Critical Media Practices

CMDP 1400 (4) Introduction to Critical Media Practices

Prepares students for critical practices in contemporary media cultures in a global context. Explores the diversity of media practices, including narrative and non-narrative forms, emphasizing aesthetics and visual studies. In lectures and recitations students will explore video, sound, the internet and other multi-media platforms of expression.

CMDP 2010 (3) Information, Media and Technology

Surveys the intertwined histories of information, media, and technology production and use through exploration of a shared topic. Examines the political, social, economic, and cultural contexts that underlie the movement toward a digital society. Enhances students¿ abilities to do research, write for multiple audiences, and create publicly-facing digital projects.

CMDP 2100 (3) Approaches to Historical Media Practices

Investigate historical and cultural discourses in the formation of media practices. Examines practices such as performance media; cinematic media, media art, and their aesthetic alignment to cognate movements throughout history.

Additional Information: Arts Sci Gen Ed: Distribution-Arts Humanities

CMDP 2500 (3) Media Practices I

Working in design groups, students will explore the expressive potential of media through the production of short projects, discussions, readings, formal analysis, and critique. Provide a basic introduction to media practices as an extension of "visual thinking" and through approaches to storytelling, and hybrid media forms.

Requisites: Requires a prerequisite course of CMDP 1400 (minimum grade C-). Restricted to CMCI majors and minors and IUT On-Track students.

CMDP 2510 (1-3) Critical Media Practices Workshop I

Training in narrow topics of media practices.

Repeatable: Repeatable for up to 3.00 total credit hours.

CMDP 2820 (3) Exploring Culture and Gender Through Film

Explores the concepts of culture and gender from an anthropological perspective through media. By experiencing texts, images and sounds about other ways of life, students will learn the basic concepts of cultural anthropology and learn to think critically about documentary and ethnographic media material.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: ANTH 1170
Requisites: Restricted to College of Media, Communication, and Information (CMCI) undergraduate students only.

CMDP 3050 (3) Research/Remix

This Composition and Expression seminar develops information literacy practices: self-motivated, reflective discovery; critical source evaluation; and responsible, ethical knowledge creation. Encourages the seeking of multiple perspectives and diverse viewpoints through critically informed research, reflection, and creative work. Provides hands-on training in advanced searching, fact-checking, citation, and licensing. Enhances understanding of creators¿ rights and responsibilities.

Requisites: Restricted to CMCI majors with 57 or more credit hours.

CMDP 3110 (3) Electronic Arts Survey

Explores the development of electronic media art through screenings, readings, lectures and discussions.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 1400 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 3150 (3) Sonic Histories

Introduces students to the history and theory of sound, through aesthetic, conceptual, and technological, developments. This course explores the physicality of sound, what sound can do inside and outside the artistic sphere, investigate sounding and listening as cultural and social acts, and study major developments in radio, electronic music, sound art, science and technology studies, and sound studies.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 1400 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 3210 (3) Interactive Digital Cultures

Examines how the uses of interactive media have changed the classical dynamics of human communication, allowing multidirectional, non-linear and multimedia practices. In this course, students will study the various aesthetic, narrative, emotional and cultural elements of the interface in areas such as non-linear video, the web, games and hypermedia.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 1400 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 3250 (3) Histories of Animation

This course provides an overview of animation by exploring this form through conceptual, historical, cross-cultural, and technical histories.

Requisites: Restricted to students with 57-180 credits (Juniors or Seniors).

CMDP 3310 (3) Performance Media Cultures

Reflect on the cultural construction of old and new performance media through the lens of emerging practices and contemporary discourse. From ancient theatre to cinema, interactive television to YouTube, and multi-media dance performances to computer games, this course explores how media shape, and are shaped by, various historical and contemporary audiences and contexts.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 1400 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 3350 (3) Modes of Documentary Media History

Introduces students to the variety of practices by examining their emergence, evolution and cultural impact in the global sphere. Students discover the major themes and genres in documentary work from photography, cinema, audio, hypermedia and the public debates they have engendered. Through lectures, screenings and research, develop critical perspectives on the international and transcultural dimensions of documentary media history.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 1400 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 3400 (3) Media Aesthetics

Builds students' ability to watch, reflect on, and write about media images. The course will be grounded in the analysis of media practices with special focus on media style and storytelling techniques. Explores media aesthetics from formal, cultural, and theoretical perspectives. Formerly CMDP 2400.

Additional Information: Arts Sci Gen Ed: Distribution-Arts Humanities

CMDP 3450 (3) Critical Perspectives in Media Practices

Examines the contemporary landscape of media practices across platforms, such as film, social media, painting, video, and web art. This integrative exploration focuses on production contexts, circulation and reception through the lens of critical and interpretive frameworks. Drawing from key texts by major scholars and the works of media practitioners, students develop globally informed, critical perspectives for understanding.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 1400 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 3510 (1-3) Critical Media Practices Workshop II

Training in narrow topics of media practices. Open to CMCI students and by permission of the instructor.

