This class will explore the increasingly important relationship between visual culture and the Internet. with an emphasis on understanding the profound effect the shift from analog to digital technology has had on how we make, look at, talk about and distribute images in contemporary culture.  Focusing on the myriad ways in which individuals and social organizations engage with the vast archive of digital content circulating on the Internet, the class will touch on a variety of inter-related issues, including:

• Social media and the creative practice of re-mixing, re-contextualizing and re-distributing  fragments of digital culture, and the related issues of authorship and copyright.
•  How new imaging technologies and information systems are disrupting and re-defining  the identity of artists and their relationship to cultural institutions.
• The increasingly important place of post-production, collaborative practice and  curatorial strategies in visual culture.

Class time will be split between studio work/critique, lectures and in-class discussions. Students will be encouraged to apply material discussed in class to their own visual and conceptual interests. In addition to reading a number of texts, we will look at and discuss a wide sampling of historical and contemporary visual material.