COML 4281

Social Activism and Tactical Media Design

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2017-2018 Catalog.

What happens when experience design meets Reverend Billy? Or design thinking encounters the Guerrilla Girls? Tracing such questions, we'll draw on contemporary fields of human-computer interaction and media theory to study how artists and activists use digital media to create social engagement at the level of sign, subject, and organization. We will experiment theoretically and practically to create working desiring machines, taking as guides Deleuze and Guattari, ACT-UP, Critical Art Ensemble, subRosa, and Electronic Disturbance Theater. Students will combine cultural analysis and digital production to study how activists have used media to engage different audiences for different ends. The course mixes studio, lab, and seminar activities to explore theories and practices of tactical media through hands-on engagement with human-centered design, arguably the transmedia rhetoric of the global creative economy.

Distribution Category (CA-AS)

When Offered Fall.

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