DMS Student Showcase 2021

DMS 201 Green Media

DMS 201 Green Media header.

This course analyzes fictional and documentary media that investigate our relationship to nature: climate change, pollution, environmental justice, wildlife extinction. The course interprets the word media broadly to include film, games, social media, media-art, big data visualization, simulation and sensing. It examines the consciousness-raising power of film, media and journalism; traces the ecological impact of our obsession with the latest media device; and ponders the relationship between our feelings about our changing planet (denial, engagement, optimism, hopelessness) and our actions.

Contemporary media constructs our understanding of nature and reflects our fears and fantasies about rapidly changing environmental conditions. "Green Media" students read Donna Haraway's text, "Staying with the Trouble" and use her ideas as a lens to analyze projects (fictional & fact-based) that investigate our relationship to climate change, pollution, environmental justice, wildlife extinction. The course interprets the word media broadly to include film, games, podcasts, social media, media-art, big data visualization, simulation and sensing. In the class we unpack questions of the consciousness-raising power of media; engage material perspectives that trace the physical impact of our media obsessions; ask biopolitical questions of human/non-human boundaries; and examine affect-driven attitudes of eco- optimism, pessimism, gaia-ism, nihilism.

Daniel Casper, Rishi Roy, & Abigail Stressinger

Walden

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During the semester groups of students played video games with environmental themes and created critical presentations of the games. As a walking simulator game, "Walden" aims to provide a relaxing experience by encouraging the players to find inspiration through nature, books, journaling, and simple survival tasks.

Walden PDF

Nick James, Hannah Jennings, & Jessika Schiffer

Never Alone: Game Review

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During the semester groups of students played video games with environmental themes and created critical presentations of the games. "Never Alone" is a side-scrolling platformer lead by two main characters, Nuna an Iñupiaq girl and Fox the arctic fox. Together they embark on a journey to solve the mystery of the blizzards that are destroying their homes.

Never Alone PDF

Brooke Pohlman, Reidun Richards, & Yuki Wong

FAR: Lone Sails Analysis

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During the semester groups of students played video games with environmental themes and created critical presentations of the games. "FAR: Lone Sails" is set in a later time of our "Anthropocene", the harrowing age of mankind's influence.

FAR: Lone Sails PDF

GREEN MEDIA SOCIAL ACCOUNTS

Instagram and twitter

Below are some of our social media accounts:

