University at Buffalo Department of Media Studies

600-level courses :: 700-level courses

500-LEVEL

DMS 501 Advanced Film
Lee :: F 11am - 2:40pm :: CFA 232
Reg #327606
This is an advanced level film production course open to undergraduate and graduate students who have successfully completed an intermediate-level film production class and have produced at least one short 16mm film. This course will review the key components of filmmaking from pre-production to post-production with an emphasis on further developing individual ideas and visions. While the class is open to all approaches, emphasis will be placed on unconventional means of storytelling. Students should come to class with an initial concept for a substantive project which they will complete to a fine-cut stage. Students will maintain a production book for the final project that includes pre-production materials, budget, and production notes and logs. Exercises in alternative techniques will be assigned and explored. Hands-on production will be supported with readings, practical and theory-based, and screenings of contemporary and historical work. Students can expect to spend $250 to $400 in additional costs for materials and processing for the course. Students will receive some assistance with supplies and film stock. Lab fee: $100.

DMS 504 Advanced Video Production
Conrad :: R 3:00pm - 6:40pm :: CFA 278
Reg #000373 - Grad
This course is a very hands-on introduction to the real world of the producing and exhibiting video maker. It focuses on some of our most central and troubling creative problems: What kind of project should I make, and why? How do I organize my project? How important is our cultural environment for our work? Is it important to create as individuals or in groups? And what do I do with my work when it's "done"? In this course each individual will develop their own approach to the production of video projects; some will do work that can be completed quickly (preferred!), others will work on longer projects. Some will work alone, others in groups. Much of the class time will be devoted to observing one another's working processes and progress. Each student will be responsible for discussing or showing their work or ideas, or presenting a summary of an assigned topic, during a four-minute time slot each week. In addition, there will be lectures, workshops, and discussions of technical and aesthetic issues including advanced editing, audio, and special effects. Other course activities (productions, showings, field trips) are also an option. Students will use both studio and field production equipment, and will work on nonlinear editing facilities. There is a lab fee for Advanced Video, in addition to which the student should plan for up to $100 in additional costs, including a standard video production text for reference. Regular and punctual attendance at course meetings is mandatory. Grades are based on the number of classroom presentations made (60%), personal progress in work completed (25%), participatory attendance (7.5%), and periodic quizzes on course topics (7.5%). Lab Fee $100.

DMS 515 Media Urbanism
Shepard :: MW 3:00pm-4:50pm :: CFA 246
Reg #108305 Grad
This hybrid studio-seminar focuses on contemporary media art situated in urban space. Through a series of urban research experiments and transdisciplinary readings, students develop skills to critically engage the city and explore alternative urban activities and experiences enabled by a range of mobile, embedded, pervasive, networked and distributed media, communication and information systems. Drawing on a broader discourse involving the technological mediation of urban life, weekly discussions are organized around readings in social and spatial theory, open systems, participatory structures, computer science, human geography and urban form as well as presentations and analyses of contemporary projects in locative media, ambient informatics, and urban computing. Periodic critiques provide a platform for discussing students' ongoing project development and prototyping, with an emphasis on producing a project proposal at the end of the semester that can be submitted to exhibition venues and funding organizations.

DMS 516 Critical Ambient Intelligence
Bohlen :: M 7:00pm - 10:40pm :: CFA 246
Reg #370381 Grad Only
Ambient Intelligence (AmI) refers to research and development of electronic environments that are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people. Born in the technophilic 1990s, AmI is a product of the cybernetics legacy, technological utopia, and profit-oriented experience industries. These conflicting vectors make AmI both a fad to avoid as well as an opportunity to embrace; a chance to rethink the possibility of technology in both private as well as public spaces. In this seminar we will attempt to map a broad understanding of AmI and to expand the default utilitarian role of information processing technologies. Information control and modification is slated to become, just as environmental control already has, a critical design problem within architectural and media arts practices. Readings will range from texts on early cybernetics, robotics, sociological studies of home appliances, pop-culture, to AmI research such as Smart Homes, Ambient Agoras and more. Seminar participants will be challenged towards conceiving satisfying engagements between information processing technologies and built structures in discussions as well as individual and team-based designs. http://www.buffalo.edu/~mrbohlen/ambientintelligence.html

