MTD1Assignment2AB

Media Theory and Design 1 12:30 Tues. section – Barbier

Asn. 2 - Due week 10, 11/7 in class for 20% of total grade (100 points)

Grading Scale

15% - Proposal

10% - in-class worksheet

10% - paper draft

30% - Final Paper

35% - project and presentation

Assignment 2: Artifact collection. You will construct a series of randomly collected original or “found” material and discuss how you construct meaning from it, and the possible meanings that may be constructed. The paper (3-5 pages) should connect to, quote, and discuss meaningfully a minimum of three ideas/concepts/theories that we have considered in Weeks 6-8.

Goals: to begin to display a thoughtful, systematic process to create and iterate a media artifact; to display a more advanced understanding of basic communication, media, cultural, and semiotic theories; to demonstrate a more advanced ability to critically analyze media design from a variety of theoretical perspectives in written and verbal form; to demonstrate an understanding of foundational concepts including goal-oriented research, idea development, analysis, process, design and production; to start to connect theory and practice; to display a more advanced understanding of the social and cultural implications of media.

Additional Goals: To reflect on the place of media in your everyday life; to analyze information for meaningful patterns; to create an artifact which relates to the form and meaning of the media you have collected. To experience a method of creation based on chance, and to apply aesthetic and conceptual controls to a body of information to understand what makes it meaningful to you.

You will be collecting a selected type of media artifact, once per day for one month. These artifacts will be gathered together as a presentation to illustrate your personal interaction with media culture over time. This will also be an opportunity to become a self-appointed cultural critic and to direct your powers of analysis over this collection, discovering emergent patterns, narratives, and undercurrents.

The Collection Process You will choose a certain type of media artifact and systematically collect an example each day for one month. For example:

- The same page number from a newspaper each day

- The first piece of spam you receive each day in your email

- A song on the radio at the same time every day (perhaps the one you wake up to)

- A cell phone photo taken every time someone calls you

- A photo taken from your TV screen at the same time every day

You will need to document every artifact in a way that allows them to become part of a physical collection for the final presentation.

The reason that this process is “systematic” is to try to eliminate personal selection from the gathering process, to invite randomness, yet still have this process tied to your day to day life.

You do not have to know what you are doing with this project to begin collecting! The whole point of the project is not knowing, but discovering. That’s where the project gets interesting and fun.

Recommended – for the first week or two, it might be best to have 2 or 3 concurrent collection processes going at the same time. Later on, you can decide which growing collection feels more promising for completing this project.

Presenting the Artifacts (week 10)

The final presentation must include 25-30 items collected over approximately one month. This collection will serve as an illustration to the arguments and theories you generate during this collection process. The visual material serves as a way to make a point about something.

The physical presentation can be in the form of a collage, assemblage, book, website, power point, or any other organized presentation that best showcases them (2D or 3D). Craft and creativity definitely count, but the form is up to you.

The Paper (draft due week 9, final version due week 10)

Throughout the course of your collection process, you should begin to develop ideas about what this collection is saying to you, how it is behaving as communication media, and how it relates to the readings and class lectures, discussions, and screenings. You are welcome to be adventurous in your theories, as long as you back them up with good arguments and source materials.

Requirements:

3 pages, single spaced, Time Font 12 pt.

3 outside sources, with citations in the text and a bibliography.

Schedule

Week 7 – proposal is due. One paragraph outlining what you have been collecting and your thoughts about what is emerging in terms of a pattern and some possibilities for how you will shape the artifacts into a final physical form.

Week 8 – in class discussions with worksheet

Week 9 – draft of paper is due (1-2 pp)

Week 10 – Project presentation and final paper are due