GMU:Martin Schneider/Work in Progress/Bestiary of Things

Cover of the Codex Seraphinianus

Page from the Voynich manuscript

Bestiarium der Dinge — Bestiary of Things

Werkmodul/Fachmodul
Lecturer: Martin Schneider
Credits: 6 ECTS, 4 SWS
Date: to be announced
Venue: Marienstraße 7b, Room 204
First meeting: to be announced

 Note:
 This course is currently in its planning stage.
 Please don't apply for it yet.

Description

Bestiaries are encyclopedias of the Middle Ages, full of fantastic drawings and detailed descriptions of mythical creatures. In this course we will use the wiki (i.e. the software that fuels Wikipedia) as an artistic medium and collectively design a bestiary of things.
The things of interest are all the technical gadgets and objects, which are summarized under the term The Internet of Things. These things are getting more and more intelligent, they are forming networks, exploring the world, and they are monitoring us.

• What would a modern-day bestiary look like?
• How can we create an epos of things and reproduce it inside a wiki?
• How to build things, that create or edit wiki-entries by themselves?

In this course, most of our work will be graphical in nature. Be it hand drawings or generative graphics, the result can be as outlandish and as fantastic as the Voynich manuscript or the Codex Seraphinianus.
In the realm of our course we will try to transform the wiki, which is primarily used for text, into a graphical medium. As part of this endeavor we will also get to know theories and works from the domains of Hypercomics, the Generative Arts and Computational Creativity.

Beschreibung

Bestiarien sind Enzyklopädien des Mittelalters, voll von fantastischen Zeichnungen und detaillierten Beschreibungen von Fabelwesen. In diesem Kurs werden wir das Wiki (also die Software auf der auch Wikipedia läuft) als künstlerisches Medium nutzen und gemeinsam ein “Bestiarium der Dinge” gestalten.
Die Dinge die uns interessieren sind all die technischen Gadgets und Gegenstände, die unter dem Begriff Internet der Dinge zusammengefasst werden. Diese Dinge werden immer intelligenter, vernetzen sich, erforschen die Welt und beobachten uns.

• Wie kann ein Bestiarium der Gegenwart aussehen?
• Wie können wir einen Epos der Dinge erschaffen und in einem Wiki abbilden?
• Wie baut man Dinge, die selbst Wiki-Einträge erstellen oder bearbeiten?

Wir werden in diesem Kurs vor allem mit grafischen Mitteln arbeiten. Ob Handzeichnungen oder generative Grafiken, das Resultat kann ebenso fremdartig und fantastisch sein wie das Voynich-Manuskript oder der Codex Seraphinianus.
Im Rahmen des Kurses werden wir versuchen, das Wiki das sonst primär für Text genutzt wird in ein grafisches Medium zu verwandeln. In diesem Zuge werden wir auch Theorien und Arbeiten aus dem Bereich der Hypercomics, der Generativen Künste und der Computer-Kreativität kennenlernen.

Language

The course will be in English, unless all participants are speaking German.

Eligible Participants

Undergraduates and graduates enrolled in the faculties of:

• Media Art + Design
• Media Architecture
• Visual Communication
• Product Design

Requirements

• Basic knowledge of web technologies
• Good skills in hand drawing or generative design

Application

You need to provide links to previous work to be elligible to this course.

To: Martin Schneider
Subject: Bestiary of Things /// Application
Content:

• References to previous web related work
• Links to work samples from one of the following domains:

1. Freehand drawing with pen and paper
2. Generative Design with Processing

Instead of providing links to previous work you can also:

1. Create a hand-drawing of your mobile phone as a beast
2. Create a Processing sketch, that generates drawings based on pixel-data from a photo

Syllabus

to be announced

Evaluation

• Presence and active participation
• Collaborative work that uses the wiki as artistic medium
• Measurable individual accomplishment

Links

to be done

Literature

This is the list of recommended books.

Bestiaries

• Anonymous: Physiologus
• Luigi Serafini: Codex Seraphianus
• Leo Lionni: Parallel Botany

Comics

• Scott McCloud: Reinventing Comics
• Jean-Pierre Petit: Run Robot Run

Processing

This is a list of recommended books for the Processing language.

• Bartmann, Erik: Processing: kreativ programmieren mit Processing; für Designer, Künstler und Geeks; visuelle Welten gestalten ISBN 978-3-89721-997-7
• Greenberg, Ira Processing: Creative Coding and Computational Art ISBN 9781590596173
• Hartmut Bohnacker, Benedikt Groß, Julia Laub (herausg.: Lazzeroni, Claudius): Generative Gestaltung: Entwerfen. Programmieren. Visualisieren. ISBN 978-3-87439-759-9
• Maeda, John: Creative Code: Ästhetik und Programmierung am MIT Media Lab ISBN 3764371080
• Maeda, John: Maeda@media ISBN 0500282358
• Noble, Joshua: Programming interactivity: a designer's guide to processing, Arduino, and openFrameworks ISBN 0-596-15414-3
• Pearson, Matt: Generative Art - A Practical Guide Using Processing, 2011 Manning, ISBN 978-1935182627
• Reas, Casey; Fry, Ben: Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists ISBN 978-0262182621
• Reas, Casey; McWilliams, Chandler: Form+Code in Design, Art, and Architecture ISBN 978-1568989372
• Shiffman, Daniel Learning Processing: A Beginner's Guide to Programming Images, Animation, and Interaction ISBN 9780123736024
• Terzidis, Kostas: Algorithms for visual design using the processing language ISBN 978-0-470-37548-8

Further Reading

There are a couple of books in the Semesterapparat of Society of Networked Things, that you might want to flip trough...

to be announced