History of Creative Computing

Undergraduate / Graduate

What is "creative computing"? Are artists doing computing creatively or is the computing itself being creative? In this seminar course, students will learn to discuss, analyze, and contextualize artworks covered by the blurry and interdisciplinary "meta-medium" that is creative computing, beginning in the 1960s and working forward to the present moment. Through lectures, hands-on exercises, and discussions of assigned readings, students will gain familiarity with core techniques and concepts that inform contemporary digital art practice and develop their own critical vocabulary and opinions. Course topics include: What (if any) are the medium specific properties of creative computing? How dependent are digital works on screens and other systems of display? How does creative computing allow us to delaminate, interject into, or interfere with the streamlined technological world around us? How do generative machine learning models connect to this conversation and how are artists working with them today?