DMS 517 Free Culture
Pape:: F 11:00am - 2:40pm :: CFA 232
Reg #308250 - Grad only
This course will examine the Free Culture movement, via active participation in it - students will be expected to create useful work, and then give it away. The underlying goal will be to understand the nature of modern copyright law, and the efforts of the Free Culture movement to provide an alternative system, one based on sharing rather than strict control. The course is open to students working in any medium. Key/buzzwords include: Copyleft, Creative Commons, Wikipedia, Mashups, Linux, Open Source, Public Domain, "Big Media", Gift Economy, Sonny Bono.

DMS 518 Film Theory
Henderson :: MW 1:00pm - 2:50pm :: CFA 232
Reg #238959- Mostly Undergrad
This course is an exploration of the principal theories of film through a critical reading of texts and a close examination of films. The texts to be perused comprise several groups. Classical film theory includes Munsterburg, Kuleshov, Pudovkin, Eisenstein, Balasz, Arnheim, Bazin, and Godard. The critique of classical film theory includes Burch, Perkins, and Henderson. The course will also explore semiotics, psychoanalysis, and poststructuralism, in Barthes, Eco, Metz , Pasolini, Baudry, Heath, and in feminist film theory, including Gledhill, Mulvey, Silverman, Modleski, Doane, and Studlar. A section on avant-garde theory will include Vertov, Epstein, Deren, Brakhage, Sitney, and Michelson. These topic areas will be set in interaction throughout: e.g., Soviet editing and antirealism are continued in the avant-garde; rhetorical figures such as metaphor, metonymy, ellipsis, condensation, and displacement, can be traced in very different theoretical contexts and in close readings of individual films. This course is an exploration of the principal theories of film through a critical reading of texts and a close examination of films. The texts to be perused comprise several groups. Classical film theory includes Munsterburg, Kuleshov, Pudovkin, Eisenstein, Balasz, Arnheim, Bazin, and Godard. The critique of classical film theory includes Burch, Perkins, and Henderson. The course will also explore semiotics, psychoanalysis, and poststructuralism, in Barthes, Eco, Metz, Pasolini, Baudry, Heath, and in feminist film theory, including Gledhill, Mulvey, Silverman, Modleski, Doane, and Studlar. A section on avant-garde theory will include Vertov, Epstein, Deren, Brakhage, Sitney, and Michelson. These topic areas will be set in interaction throughout: e.g., Soviet editing and antirealism are continued in the avant-garde; rhetorical figures such as metaphor, metonymy, ellipsis, condensation, and displacement, can be traced in very different theoretical contexts and in close readings of individual films.

DMS 528 Social Web Media
Larsen :: mW 6:00pm - 7:50pm :: CFA 112
Reg #017430 Mostly Grad with undergrad section
What defines the future of the Internet? The strategic tag cloud of tomorrow includes terms like The Internet of Things, RFID, Web2.0, Grid Computing, LambdaRail, Internet2 and many others. Social Web Media maps online group formation and emerging computing technologies that amplify cooperation and distributed creativity. While most of the theory in this field is dominated by entrepreneurial management rhetoric, we will focus on independent social web media in the cultural sector. What is worth defending about the current end-2-end Internet? The middle-class household Internet of the developed world enables a culture of sharing in the unregulated commons, free culture (i.e. file sharing, open source culture), cultures of participation and generosity (i.e. citizen journalism, open archives, open journals, knowledge repositories), and network culture (i.e. the ability for self-organized social networks to form). Today, more often than not we are users *and* producers online.

DMS 530 Sewing Curcuits and Wearable Media
E. Conrad :: T R, 3:00 PM - 4:50 PM :: CFA 246
Reg#490159
This production course explores the expressive potential of soft circuitry and wearable media. We will explore the materials and construction techniques of "soft computing" (conductive fabrics, yarns, etc.) to create expressive objects and interactive fashions. Technologies are not merely exterior aids, but interior changes of consciousness. They affect how we understand ourselves by co-structuring possibilities of thought. The focus of this course will be interaction and interrelationship between soft technologies and bodies. There are no prerequisites - introductory electronics and sewing techniques will be reviewed.

