WEST 465-001 34585/CIVC 299-001 34606
Wednesday 9:00-11:50 am
Room: University Crossings 027
Instructor:
Hana Iverson
Email: hbi23@drexel.edu
Phone:
646-207-0759
Office
Hours: By appointment.
Neighborhood
Narratives is a public mobile art and design curriculum whose mission is to create
locative art works and design projects that incorporate responsive public
screens and spaces, performances and events that envision the future and reach
for social equity through participatory engagement. Neighborhood
Narratives creates a platform for participants to produce works that reflect conflicts, collaborations and boundaries in the
varying social, economic and ethnic make-up of the local community using mobile technologies such as Augmented Reality,
basic mobile recording devices, on-line open-source tools such as blogging, folksonomies
and Google Maps along with analog resources. It explores the real and
metaphorical potentialities of mapping, walking, and wayfinding as methods of
developing attachments, connecting, and constructing narratives in a virtual
and spatial
locality. Neighborhood Narratives offers a unique situation from which to
critically consider locative media art in relation to the context of West
Philadelphia and to explore and design methods of effective communication,
community and exchange. The project invites public participation, engages
interactively, and encourages participants to consider their vocabulary of
movement in space. Neighborhood Narratives asks students to conceptually
understand some of the processes of the mediated city such as negotiating
geographic, political, ideological spaces and reconsidering the issues that
they deal with in everyday life – the things they carry with them, the cell
phones they use, the soft city they walk in, etc. To reconstruct their everyday
assumptions in order to use them as a vocabulary and set of tools for looking
at themselves and responding to the world creatively. Students in this class
will participate as a team in the creation and production of a
Powelton/Mantua/Belmont Neighborhood Narrative project. By participating in all
aspects of this project, they will get a hands-on approach to addressing and
solving the design and content questions of a transmedia art project. No prior technological expertise is required.
Format
The
class is 3 hours long once a week. The class will introduce methods of
collecting data and artifacts, internet and field observation, mapping and
scoring, "show and tell" and the examination of project presentations
with rigorous discussion. Mobile city-wide exploration (public transportation,
on foot) will include the presentation of the final project on location in the
city. The class will also engage in peer dialogue and interdisciplinary
teamwork, to extend the breadth of a project through collaboration. Students
will keep semester long blogs including observations, photos, video and audio
recordings (where equipment and resources allow) - a personal diary of the Neighborhood
Narrative experience.
Internet Access
All
students are expected to have frequent, dependable access to the internet. It is essential that you have an active email
account that you ACCESS FREQUENTLY, for email with faculty and with each other.
IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOU CREATE AND ACTIVELY MAINTAIN A BLOG. If you have any
difficulties with either Internet access, your email account or your blog,
please see the instructor after the first class.
Technology Requirements
You will
need some form of memory stick to save and transport your work. Access to a mobile phone and digital camera
is recommended.
Readings
Readings
will be PDF’s or web sites, available on line as listed.
Course Costs
As
expected with production courses, you may need to purchase supplies to produce
your final project. Also, while it is not required, I would like to encourage
you to use the communications features of your mobile phone: costs for voice
calls and text messaging will depend on your phone plan.
Instructor Contact
The best
way to reach me is by email. I am on campus once a week and am available to set
up individual appointments, if requested.
Attendance and Lateness Policy
Attending
the sessions outlined in the schedule is a requirement of this course. More than two unexcused absences will
decrease the overall grade by one unit for each additional missed class. Five
absences will result in a failing grade for the course. If you are going to be absent, please inform
me by email at least 24 hours in advance. If you are absent, it is your
responsibility to make up any work in a timely fashion. Three times arriving
late will be considered as one unexcused absence. Being more than 10 minutes
late will be counted as an absence.
Evaluation and Assessment
Research, attendance and
participation 35%
In class assignments 30%
Final project 35%
Deadlines
All assignments are due on time.
In the case of unforeseen delays, please confer with the instructor.
Research, Attendance and Participation
Group work, communicating and
sharing knowledge through discussions, posting to the class blog, in-class
presentations, and overall student participation are an essential part of the
process of understanding course material.
Readings and blog postings are mandatory.
Readings
Prior to each class you will be
required to complete a short reading and make notes of relevant points to bring
up in class discussion.
Blog postings
Each week you will be required to
a) make one post to your NEIGHBORHOOD NARRATIVES blog and b) to comment on at
least one other student’s blog. Your post can be on: 1) a new media technology
and how it relates to locative/mobile platforms or 2) if applicable, one of the
required assignments.
Solving frustrations is integral to the creative
process!
Assignments and Final Projects
The remit for the final project is
to create an urban, on-site, locative (cell phone, GPS, mapping, sensory
altering) media art project that engages visual as well as embodied (spatial +
body) ideas.
Academic Integrity
Plagarism and Cheating
Students with Disabilities
Course Drop/Add Policy
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