 Artist-in-Residence: Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky
Digital Fictions: The future of Storytelling
Spring 2016
Office Hours: By Appointment Only
Contact: djspooky@djspooky.com
The way we communicate with one another using all aspects of the modern digital media landscape have radically, and some would say irrevocably changed in the last several centuries. From the way information is transmitted over fiber optic cables, satellite signals, cellphone networks, and many other media of transmission, one can trace the basic idea that modern storytelling has evolved from a disparate and regional vernacular of folk tales, ancient myths, and oral traditions, into a modern globalized hyper fractured environment where perspective is all relative depending on how you engage whatever medium. Digital Fictions will explore some of the historical roots of our modern storytelling environment and relate them to the current practices of digital culture. The course will engage in a collage approach to readings, web screenings, film viewings, listening materials, interactive media and studio approaches to producing contemporary narratives. Students will be encouraged to not only engage in a spirited critique of how they consume media, but will also be encouraged to be media producers.
From the contemporary realm of hip hop to Apps like YouTube and other web-centric digital media narratives such as Flipboard, the fundamental way we tell stories in the 21st century has rapidly and radically changed from all previous eras of human history.
Digital Fictions is a course named after an anthology Paul D. Miller is preparing for 2016 publication.
The course explores both the history of what constitutes a story in history and where contemporary narrative is headed as we move further away from traditional forms of storytelling into digital media narrative. Readings will consist of excerpts from texts such as The Epic of Gilgamesh, Egyptian and Greek myths, The Upanishads, Dante's Inferno, The Dream of the Red Chamber, The Canterbury Tales, Grimm's Fairy Tales, West African Anansi tales as well as contemporary readings and digital media stories, video games and films.
January 11: Opening initial presentation:
Introduction:
What is a story. Marshall Mcluhan’s The Medium is the Massage (listening session)
Next weeks Readings:
Telling it Again and Again, by Bruce F. Kawin
The Filter Bubble, Eli Pariser
Required Viewing:
Kirby Ferguson: Everything is A Remix
January 18 (Holiday - MLK’s Birthday)
January 25:
Literature of Recordings: Orson Welles “War of the Worlds” and “F For Fake”
Next Week’s Readings:
The Experience Economy B. Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore
Douglas Rushkoff: Present Shock - When Everything Happens Now
February 1 The Rise of Mass Media
Friedrich Kittler: Grammophone, Film, Typewriter
February 8 Roots:
Gilgamesh, Dream of the Red Chamber, The Rg Vedas, Ovid’s Metamorphosis
February 15
Jaron Lanier: You are Not a Gadget
Bill Mckibben: The End of Nature
February 22
Jeff Chang: Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop
Alex Winter: Napster
February 29
The Rise of a Global Literature of Multimedia (this class will be comparative reviews of web projects)
March 7
Student Projects/Presentations
March 14
Student Projects/Presentation
March 21
Philip K. Dick, Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, Samuel Delaney, Cixin Liu: New Stories in Science Fiction
March 28
Cory Doctorow - the full class will look at this theoretician’s writings and stories
April 4
The Art of Noise: This class will be web and sound listening review sessions and comparing of different approaches to what is an Author
Boris and Arkady Strugatsky “We”
Stanislaw Lem Cyberiad
April 11
Frames of Reference: the 1960’s, 80’s, 90’s and beyond: new narratives
Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs vs Twitter and Facebook.
April 18
The Era of the Constant Update: a brief history of cellphone literature
April 25
Final Presentations
Evaluations:
You will be graded on the following criteria:
Attendance, participation, presentations 20%
Creative projects and responses to the presented material (producing projects + stories) 30%
Midterm story studio sessions - 20%
Final Creative Studio project 30%
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DJ Spooky has participated in two new book projects.
DJ Spooky also has participated in renowned photographer Lyle Owerko's new book "The Boombox Project" on the history of boomboxes. 
Copyright Criminals - a Documentary by Ben Frantzen and Kembrew Mcleod
ORDER NOW!!! 
OUT NOW! DJ Spooky's "Sound Unbound"
CREATION REBEL MIX CD on Trojan Records
DJ Spooky has produced material on the new Yoko Ono album.
RHYTHM SCIENCE:
