Prototyping and Pedagogyin the Humanities

Jentery Sayers | UVic | Maker Lab | @jenterysayersStanford University | 24 April 2015Slides Online: jentery.github.io/stanford/

Teaching at UVic

DHum 150: web.uvic.ca/~englblog/150f2013/

DHum 250: uvicmakerlab.github.io/dhum250/

DHum 350: jentery.github.io/dhum350/

Example Work: jentery.github.io/350talks/

English 466: web.uvic.ca/~englblog/466f2012/

English 507: jentery.github.io/507/

Example Work: jentery.github.io/507panel/

DHSI: dhsi.org

Scholarship ofTeaching and Learning

Kairos: kairos.technorhetoric.net

Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities (MLA Books): github.com/curateteaching/digitalpedagogy

Prototyping and Pedagogy

Transduction LiteracyRemaking as MethodCreative or Built HumanitiesSpeculation over Representation

Today: Four Examples

McPherson on Media Studies + Digital Humanities

Example 1: Hardware

Building, Bending, Hacking, Modding (see Collins) Informed by Platform Studies + Media Art Invested in Interface and Embodiment Glitches Are Features, Not Exceptions

"Glitch Controls"

By Nina Belojevic + Jon Johnson Modified NES Console and SNES Controller Circuit Bending as Primary Technique Critique of Screen Essentialism + Immaterial Labor

Rather than engaging videogames primarily through the screen,hardware hacking offers a tacit form of interactionoften resistant to symbolic or graphical logic.

Hardware Pedagogy

Demands Attention to Manufacture (see Belojevic) Prompts Tangible Awareness of Audience (see Johnson) Learning through Repair (see Rosner) Ground Theory in Material Particulars (see Kirschenbaum)

Example 2: Simulations

Rehabilitate or Mimic Events Informed by Software + Information Studies (see Fuller) Invested in Abstraction and the Materiality of Form Experiment with Procedures in Real Time

"From Grain to Glitch"

By Patrick Close Archival Work Based in Microsound and Noise Prototype in Max/MSP (Visual Programming) Simulate Iannis Xenakis’s "Sound Particles" (1954-1970s)

Continuous movement from the ephemeral click to the stochastic massto the pure sine tone and finally to white noise (and back again)

Simulation Pedagogy

Demands a Productive Reduction (see McCarty) Students Remediate and Teach Concepts (see Drucker et al.) Learning through Process Modeling (see Close) Understand Systems by Reproducing Relations (see Molleindustria)

Example 3: Indie Games

Games Are Zines (see Anthropy) Informed by Design + Cultural Studies Invested in Games as Writing, Rhetoric, Gifts + Biography Experiment with DIY/DIO Production and Publication

"Right"

By Danielle Morgan Videogame Prototype in Axure Game Manual in Ink and Paper Play with the Concept of "Geometric Ethnography"

In a world of right angles, you search for acuteness.

Indie Game Pedagogy

Demands Creative and Conceptual Thinking (see Flanagan) Approach Games as Values (see kopas) Learning through Design Workshops (see Fullerton) Test How Processes Are Persuasive (see Bogost)

Example 4: Design Fiction

Enact a Technocultural Future (Dystopia, Utopia, or...) Informed by Design + Film Studies (see Sterling) Invested in Performing or Rehearsing Possibilities Speculate about (Unrecognized) Wants, Needs, and Uses

HyperLit

By Nina Belojevic + Jon Johnson Wireframe in Balsamiq Prototype in Paper and Video Use Joyce to Parody the Attention Economy

Interactions encourage audiences to become aware ofhow gamification renders them productive subjects.

Design Fiction Pedagogy

Demands Conjectural Criticism (see Kraus) Imagine Beyond Instrumentalism (see Lukens + DiSalvo) Create Conditions for Narrative and Experience (see Roesler) Hermeneut Inhabits the System (see Drucker + Nowviskie)

Pedagogical Issues

Beyond "Brochure" Humanities (Test Ideas in Things) Understand "Making" Broadly (Not Only Computational) Resist "You Must Code" (Design + Writing, Too) Synthesized Arguments (Not Just Process Documentation) Determining Foundations (Require a Platform? A Standard?) The Relevance of Place (Collaborating On- and Offline) Assessment Across Disciplines (Create a Rubric?)

For more research, see Ball, Kuhn, Selfe, and Vee.

Thank You

Jentery Sayers | UVic | Maker Lab | @jenterysayersStanford University | 24 April 2015

Special thanks to:Mike Widner, Jordan Thomas Chin + Daniel Bush