Course
Schedule: Wednesdays, 1:00-4:00 except for agreed-upon schedule changes
Course Locations: Critical Media Lab, 158 King Street W, Kitchener; Communitech Hub 151, Charles Street W, Kitchener
Course e-mail list: necromedia |at| uwaterloo.ca
Required Course Texts: All texts will be provided via the UW-LEARN site
Professor O'Gorman's Office Hours: Tues 1-3, 258 Hagey Hall, or by appointment
The Critical
Media Lab is a research/creation centre in downtown Kitchener close to City Hall. The lab supports research projects,
installations, performances, and other interventions that examine the
impact of technology on society and the human condition. Regular courses will be held in the Communitech Hub (Old Tannery Building) at the corner of Charles and Victoria streets in Kitchener. We will meet in the Jelly Bean Room. The Hub is a digital media incubation complex that houses offices for Google, Desire2Learn, and several digital start-ups.
COURSE
CONCEPT
Building
first of all on the theories of psychologist and philosopher Ernest
Becker, this course will introduce students to a new field of study
that I have called “necromedia theory," which aims to
provide a universal, psychosocial analysis of contemporary technoculture.
Besides Ernest Becker, the "necromedia theorists" studied
in this course include Bernard Stiegler, John Durham Peters, Cary Wolfe, Giorgia Agamben,
Katherine Hayles, and Martin Heidegger, among others
Students in the course will have the opportunity to develop a critical media "game" that makes use of advanced biofeedback, geolocational, and visualization technologies. The course will also host N. Katherine Hayles and her colleagues Patrick Jagoda and Patrick Lemieux for a week-long workshop building on their game "Speculation." Final projects will be showcased at Congress 2012 on the Critical Media Lab Mobile Unit.
