Schedule

‘Good’ conversation is good rather than ‘disappointing’ — it does not merely chew over factual disputes or retreat into a play of disembodied concepts — because it, and it alone, allows conversational partners to challenge one another and to learn from one another in a fashion which brings all things about each partner into play. […] nothing is less polite than rigorous conversation pursued to its end. (Richard Gunn)

Doing the reading

We aim to read about 25-35 pages per day. That number is an average - which means some days we read more and other days we read less. There will be days of class for which we need to read closer to 50 pages, and days of class where the entire reading is half a page. It’s hard to have anything to say (or to write) if a person doesn’t read very much. Good ideas come from the way we process the ideas of others, same as good habits, good manners, good morals, good instincts - always from other people. This is a list of readings that will give you new ideas to make your own ideas and writing original and interesting to other people and to yourself.

It is not possible to do well in this class without doing the reading.

Our detailed schedule of readings is below. Any reading that is not hyperlinked is available in Blackboard or is a book you purchased for this course.

Supplementary readings are optional and you are not required to read them, though you are encouraged to!

Detailed Schedule

Our full schedule of topics as well as readings for these topics can be found below.

I also try to include reasons for why we are spending time on these topics (I think I owe you that), as well as discussion questions that you can use to guide your reading and note-taking. Some of these discussion questions are required which means that you should come prepared to share your thoughts about that question. So please look at both the schedule below and the attached document regularly. (As usual, sign into that document with your Drake login info.)

(Why we’re learning what we’re learning)[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IJnKhUbO300HY-U8IuIayjQd-wuzVfdqguXDsl6y1kw/edit?usp=sharing]

Date: 8/24

Topic: Welcome! + Policies + Intro

Readings: Nothing for today - but read the course syllabus for next time, and start on the readings for next week.

Viewings: None

Date: 8/26

Topic: What is Aesthetics? + Everyday Aesthetics

Readings: The whole syllabus (this whole website) as well as the Drake University Academic Integrity Policy.

Skim this page: Wikipedia: Everyday Aesthetics

TODO: Syllabus Quiz on Blackboard (Due tonight)

Viewings: (please do not watch the entire 4.5 hour loops, just glance at those and absorb the vibe) Solarpunk aesthetic, Machine fabrication, Coding, Hacking, Cybercore

Optional: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Aesthetics of the Everyday CARI - Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute

Date: 8/31

Topic: Aesthetic Theory and Rhetoric

Readings: Christopher Bartel - Aesthetics and Video Games Ch. 1 : Aesthetics

Viewings:

Optional: SEP - Heidegger’s Phenomenological Approach to Art

Date: 9/2

Topic: Aesthetics and the Unconscious

Readings: Slavoj Zizek - section on antisemitism from The Sublime Object of Ideology Susan Sontag - Against Interpretation

Viewings:

Optional:

Zenil, Soler-Toscano, Gauvrit - Aesthetic Preferences Bill Livant - The Hole in Hegel’s Bagel

Date: 9/7

Topic: Labor Day - NO CLASS

Date: 9/9

Topic: Games and Play

Readings: David Graeber - What’s the point if we can’t have fun?>

Christopher Bartel - Aesthetics and Video Games Ch. 2: Three Attitudes to Play

Viewings: Two Crows Play in Snow on Car

Optional:

Date: 9/14

Topic: Machine Aesthetics

Readings: Brummett - Rhetoric of Machine Aesthetics, Ch. 2 (Mechtech),

Viewings: Howl’s Moving Castle, Steam engine, Anime steampunk aesthetic, Massive machines

Optional: (WARNING: weird, uncanny, sexual themes, etc. - not mandatory whatsoever) H.R. Giger

Date: 9/16

Topic: Machine Aesthetics : Repetition

Readings: Bauhaus, The Charnel House - Repetition, Repetition, Repetition

Viewings:

Optional: Bauhaus - Influence on Everyday Life, Le Corbusier’s Machines for Living Repetition Compulsion - World Historical Rhythms in Architecture, Abigail Cain - What Steve Jobs Learned from the Bauhaus

Date: 9/21

Topic: Electrotech and Electronic Aesthetics

Reading: Brummett - Rhetoric of Machine Aesthetics, Ch. 3 (Electrotech)

Viewing: Neon Genesis Evangelion - Control Room, A circuit, Circuit diagram, 2001: A Space Odyssey Trailer Vetroo K1 Pangolin Tower Case, Kanto mATX, HYTE Y70 ATX Mid-Tower Case, Windows 95 Ad, Apple vs PC,

Optional: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1 Ep. 8: I Robot, You Jane (I don’t have a link to this one - but it’s a good example of ‘evil computer’ and I highly recommend it!)

Date: 9/23

Topic: Electrotech and Electronic Aesthetics

Reading: Brummett - Rhetoric of Machine Aesthetics, Ch. 3 (Electrotech)

Optional: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1 Ep. 8: I Robot, You Jane (I don’t have a link to this one - but it’s a good example of ‘evil computer’ and I highly recommend it!)

Date: 9/28

Topic: Chaotech and the Aesthetics of Machine Decay

Reading: Brummett - Ch. 4 (Chaotech)

Viewing:Abandoned mechtech, Abandoned electrotech - focus on the device, not its environment

Listening: : The Caretaker - All You Are Going to Want to do is Get Back There , William Basinski - Disintegration Loops (also see Wikipedia - Distintegration Loops)

Optional: The Aesthetics of Decay - Beyond the Beautiful

Date: 9/30

Topic: Chaotech and the Aesthetics of Machine Decay

Reading: Brummett - Ch. 4 (Chaotech), ((skim) Tech Noir - Wikipedia)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech_noir]

Viewing:Abandoned mechtech, Abandoned electrotech - focus on the device, not its environment

Listening: : The Caretaker - All You Are Going to Want to do is Get Back There , William Basinski - Disintegration Loops (also see Wikipedia - Distintegration Loops)

Optional: The Aesthetics of Decay - Beyond the Beautiful

Date: 10/5

Topic: Analog and Biological Computation

Reading: Chapter 1 of Joshua Clover’s The Matrix Matrix Digital Rain

Viewing: Watch the Matrix (required! Will be available for free via Drake - link to be shared later)

Listening:: The Analog Thing audio improv Analog hybrid music - start around 34:00, Computing with Fungi

Optional: Analog computers, Ancient and analog mechtech - the Antikythera mechanism

Date: 10/7

Topic: Cybernetics

Readings: Stafford Beer - Designing Freedom Ch.1

Viewings: Cybersyn, living plant controls a machete through an industrial robot arm

Optional: Norbert Wiener - Cybernetics

Date: 10/12

Topic: The Uncanny and the Sublime

Readings: (Skim) The Uncanny Valley, Edmund Burke - A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (Fragments) Freud - The Uncanny (Unheimlich) (Fragments)

Viewings: Look around online and find examples of both the uncanny and the sublime - add these to the slides with your name.

Optional: The “uncanny” is the experience of a loss of control

Date: 10/14

Topic: FALL BREAK - NO CLASS

Readings:

Viewings:

Optional:

Date: 10/19

Topic: Cyberpunk

Readings: Neuromancer Ch.s 1-3

Viewings:

Optional: