Digital Media: History and Foundations is an introduction to the historical and theoretical foundations of digital media art and design. The course traces how information technologies seeded the growth of new expressive mediums, and considers how today’s pervasive digital culture evolved through interdisciplinary collaborations between artists, engineers, scientists and scholars. Through a series of presentations, discussions, and projects, students will examine important themes and texts relevant to digital media and related cultural phenomenon, will become familiar with critical issues related to dependence on new and emerging technologies, and will develop an appreciation of how art-making practices have shaped—and been shaped by—trajectories of technological change.

Arts 11 can be used to satisfy one General Education (GE) Requirement in Category IV, Arts and Humanities.

Arts 11 is a core course in the Digital Arts Minor, offered by the Department of Art in the
Claire Trevor School of the Arts.