VA5013 - Technologies

This module will be designed to support you in taking the lead, through group collaboration, presentations and public outcomes. The technical support on this module will be focused on experimentation, working with technologies through experimentations in text, film, sound, image and other means, most often in studio. We will be collaborating with other departments in order to create occasional access to new and nascent technologies.

The seminar series will draw in histories of art and technologies, with a focus on key theories of technology and contemporary life including cosmotechics and posthumanism. We will also have a research trip to a local museum, in which you will be learn about, and respond to, the history of communication technologies.

The module lead will give a module introduction session, as well as running an assessment guidance session.

You are supported by an academic team, which teaches you across the various modules. Your learning is mapped out for you in a programme guide given to you at the start of the semester that includes guidance notes and key dates for the semester to help you organise and plan your time. Teaching materials, notices and guidance are made available to you through our online electronic learning portal, which is accessible online both on campus and externally. You will have a university email that we contact you through, and all course timetabling is published in your online timetable. To support you, we provide you with on-going formative feedback through the teaching you receive, and ask you to write and submit a self-evaluation review reflecting on your own progress against the module learning outcomes.

You are supported with studio provision and access to specialist technical facilities, materials, and resource areas. Technical facilities include the wood and casting workshops, the print studio, the mac lab and digital print facility, and the darkrooms and digital photographic studios. You have access to specialist materials in all workshop areas, and our resource areas include equipment stores, galleries, and project spaces. You have twenty-four-hour access to the university library.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding:

1. You will produce artwork that engages critically and theoretically with technology

2. You will develop a working knowledge of key critical theories of technology and communication

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:

3. You will demonstrate the ability to frame and explore critical questions through a research-driven practice

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):

4. You will develop your ability to collaborate, to develop ideas into outcomes and to be an active participant in debate and discussion.

Summative Assessment:
1. Collaborative exhibition event in week 8 (60%)
2. Critical analysis((1000 words) based on exhibition in relation to identified texts, developed in weeks 9-12 (40%).

Summative Feedback
You will receive written feedback at the culmination of the module within 20 working days.

Formative Assessment: To prepare you successfully to undertake the summative assessment(s) on this module, formative assessments will be set by the module team. These may take the form of in-class tasks or projects, developmental activities undertaken between classes, or learning exercises/activities set over a longer period. Feedback (written and/or oral) will be provided to help you learn from, reflect on, and develop in light of these formative assessments.

MLOs: Summative tasks address all MLOS

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This module explores the important interface between art and technology. We live in a world shaped by, and negotiated by, technology. The age of communication technologies, including digital worlds, is relatively new and yet our lives are extended by technology in all kinds of ways. Technology has also changed how we make, experience and think about art. In this module we will be exploring experimental ways of making art with and in relation to new and old technologies. We will explore the history of artists working with technologies, whilst also reviewing critical contemporary issues of the digital age including those of power, control and information. You will be working collaboratively towards an exhibition event before critically reflecting on the exhibition in writing.