Theo Ellin Ballew

WEB ART AS SITE addresses the history and practice of art made for and inseparable from the web, while teaching basic coding for the web. Web art is space/place/landscape/setting/site; it is not held or beheld, but filled and inhabited. So, while exploring the nascent canon of web art, we will also draw inspiration from a broader tradition of site-building or site-altering art practices, including installation, architecture, performance, and video games. Supplementary readings will consider the materiality of the internet and the way the internet reflects and inflects our society. Throughout, we will focus on artists and authors whose bodies have not historically owned or controlled physical sites in the US. We will also continually exploit the internet pedagogically, collaborating online, playing with anonymity, and attempting to break the internet spaces we know. In the first half of the course, students will make a series of mini-projects reflecting coding tutorials; in the second half of the course, they will focus on their final project. Because web art is inherently interdisciplinary, students will be encouraged to deploy language, music, video, painting, and/or any other media, as experts or novices. Students need only a standard laptop, and will not be expected to purchase any software or text (cost of materials: $0). There are no prerequisites.