NEW MEDIA AESTHETICS (WITH WORKSHOP)
cod. 1008763

Academic year 2020/21
2° year of course - Second semester
Professor
- Jennifer MALVEZZI
Academic discipline
Cinema, fotografia e televisione (L-ART/06)
Field
Metodologie, analisi e tecniche della comunicazione
Type of training activity
Characterising
66 hours
of face-to-face activities
9 credits
hub: PARMA
course unit
in ITALIAN

Learning objectives


Knowledge and understanding: At the end of the course the student will have to know the fundamentals of the history of the concept of medium and the aesthetics of new media.
Knowledge and capacity for applied understanding: the student will be able to recognize and analyze which aesthetic-perceptive instances underlie the development of new media in the field of contemporary communication; he will be able to understand how the concept of medium/media was born, developed and changed in Western visual culture; he will know how the media and the new audiovisual media have changed human perception and communication.
Autonomy of judgment: the student will develop the ability to collect and interpret data useful for determining independent judgments in the context of studies on the aesthetics of new media.
Communication skills: the student will be able to communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions to specialist and non-specialist interlocutors.
Ability to learn: the student will be able to develop learning skills necessary to autonomously complete further studies in the media and audiovisual fields.

Prerequisites


The course is delivered in Italian, as well as the procedures for verifying learning. The understanding of the Italian language is therefore necessary.

Course unit content


In a first phase the lessons will be dedicated to the history of the concept of medium in Western visual culture. In the second phase the focus will be on the main mediological theories and the main stages of the evolution of audiovisual media in relation to human perception. Particular attention will be given to certain methods of multimedia interaction and their use in different contexts for didactic and rhetoric purposes and sensory involvement of the user. Within the course there will be a workshop dedicated to the aesthetics of new media and to the forms of contemporary communication.

Full programme


For Erasmus students only: as “Gli strumenti del comunicare” (1st ed. “Understanding Media: The Extension of man”, 1964) has been published in several languages, foreign students have the opportunity to read the book in their own language.

Bibliography


R. Diodato, A. Somaini (a cura di), Estetica dei media e della comunicazione, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2011 (solo la seconda parte del volume intitolata “Estetica dei Media”)
M. McLuhan, Gli strumenti del comunicare, Il saggiatore, Milano, 2015.
A. Somaini, L’oggetto attualmente più importante dell’estetica. Benjamin, il cinema e il Medium della percezione, in “Fata Morgana”, n. 20, 2013, pp. 117-146.
A. Somaini, Visual Meteorology. Le diverse temperature delle immagini, in A. Menduni e L. Marmo (a cura di), Fotografia e culture visuali del XXI Secolo, Roma Tre-Press, Roma, 2018, pp. 31-52.

Teaching methods


Frontal lessons: during the lessons the topics of the course will be discussed in depth with the vision of audiovisuals and digital sources. The lessons will be structured with the aim of stimulating the students to discuss and debate on the topics dealt with in the classroom. The workshop within the course will focus on individual and/or group exercises. In the Academic Year 2020/201 the course will be remote on the Teams platform (see instructions on Elly).

Assessment methods and criteria


The exam will be oral and aimed at verifying the comprehension and learning ability of the scheduled texts and the audiovisual material proposed in class (the teacher will indicate the digital links of the audiovisual material available online on the Elly platform by the end of the course).
The evaluation criteria will be linked to the degree of satisfaction with respect to the parameters below.
An assessment of insufficiency is determined by the lack of knowledge of the minimum contents of the course. A sufficient evaluation (18-23 / 30) is determined by an acceptable level of preparation by the student of the abovementioned evaluation indicators; the average scores (24-27 / 30) are awarded to the student who proves to have a level more than sufficient (24-25/30) or good (26-27/30) of the above evaluation indicators, the highest scores (from 28/30 to 30/30 cum laude) are awarded based on the demonstration of a level from excellent to excellent.
In the academic year 2020/2021 the exam tests will be remote on the Teams platform (see instructions on Elly).

Other information


For any questions about the program write to jennifer.malvezzi@unipr.it