PUBLIC ART AND DIGITIZATION PRACTICES

This course explores specific fields of public digital art, providing an understanding of the cultural and technical evolution that has led to a convergence between social and electronic space. The broader context of 20th and 21st-century art history acts as a framework for selected case studies in networking and new media culture, as well as the impact of artificial intelligence and the Internet as public and artistic-visual agency. Insights into peculiar digital art forms will be built upon the foundations of some historical precedents and the steady development of contemporary media.

- Analysis and understanding. Knowledge of historical-artistic context and cultural guidelines that contribute to the development of trends. Being able to outline the implications of the artwork’s exit from a static context, in the wake of an ever more present public and technological dimension.
- Analytic and critical skills. The student will be able to recognize artworks of a visual, performative or conceptual nature, learning how to place them within trends and contexts. Formulate evaluations not only through formal analysis but also by operating within a historical-artistic perspective that is not immediately obvious, in which social processes are involved.
- Communication skills. Use of appropriate terminology, able to qualify topics and aesthetic expressions through the specific language of art history; descriptive skills able to synthesize the complexity of sociocultural and technological phenomena.

A preliminary knowledge of the field of visual arts is preferable.

From a broader context of the history of art of the 20th and 21st century, the course aims to explore the process of confrontation of art with those technologies that have allowed a relationship with public space, intended mainly as a social milieu. We will focus on the identification of some precedents, and then on the relationship between artists and digital media. Case studies will cover creative practices within telecommunications, Internet, spatial geolocation tools and artificial intelligence.

The texts below are to be considered indicative of a general context overview. More details on the bibliography and selected chapters will be specified during class.

Audry, S. (2021). Art in the Age of Machine Learning. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Bazzichelli, T. (2008). Networking: The Net as Artwork. Arhus: Digital Aesthetics Research Center.
Chandler, A., & Neumark, N. (Eds.). (2005). At a Distance: Precursors to Art and Activism on the Internet. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Greene, R. (2004). Internet Art. London: Thames & Hudson.
Hemment, D. (2006). «Locative Arts». Leonardo, 39, 348–355.
Manovich, L. (2013). Software Takes Command. New York: Bloomsbury.
Paul, C. (2015). Digital Art. London: Thames & Hudson.
Quaranta, D. (2013). Beyond New Media Art. Brescia: LINK Editions.

The final exam will consist of two parts: 1) a presentation of a short essay on an approved subject related to the course topics, 2) an oral examination with discussion of the above mentioned essay and questions on topics discussed in class.

Non-attending students are kindly requested to contact the professors in order to agree on integrations and on a different mode of examination.

Class includes frontal lessons on the topics of public and digital art, making use of presentation slides for a more precise mode of display and discussion. Attendance is strongly recommended.

English

Provisional programme. May change in modalities and materials.

written and oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Cities, infrastructure and social capital" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development