, the clarity of your writing, design, and clarity of your presentation.

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Due Dates: 

In Class Presentations of your Paper (chosen at random)

YOU WILL TURN IN HARD COPY OF PAPER THAT DAY.

Illustrated blog post will be that same paper, only with images, videos,

and links to specific information concerning your essay!

Monday, December 3rd - Group One
Priscilla
Shay
Jenie
Katie
Elissa
Brian
Serina
Stormy


Monday, December 10th - Group Two
Lena
Carl
Elo
Elizabeth
Emma
Kaitlin
Erin McMahon
Chohnny
Erin Meyering




Paper as Illustrated Blog Post:
Posted by: Monday, December 17th Midnight


It also goes without saying... Plagiarize existing work... Not good.

But good luck.

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