DMS 532 Seminar in the Image II
Glazier :: T 3:00pm - 5:50pm :: CFA 232
REG#337335 Grad Only
In this course we will strive for a self-reflective, creative setting that allows for critique and well-informed debate of your work. We will investigate net cultures with both, the due euphoria and the necessary criticism. The group will examine the potential for creative, innovative and surprising uses of emerging networked media. The course offers you a specter of role models that artists using emerging networked media inhabit: from the virtual intellectual to the net.artist, from HTML slave to online guerilla. "Screen-Based Culture" will draw from net criticism, art (history), cultural studies, anthropology, critical theory, poetry, and the news.

DMS 535 Narrative Scriptwriting
Henderson :: MW 9:00am - 10:50am :: CFA 235
Reg #080697 Mostly Undergrad
This course gives students first-hand experience with all the primary aspects and stages of preproduction planning (scriptwriting, storyboarding, and structural diagramming) of a feature film. Script analysis will be a major component of the course. Open to DMS majors who passed portfolio and for Critical Studies majors who obtain permission of instructor.

DMS 538 New Media II
Staff :: TR 5pm-6:50pm :: CFA 244
Reg #155313 - Grads for New Media Certificate only.
This course provides an introduction to design and the production of interactive multimedia. The content of the class will focus on the theoretical and practical aspects of creating and integrating digital media with authoring/presentation tools. This class will lay the foundation for creating interactive projects for the web and CD-ROMS, and will integrate art, journalism, and music through hands-on developmental projects in our Mac lab. Students will learn the process and skills necessary to create a web site and an interactive CD-ROM which integrates animation, graphic design, sound, and text, working in Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Dreamweaver, and Flash animation. Lab fee $100.

DMS 544 Media Robotics 2
Bohlen :: MW 11:00am-12:50pm :: CFA 246
Reg#300081
This course is dedicated to understanding data and data acquisition in the context of digital media arts. Reliably acquiring and interpreting data from external devices is an important part of building non-trivial behaving artifacts. This course will allow students to better understand both the concepts as well as the techniques underlying a variety of data acquisition methods. The course will expose students to fundamental ideas behind sensing, sensor design and sensor interfaces. A substantial part of the course is dedicated to machine vision, an area of active research in both the engineering sciences as well as the arts. Course materials include readings in perception theory, sensor design, fundamentals of machine vision as well as documentation of select art works that engage in advanced sensing methods. Our lab has a wide array of sensor types, an industry grade commercial machine vision library as well as an open source research grade vision library, small footprint microprocessor based ccd cameras, ieee1394 compliant digital cameras, analogue video cameras with fast frame grabber cards and an open source C++ programming environment. With this infrastructure and instructor guidance, students will be able to explore all aspects of data collection. More info at: www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~mrbohlen/machinevision.html. Lab fee $100.

DMS 555 Gender and Film
Goldman :: R 5:00pm - 8:40pm :: CFA 112
Reg #051603
In this course we will explore the history, theory and practice of women and film. We will pay special attention to the way stories by and about women and gender are told. The class will begin with an historical and theoretical overview of women and film, exploring the work of early women directors as well as foundational concepts in women's film theory. Built into the middle of the course will be the six week Buffalo International Women's Film Festival. The latter part of the course will feature contemporary women directors as we consider how earlier films, directors and theory have or have not influenced present day work. Additionally we will consider the rise of queer film and the ways that has impacted representations and understandings of gender.

DMS 598 Project Supervision (1 - 6 cr. Variable)
Permission of Instructor
A student may enroll for this course after completing course requirements and while working on the thesis project. This course is for non-written projects only. One to six credits of the “project supervision” may be applied toward the MAH degree. Course syllabus form should be prepared prior to semester start and one copy should be on file in the Media Study office. Lab fee: $100. For registration information, see Nancy King in 231 CFA.

DMS 599 Supervised Teaching (4 cr. Variable)
Permission of Instructor
See Nancy King in 231 CFA.

