New Media

Humanities students in this course develop an understanding of the general methods, concepts and processes driving the ongoing, contemporary practice of new media. They gain valuable insight and knowledge into the uniquely collaborative, technical and multi-layered characteristics of new media authorship. After being instructed on various technologies and new media products, on a basic level, the humanities student will also have opportunity to take part in practical case studies and to contribute to the group work of their peers at the School of Arts UNG, namely student practitioners who are developing their ideas for new media projects. Thus humanities students are introducing theor specific knowledge into project conceptions and thir implementation (materials, research), expanding own theoretical, and to a more limited extent applied understanding of new media as creative tools and environments.

Basic computer and Web/internet literacy.

Any form of contemporary arts practice co-creates and responds to its time and environment, in which artistic products, events and processes regularly appear as “new”; these “new” forms are innovative, (co-)creative and may be critical in terms of reflecting their own medium. One can use or create the contents of so-called “new media” only with the help of contemporary computer technologies; yet man himself, a highly connected being of diverse communities, remains the key factor in new technology interactions. The cycles of (re)invention and (re)creation in man’s use of information-communication devices and protocols open up the most fruitful creative fields of modern times, as reflected both in the intimately personal and in mass and social arts and productions.

This course, otherwise also acting as the first of three annual cycles of the undergraduate programme Digital Arts and Practices (School of Arts, University of Nova Gorica) is intended for students of diverse fields across the humanities who would like to gain familiarity with and exposure to computer techniques and technologies, mobile technologies, the internet, various creative modes of the digital processing words, images, sounds and movement, all this for the purpose of better theoretical understanding of creative and artistic expression within digitally supported premises such as installations (galleries, exhibitions) or performative contexts (stage, events), web and virtual environments, internet of things, artificial inteligence, big data, robotics etc.

Considering the various possibilites existing in inter-media or new-media artistic practice on digital platforms and their tools, the course offers preliminary knowledge and skills for potential work in the artistic context as well as in creative industries and other innovative branches of media production in both institutional and public spaces, and, last but not least, in private, corporate, or business contexts.

Knowledge and understanding:
- awareness of contemporary new media technologies and applications, and of the use in artistic and the related creative media-production environments;
- understanding of digital technologies and applications, and awareness of their possibilities from the point of view of artistic and the related creative media-production environments;
- discernment and critical awareness of specific, significant phenomena in the media communication, or in the artistic and the related creative production;
- awareness of communication, technical and creative specifics pertaining to the media-production contexts and related to the new media, particularly in the field of art;
- awareness of and interest in making comparative judgements concerning production tools in the field of new media in the artistic domain, and the ability of selecting appropriate combination of new media technologies and concepts for an individual artistic or creative purpose;
- basic skills of communicating and co-creating with the bigger media technologies (image, sound, word, body and space, interactive and multiple media) and in an intercation with them;
- ability to organise creative project work and awareness of the ethical and sustainable aspects in such work;
-proactivity within an autonomous development of skills and abilities related to knowledge use in the field of new media.

• Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. The MIT Press, 2002. Catalogue E-version
• Purg, Peter. Uvod v medije. IAM, 2008. E-version
• Elizabeth Bilyeu; Kelsey Ferreira; Luke Peterson; and Christine M. Weber: Understanding New Media Art. Portland Community College, 2022. E-version

Web sources:

• Rhizome.org, www.rhizome.org
• Ars Electronica, https://ars.electronica.art
• Transmediale, https://transmediale.de
• Webby Awards www.webbyawards.com
• Rama Hoetzlein: What is New Media Art? & Timeline of 20th c. Art and New Media, http://www.rchoetzlein.com E-version

Proactivity and minor running tasks 30 %

Project documentation 40 %

Project presentation and discussion 30 %

pETER Purg currently leads the New Media module in the Digital//Media Arts and Practices graduate//postgraduate programme at the School of Arts, University of Nova Gorica, where he acts as Associate Professor, projects coordinator as well as expert across realms of digital culture and media. Since December 2021 he is Dean of the School of Humanities. Having obtained a PhD in media art, communication science and literary studies from the University of Erfurt (Germany), his scientific inquiries now include media arts pedagogy, interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation, media art and media ecology. His artistic interests range from (lecture) performances and intermedia installations to public-space interventions as well as participatory creative processes. He is active in the field of cultural and higher education policymaking and quality assurance.

pETER Purg recently lead the acclaimed MAST - Module in Art, Science and Technology project (DG Connect) and is currently leading School of Arts' teams in two large-scale projects KONS - Platform for Investigative Arts (EU Cohesion) and DIVA - Art:Biz Innovation Ecosystem (Interreg SI-IT). He curated the 20th international media/contemporary art festival Pixxelpoint 2019 and is currently leading two projects for the GO! BORDERLESS 2025 European Capital of Culture: the art-sicence-DIY lab xMobil, and the media-arts+performance series PostMobility.

He successfully lead international projects across art, culture and academia such as ADRIART (Advancing Digitally Renewed Interactions in Art Teaching), IDEATE (Interdisciplinary Entrepreneurial Application for Transforming Education in High Technologies) as well as the award-winning HiLoVv (Hidden Lives of Venice on Video) and was Slovenian team leader in the PAIC - Participatory Art for Invisible Communities , EmindS (Erasmus+) and TV Free Europe (Creative Europe) projects.