Dots and Loops

Focus area: Media Art

Module responsible: David Rych

HMS: Medialab

This module explores the loop as an aesthetic and political strategy in media art. Through lectures and seminar discussions students will explore how recursive forms shape meaning, challenge linear narratives, and reflect wider dynamics in culture and technology. Taking Stereolab’s Dots and Loops as a critical point of departure and drawing from Dada and Situationist tactics, as well as post‑Marxist thinking, we will consider how repetition-whether in sound, video, gesture, or language-can operate as tools for critique, refusal, disruption, and affective engagement through readings, screenings, and collaborative work.

The module culminates in the production and presentation of a self-directed artwork supported by contextual reflection and peer critique.Emphasis is placed on the creative use of sampling, iteration, and temporal distortion as strategies for both artistic experimentation and critical inquiry.

This is a project-based module exploring mark-making, rhythm, repetition, and permutation within artistic practice. Through group work and project development, strategies for two-dimensional, threedimensional, time-based, and/or written forms are activated.

PRO modules are designed to enrich your artist development (as explored in the ART modules) through activating skills, connecting communities of practice, and investigating disciplinary territories. PRO modules allow you to focus on a specific project critically connected to your own practice within a context established by the module leader(s).

Knowledge:

• Develop awareness of relevant references and practices

Skills

• Develop approaches to repetition, syntax, and seriality, and investigate how these influence meaning
• Identify, seek out, and apply relevant skills to a self-initiated project

General Competence

• Identify your own learning needs in relation to the subject area(s)
• Apply new knowledge and skills within your artistic practice
• Resolve, realize, and present new work.