Readymades

Gabe Barcia­-Colombo

This course is about taking old things and making them new. Loosely based on the tradition of Marcel Duchamp’s “Readymades,” students will re­imagine old technological devices and antiques as new media installations or art objects in the form of scientific, ethnographic, artistic and historic relics. By embedding new technology (sensors, micro­controllers and small projectors) into found objects, students will explore a combination of anthropology and new­media storytelling. Can we create interactive art devices that tell a human story? How do we maintain artistic control while building artwork that requires human interaction? How can we re­appropriate found objects in a meaningful way to create new­media installations?

This is a production heavy four credit course taught in Max/Msp/Jitter and focused on making museum ready interactive durable installations. Possible projects include: time traveling typewriters, boomboxes from mars, ghost phones and musical bicycles. Pre­requisites include a flair for the absurd…and soldering.