Repeatable: Repeatable for up to 7.00 total credit hours. Allows multiple enrollment in term.
Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3600 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 3600 (3) Media Practices II

Focus on developing an understanding of the principles, forms and aesthetics of media production. Working in design groups on small-scale media preproduction and production exercises, screenings and critiques, students learn creative solutions to problems in realizing expressive media projects. Formerly CMDP 2600.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite of CMDP 2500 (minimum grade C-). Restricted to CMCI majors and minors and IUT On-Track students.

CMDP 3610 (3) Contemporary Image Making Practices

Provides students the technical skills for in depth exploration of the evolving principles and strategies of digital image making. Students will create small-scale projects with the primary emphasis on cinematographic experimentation and innovative visual techniques.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3600 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 3620 (3) Images and Stories

Learn and apply innovative non-traditional approaches to scripting and storytelling, including automatic thinking, idea sketches, visual notes, outlines and storyboards, serials, aleatoric methods, diagrams, locations, photographs and short stories. Focuses on methods of exploring scripting methods outside of the fixed and rule-bound traditional model of storytelling as a means of introducing students to discover their own scripting techniques.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3600 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 3700 (3) Digital Photographic Practices

Explores the creative possibilities of photography; students work on projects that combine concepts and techniques with contemporary practice and current modalities of exhibition and social distribution. Emphasis is placed on the student's personal growth through aesthetic and intellectual development in relation to current technologies. Formerly CMDP 3500.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3600 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 3710 (3) Audio/Vision 360

Introduces techniques, software and related concepts of digital design and image making through individual and group projects. Emphasizes digital animation, digital audio, digital video and website design and development as a means to formal and expressive ends. Introduces students to critical readings and theories related to digital media practice.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3750 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 3720 (3) Multimedia Composition

Combine writing with media such as video, music, animation and podcasting on the computer. Includes a unit on web-site design and ends with each student creating their own website and positing on it the project they created for the course.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3600 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 3730 (3) Media Production Methods and Ideas

Explores creative approaches to idea formation, conceptualization, and organization for the moving image employing critical thinking, improvisation and visual storytelling techniques. Includes forms of creative writing, storytelling and preproduction techniques and strategies. Previously CMDP 2710.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3600 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 3750 (3) Introduction to Immersive Media

This course serves at the gateway to the Immersive Media concentration. Introduces key concepts and practices needed to create extended reality (XR) experiences and applications. Emphasizes hands-on work.

Requisites: Requires CMDP 3600 as either a prerequisite (minimum grade C-) or a corequisite.

CMDP 3800 (3) Documentary Media Poetics

This course serves as the gateway to the Documentary Media concentration. Investigates documentary cinema and media practices through class discussions, research papers, hands on exercises and screenings. Cross-references documentary photography and moving-image documentary in the production of short digital projects. Explores the distinctive contributions of digital technologies to documentary image making.

Requisites: Requires CMDP 3600 as either a prerequisite (minimum grade C-) or a corequisite.

CMDP 3820 (3) Performance Media Practices

Develop a performance vocabulary within the context of various media platforms. Through creating individual and collaborative performance projects, students will explore performance design issues such as movement, blocking and staging with projection, sensors, sound and other media tools.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 2500 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 3830 (3) Advanced Performance Media Workshop

Study practical, technical and theoretical strategies of performing with and through media. This is an in-depth course that investigates a narrow scope drawn from topics that may include dance/movement, the illustrated lecture, projection environments, digital sensing, responsive lighting or acoustic strategies for performance.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3820 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 3840 (3) Sound Practices

This course serves as the gateway to the Sound Practices concentration. Explores the aesthetics of sound through the study of sound art and sound culture. Reading and discussion covers theories technologies, and histories that drive the medium. Students apply concepts by designing and building their own soundscapes, Class will be organized around hands-on activities, lectures, and discussion of readings.

Requisites: Requires CMDP 3600 as either a prerequisite (minimum grade C-) or a corequisite.

CMDP 3860 (3) Sonic Arts I

Surveys the various tools and techniques in the field of music technology. Topics include an introduction to basic synthesis, digital signal processing, MIDI and audio sequencing, music notation and a historical perspective on electronic music.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: MUSC 2061 and MUEL 2061
Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3840 (minimum grade C-). Restricted to Department of Critical Media Practices (DCMP) undergraduate majors and minors only.