DMS 201 Social Media

2021 DMS Courses

  • DMS 103 Basic Video (Section 2)
    5/12/21
    This course provides an introduction to the technical and aesthetic practice of video production and post-production, with a critical eye to both form and content. Through lectures, readings, exercises, and projects, as well as screenings of historical and contemporary film and video work, students will gain an understanding of film and video language and explore conceptual strategies for the development of creative approaches to digital video making.
  • DMS 462/562 Game Design
    5/12/21
    DMS 462 is a production course that allows students to explore the fabulous and sometimes frightening world of Game Design. Games are all around us in modern culture, ranging from video games to board and card games to sports to politics (Game of Thrones, anyone?) and beyond. 
  • DMS 435/535 Scriptwriting
    5/15/21
    In this production workshop students concentrate on writing and editing script elements for all kinds of media including film, video, game, installation, AR, VR location- or web-based projects. The course explores traditional and experimental methods for generating and structuring text for any genre of fictional, documentary or hybrid work. Scripts include original writing, interviews, collaged or found fragments - which may be performed, heard or displayed in the final piece.
  • DMS 103 Basic Video (Section 1)
    5/14/21
    Basic Video is a beginner level production class on the uses of digital video, moving image, and media as a medium of artistic expression and communication. There is a mixture of history, theory, artistic practice, technique, analysis, and there is a distinctive focus on learning while making.
  • DMS 534 Media Archaeology
    5/11/21
    In this theory/practice seminar, students will interrogate the strain of scholarly and artistic practices concerned with the cultural and material histories of media technology known as media archaeology.
  • DMS 480 Social Media & Networks (Section 1)
    5/21/21
    In this online course, we will learn about, critique, and create social media and networks theory. Through media theory and case studies, we will analyze social media and networks; through online discussion, we will develop our ideas; and finally, through creation we will implement our learning into action. By the end of the course, you will have a better understanding and will be able to critically read, analyze, and write about social media from a variety of perspectives. Along with rigorous reading and writing, students will engage through creative making and collective presentations. In doing so, we adhere to learning through creating.
  • DMS 201 Green Media
    5/11/21
    This course analyzes fictional and documentary media that investigate our relationship to nature: climate change, pollution, environmental justice, wildlife extinction. The course interprets the word media broadly to include film, games, social media, media-art, big data visualization, simulation and sensing. It examines the consciousness-raising power of film, media and journalism; traces the ecological impact of our obsession with the latest media device; and ponders the relationship between our feelings about our changing planet (denial, engagement, optimism, hopelessness) and our actions.
  • DMS 418/518 Landscape Projections
    8/18/22
    “Landscape Projections” is an advanced special topics course exploring landscape as a medium, predominantly through the lens of time-based media. “Projections” implies cinematic presentation, but we expand this idea of projection (from Latin projectio(n-), from proicere ‘throw forth’), exploring ideas around forecasts, mappings, visions, and transmission, as we consider a wide range of artists and filmmakers re-envisioning both the natural and manufactured landscape through cinematic geographies and spatial practices.
  • DMS 474 Media Theories and Approaches
    5/15/21
    Media theory investigates the technoculturaloperation of media, including media technologies and social practices. The basic question media theory must ask is “what is media?” If something is identified as media, is it always media or only under certain circumstances? For example, paint is a mediumwhen used for a painting, but what about on a wall or in a can? Air is a medium for sound and music, but what about when the world is silent? Fiber optic cables, wifi signals, and the internal operations of a computer delivering a film on a laptop are media, but so is the film. How do they relate? Conversely, what is not media?
  • DMS 342 Intermediate Documentary Workshop
    5/13/21
    Intermediate Documentary is an intensive workshop in nonfiction film production, with an emphasis on both hands-on practice of documentary filmmaking and in-depth study of the art of nonfiction filmmaking. Production projects helpedstudents develop conceptual and technicalproficiency, including knowledge of the development, production, and post production ofnonfiction films. Readings, writing assignments, and class presentations will deepen students’understanding of nonfiction filmmaking and storytelling.
  • DMS 213 Immigration & Film (Section 2)
    5/21/21
    This course offers an introduction to South Korean drama and cinema with attention to
    Korean culture and history, TV/cinema/visual cultural analysis, and within the contexts Korean cultural global reach also understood as Hallyu or the Korean Wave. Students will study South Korean drama and film through thematics such as historical development, aesthetics, genre, auteur theory, stardom, subtitling, and the politics of distribution.
  • DMS 606 Sound and Space
    5/11/21
    In this course, students interested in learning more about music and sound, and sound’s relationship with and existence ins pace, have been experimenting with creating virtual spaces. (This was particularly germane since the class took place over Zoom, an entirely virtual space.) We have analyzed how sound behaves in real spaces, both natural and human-built, with the goal of understanding how these spaces influence sound, and human perception. 
  • DMS 302 Experimental Moving Image
    5/14/21
    “Experimental Moving Image” is an intermediate level undergraduate production class introducing students to alternative approaches to the moving image, from abstraction and collage, personal documentary and hybrid narratives, to stop-motion and video installation, across single and multiple screens.
  • DMS 598 Project Supervision
    5/12/21
    Graduate Student Project Supervision taught by Margaret Rhee
  • DMS 341: Intermediate Video
    5/13/21
    This course took place in the fall of 2020 and was an intensive workshop in fiction film production, with an emphasis on both hands-on practice of fiction filmmaking and in-depth study of the art of fiction filmmaking. 
  • DMS 448 Games, Gender & Culture
    5/12/21
    DMS 448: Games, Gender And Culture provides a comprehensive investigation of the emerging field of Games Studies, the critical analysis of games and interactive environments made possible by the computer. We will address different theoretical perspectivesthat view games and gaming as historical, social, cultural. aesthetic, technical, performative, and cognitive phenomenon. 
  • DMS 441 Advanced Video Production
    5/14/21
    This production course is designed to build on and further students’ conceptual and technical skills in video production. Through a combination of in-class workshops and exercises, assigned projects, and close attention to visual, creative motion picture ideation, students will strive to produce thoughtful, personally meaningful, technically proficient videos.