Overview
Professor: Susana Ruiz
Time: Thursday 9:50am-12:50pm
Location: Comm Basement Computer Lab (Room 11) and Comm Studio B
Contact: suruiz@ucsc.edu / 831.502.7564
Office Hours: Friday 10am-12pm in Comm 149C. Please make an appointment here. (Please note that we can also meet outside of my official Office Hours by appointment.)
General Description: This thematic, graduate-level, hybrid, production/critical studies course provides opportunities to learn specific technical skills while engaging in the analysis and critical interpretations of cinema, social documentary, animation, art, television, and new media. Technical topics may include animation; motion graphics; interactive web media; and installation, editing, cinematography, and sound.
Specifically, in winter 2018, the course will have a focus on the intersection between documentary cross-platform storytelling, social activism, and media design. The course is a hybrid studio/seminar course where participants engage in creative media production as well as critical discussion. Participants investigate the potentials and frictions that arise when combining activism, non-fiction storytelling, and the design of interactive media and playful systems.
Key theoretical and practical questions this course will pose include:
- How might we communicate to a broad public why interactive media and games matter in contemporary culture and how they may play a crucial role in social justice and political resistance?
- How can we elevate and establish play-oriented approaches to documentary storytelling, art praxis, and activism, and why should (or shouldn’t) we?
- What can design thinking contribute to the documentary filmmaking and activist communities, and vice versa?
- How can interactive media and playful systems authentically and ethically document subjective realities as well as intervene in society and help imagine and create a better future?
Participants will approach the topic from a variety of perspectives, drawing from their own ongoing graduate work as well as on a range of art practices, cultural studies, game studies, and cinema studies. Participants will maintain creative + critical online spaces, develop digital and non-digital designs, and explore the iterative game design process. Class guests may end up being an important part of the course experience and help shape the direction of the topics and projects.