Digital Aesthetics: art, narrative, and games

This course will provide an introduction to genres of cultural artifacts particular to the network and the computer, specifically computer and network art, electronic literature, and computer games. Traditional conceptions of genre and categories of cultural artifact, such as art object, performance, novel, poem, and game are undergoing redefinition in the context of digital culture, and new genres of cultural artifacts are emerging, which require new models of textual analysis specific to the computational media and network context in which these artifacts are produced and distributed. DIKULT103 provides an overview of these emerging genres, and an introduction to the models of academic discourse and analysis particular to them. Students in the course will learn to analyze contemporary digital artifacts on a textual and structural basis, within the general framework of genre studies.

After taking the course the student should have:
- knowledge of key theoretical concepts within the understanding of digital art and network-based popular culture genres
- knowledge of contemporary genres within digital and network-based art practice, electronic literature and computer games
After taking the course the student should be able to:
- Compare and contrast digital genres with each other and with related analog genres
- Apply narratological and ludological concepts in the analysis of digital works
- Describe digital artifacts such as computer programs and texts

Bachelor

Spring

Bergen