600-LEVEL

DMS 600 Independent Study (1 - 8 cr. Variable)
Permission of Instructor
Students may arrange for special courses of study with faculty through “independent study.” The instructor will set the guideline for the course on an individual basis. It permits the student to study independently in an area where no course is given. Course syllabus form should be prepared prior too semester start and one copy should be on file in the Media Study office. For registration info, see Nancy King in 231 CFA. Lab Fee: $100. For registration information, see Nancy King in 231 CFA.

DMS 602 Grad Non Fiction Production
Elder :: W 3:00pm - 6:40pm :: CFA 232
Reg# 471112
This nonfiction workshop is designed to allow graduate students the time and focus to concentrate on developing and making their individual projects - at all stages of their coursework. All work in nonfiction is welcome including documentary, experimental documentary, animation, installation, nonfiction web-based work, hybrid fiction/nonfiction and more. The course is based on presentations and informed critique from theoretical, historical, practical, aesthetic and technological perspectives. Students may work in any stage of production: 1.) /Pre-production/ (research, community networking, preliminary interviews, viewing relevant media, collecting graphic materials and music, identifying archival film/photography, preliminary treatments and budgeting), 2.) /Production/ (shooting, interviewing, re-shoots) and 3.) /Post Production/ (editing, titling, acquiring music and found footage, narration/voice-overs, test screenings etc). Class meetings will be flexible.

DMS 603 Mapping Embodied Networks
Rueb :: TR 7:00pm - 8:50pm :: CFA 246
Reg #462155
Networks are simultaneously physical, social and symbolic systems that mutually shape and are shaped by culture. Thus, networks are ultimately embodied as opposed to "purely informational" systems. How we picture networks and our place within them as human beings is the subject of this seminar.
Manuel Castells has analyzed the inter-relationship of physical and virtual networks and their cultural effects and termed this complex inter-relationship the “space of flows”. In this conception transportation, communication, and information networks commingle to form a system of physical, discursive and informational flows. New forms of public / private space, social interaction and cultural expression have emerged with the proliferation of commercial wireless networked technologies including mobile phones, portable computers, satellite, GPS, cellular, Wi-Fi, RF, and Bluetooth. These technologies have also facilitated new methods of mapping through expanded forms of data gathering, data-mining, and surveillance. Database, interface and network operate in triadic relationship in the mapping of heterogeneous representational systems in instrumental and projective models. Many aspects of networks resist visualization (or other representation) because they are fundamentally discursive in nature or because they lie beyond the realm of human perception or digital representation, extend across massive scales of space and time, or are hidden from view for practical or political reasons. Thus, mapping networks requires a range of methods to be employed, including multimodal / multi-sensory and critical theoretical approaches. In this seminar we will survey and critique historic and contemporary network mappings, mapping methods and their cultural implications. Occasional exercises will engage students in creating their own network mappings.

DMS 627 Supervised Reading (1 - 8 cr. Variable)
Permission of Instructor
This course permits a student to do independent reading in an area where no course may be given. The instructor will set the guidelines for the course on an individual basis. Course syllabus form should be prepared prior too semester start and one copy should be on file in the Media Study office. For registration info, see Nancy King in 231 CFA. Lab Fee: $100

DMS 627 A-X Supervised Reading
Staff *** :: ARR, ARR - ARR
Reg.#000000
Contact the Media Study Department for registration.

DMS 690 Media Arts Internship

DMS 691 CAP Capstone Internship
ARR :: ARR - ARR
Reg.#000000
Contact the Media Study Department for registration.

700-LEVEL

DMS 700 STA Thesis Guidance
Staff *** :: Permission of Instructor :: ARR, ARR - ARR :: CFA ARR
Reg.#000000
A student may enroll in this course after completing course requirements and while writing the thesis. This course is for the written thesis only. One to six credits of  Thesis Guidance may be applied toward an MAH degree. Permission of the instructor is required. Course syllabus form should be completed before the semester s start, and one copy should be on file with the department. For registration info, see Nancy King in 231 CFA.

DMS 700 A - W Thesis Guidance
Staff *** :: ARR, ARR-ARR :: CFA ARR
Reg.#000000
Contact the department for registration.