CMDP 3880 (3) Hearing Image, Seeing Sound

Explores how artists, filmmakers, composers, and others have forged connections between sound and image, and how we might learn from them to create our own meaningful creative work. Readings and screenings will dig deep into the geneologies of film sound, and students will create their own imaginative combinations of sound and image throughout the semester.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3840 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 3890 (3) Sound Art

This studio course provides an overview of contemporary sound art and installation, facilitates the development of sonic artwork, and encourages a critical approach to sound and audio practice. How can sound, uniquely powerful in triggering memory and connecting us to the present moment, be used to engage with or challenge specific sites and histories? Class projects might include audio collages, audiovisual works, headphone tours, interactive installations, and public interventions.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3840 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 3910 (3) Media Production Topics

Rotating topics in media production techniques.

Repeatable: Repeatable for up to 6.00 total credit hours.
Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 2500 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 3990 (3) Media Professional Seminar

Learn aspects of professional development in media production. Through workshops, class trips and assignments students will learn of the many opportunities found within media production.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 2500 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4110 (3) Cultures of Digital Sound

Introduces students to a variety of critical scholarship and debates about our sonic environment through an examination of how sound interfaces with different facets of media production. Consisting of listening, analyzing and differentiating sound in different contexts, students will deepen their understanding of the relationship between sight and sound in cultural production.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 1400 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4220 (3) Digital Archives in Media Practices

Examine the theories and methods underpinning the use of archival materials in non-fiction media production while simultaneously exploring questions of ethics, truth and representation that the use and manipulation of archives raises. Through weekly lectures, seminars, readings and screenings, students will discover the theories and interpretive approaches to understanding the archive and its uses.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 1400 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4310 (3) Screen Culture and Globalization

Examine the formation of screen cultures (narrative, experimental, documentaries and multi-media video art) in the context of the cultural globalization of the moving image. Through lectures, seminars and research projects students explore the formation and evolution of screen cultures on various platforms such as digital cinema, web environments, video art, multi-channel installations and the moving image on mobile interfaces.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 1400 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4320 (3) Media Engagement in Digital Diasporas

Offers students critical and interpretive frameworks for understanding the cultural and historical significance of digital diasporas and these communities' use of digital technologies for communication, community building and the creation of digital documents about migration and connectivity with the homeland.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 1400 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4410 (3) Topics in Contemporary Media Technologies

Focus on the development and application of media technologies in moving image aesthetics and emergent media practices. Topics rotate according to faculty expertise, but may include new imaging technologies for small screen and mobile devices, web-specific media or emerging modes of production. Through lectures, screenings and seminars, students explore the work of contemporary thinkers and practitioners in the field.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 1400 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4610 (3) Small Screen Storytelling

Shoot footage on or for mobile screens including narratives, microdocumentaries, music videos, short stories and collaborative exquisite corpse projects. Students will complete work and distribute through various outlets on the internet.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 2500 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4620 (3) Media Environments

Explore the design and implementation of multimedia environments. Students will develop strategies for creating media exhibitions and/or performance environments with projection and sounds activated by sensors. This course is ideal for performers, dancers and media artists as well as those desiring to present information in novel ways, such as working with archival or non-fiction materials.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3820 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4630 (3) Introduction to Computational Media

Develop the technical and conceptual skills for computational media practices. Through individual and collaborative projects, students will explore the creative use of electronics and microcontrollers (including wearable and other embedded systems) through relevant programming environments. Introduces visual programming with a focus on signal processing for image and sound.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 2500 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4640 (3) Multimedia Sound

Learn what sound is and where it comes from; how to create, analyze, alter, mix, and record it digitally in the studio and in the field; and how it can interact creatively with other media. In addition to analyzing how professionals use sound, students will create five sound-based projects of their own.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3840 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4650 (3) Collaborative Performance Media Making

Explores the potential of collaborative performance media making through interdisciplinary, collaborative, media-for-live-performance production. Students create their own original performative works, reflect on both their own and their peers' works, and revise and revisit their creative work.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3820 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4660 (3) Dance for Camera

Explores the practices and techniques of moving-image production course with an emphasis on capturing human movement. The class develops skills in the areas of camera usage, digital editing, choreography, sound, and visual composition.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3820 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4710 (3) Projection Practices

Design and implement projection-based media projects and explore projection practice as a distinct field. Through individual and collaborative projects, this course explores projection for live events, installation, moving images and site-specific or community-based projects. Students will be introduced to emergent software and hardware for projection design.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 2500 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4720 (3) Installation and Performance Media

Focusing on live image and sound processing in constructed or natural environments, students will work individually or collaboratively on an installation project that engages with the intersection of performance and media. Potential models include site specific work, illustrated lecture, gallery installation, movement and dance with projection mapping, participatory media and virtual environments.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3820 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4730 (3) Digital Art and Emergent Technologies

