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Exercises for week 1

Make elaborations of the following exercises and bring them to the next class. We will start this class with an investigation of what people have come up with, and discuss several examples.

Your (consolidated) elaboration will be part of the final portfolio that you deliver at the end of the module.

Investigative exercise

During the course of this week, keep an open eye to object, installations, or spaces that tell a particular story. Choose two or three of these and investigate those in somewhat more detail, answering questions like (but not limited to) the following:

  • What is the story the object, installation, or place is trying to convey?

  • In what way is this story told, and what role do particular objects (specifically artefacts) play in telling this story?

  • How do you relate to this story?

Try to use the theoretical frameworks and vocubulary that is introduced during the plenary part in your elaborations.

Creative exercise

Think of a story that you would like to tell. Design an installation that you could use to bring this story across. Think about the exact venue that you would like to use, and the public you would like to reach – and be sure to accommodate your installation accordingly.

You don't have to actually make the installation. An artist impression will suffice.

Reading exercise

mandatory reading

Read the following text closely and critically (you can find both a physical and an online edition in the Minerva Mediatheek). As you go, process the text: annotate by jotting down questions or comments in the margins, underlining important points, circling keywords, and marking places you may want to revisit. Feel free to underline, scribble, or doodle.

  • Robin Wall Kimmerer, "Skywoman Falling", in Braiding Sweetgrass (Milweed Editors, 2013), pp.3-10.

Come up with one or two questions about this text that you want to discuss in class.

The processed text will be part of your portfolio.

suggested reading

  • Bolter, Jay David and Richard Grusin, "The double logic of remediation" in Remediation; understanding new media (MIT Press, 1997), pp.3-15.

  • Groenteboer, Hanneke, "Tracing the Denkbild" in *The Pensive Image; Art as a Form of Thinking" (Chicago UP, 2020), pp.46-71.

  • Murray, Janet, "Immersion" in Hamlet on the Holodeck; The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace (MIT Press, 1997), pp.97-125.

  • Rosa, Hartmut, "The mantle of history" in Resonance (Polity Press, 2019), pp.296-304.