Explores digital artistic practices across contexts and disciplines in various contexts. Emphasizes web and networked media as it applies to digital practices in sound, image, language, spatial and time-based arts.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 2500 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4740 (3) Augmented Reality

Builds on concept and principles learned in CMDP 3750. Introduces more advanced AR technologies and modes of production. Hands-on work allows students to apply theoretical knowledge by designing interactive digital experiences that blend the virtual and physical worlds. Examines ethical and societal implications of AR technology via critical practice and challenges students to evaluate its impact on privacy, accessibility, and cultural norms. Students work independently or in small teams on one semester-long AR project.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3750 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4750 (3) Virtual Reality

This course provides technical training in the arena of virtual reality (VR), as well as an in-depth perspective on the history of VR, its practical and artistic applications as well as its societal implications. Throughout the semester students also engage in discussions centered around best practices for immersive storytelling and user experience.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3750 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4760 (3) Topics in Immersive Media

Rotating topics in extended realities.

Repeatable: Repeatable for up to 6.00 total credit hours.
Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3750 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4810 (3) Advanced Documentary Practices

Combine research and production to produce short documentary media projects, which explore the world we live in. Focusing on practice, this course explores stylistic options employed on documentaries that give voice to different perspectives on the world. Students will be able to identify the tactics and strategies of documentaries in a variety of media, and will include visits with professional documentary makers. Students will complete a final documentary project.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3800 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4820 (3) Ethnographic Media

Explores emerging creative documentary practices through visual research, fieldwork, oral histories and the construction of innovative ethnographies. Through ethno-fiction, eco-ethnography, photography, indigenous media and cinema, students explore the development of ethnographic documentary and visual anthropology in both traditional and experimental forms. Projects are developed with an emphasis on the ethical and political challenges of representation through media technologies.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3800 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4830 (3) Topics in Documentary Media Practices

Apply individual and collaborative skills developed in previous coursework to rotating special topics in advanced documentary media arts practice. In this production course, students will investigate and employ specific theories, methods, and techniques for making documentaries. Areas of focus may include documentary cinematography, producing, and postproduction or themes such as engaged documentary, ethnographic media, environmental documentary, social documentary, archival documentary, etc.

Repeatable: Repeatable for up to 6.00 total credit hours.
Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3800 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4841 (1-6) Undergraduate Independent Study

Repeatable for up to 6.00 total credit hours. Allows multiple enrollment in term.

Repeatable: Repeatable for up to 6.00 total credit hours. Allows multiple enrollment in term.

CMDP 4860 (3) Sonic Arts II

Learn strategies and techniques for generating and manipulating sound with computer-specific tools. Students' projects will include compositions, soundscapes, ambient environments and soundtracks for multimedia and performance projects.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3860 (minimum grade C-). Restricted to Department of Critical Media Practices (DCMP) undergraduate majors and minors only.

CMDP 4865 (3) Interactive Audiovisual Design

Interactive Audiovisual Design is a hands-on introduction to creating live multimedia performances, media art installations, and more. Students will learn to use visual software environments such as Max to patch sounds, data, images, and other media together in exciting ways. These ideas will be synthesized in ongoing workshops, group discussions, and weekly projects, culminating in the creation of a media installation or live performance. No programming knowledge is required, but basic audio skills are recommended.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3840 (minimum grade C-).
Recommended: Prerequisite CMDP 3860 Sonic Arts I (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4870 (3) Sound and Technology

Exploration of issues, techniques and tools of music and sound technology. Topics vary and may include: interactive systems for performance; music and mobile media; electronic music instrument design; digital synthesis and signal processing; music in multimedia; sound practices and analysis. Lecture during work sessions will support student projects.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3840 or MUEL 2061 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4880 (3) Topics in Sound Practices

Apply skills developed in previous coursework to rotating special topics in advanced sound practices. In this production course, students will investigate and employ specific theories, methods, and techniques for making sonic arts projects, alone or in conjunction with other media. Areas of focus may include sound installation, electronic music, film sound, podcasting, radio, or other advanced topics.

Repeatable: Repeatable for up to 6.00 total credit hours.
Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3840 (minimum grade C-).

CMDP 4900 (3) Media Practices Capstone

This Media Production capstone course explores the application of new media technologies in depth and engages students in an ongoing dialogue about the cultural context of new media technologies and their own work. Students will produce a major media project that synthesizes methods of media making into modes of communication and expression. Students are encouraged to take this course during their final semester.

Requisites: Requires prerequisite course of CMDP 3600 (minimum grade C-) and a minimum of 95 credit hours. Restricted to Media Production (DCMP) majors (not minors).

CMDP 4931 (1-6) Internship

Repeatable: Repeatable for up to 6.00 total credit hours. Allows multiple enrollment in term.
Requisites: Requires prerequisite of CMDP 3600 (minimum grade C-). Restricted to MDPD majors.