Democracy, Governance, and the Digital Network

Note: There is no formal class meeting on this Tuesday, instead you have time to work on the assignment for Thursday. (This doesn’t mean that you might not want to come to class, and use this as lab time to work, since it is already carved out of your day.)

Thursday you will be presenting your idea for “remixing” one of the short stories we read the first week of class in light of some of the discussions we have had about texts this week. The idea is not to produce a fully remixed version, rather you want to produce a sketch of what it would look like. Think of this as a concept document, or design document. So, you want to spell out what the whole idea would look like, and produce some images to show the rest of the class your vision. For example if you were going to re-mix a “Medieval Romance” as a YouTube serial (similar to KateModern) you could do a mock-up of the web page and describe how long each video would be. What would the setting be (sci-fi, modern times, fantasy etc.)? how they would be distributed? would it leverage social networks etc.? You would not need to film the whole series (you could film a 30 second clip if you want to be ambitious and show the aesthetics you would be going for). You can work in groups of up to 4 although the size of the group is up to you. Each group will need a short write-up explaining the remix, approx. 250-300 words. Any images or videos you want to show should be uploaded to the web (flickr, youtube, etc., prior to class), or brought to class on a thumb drive or emailed me prior to class in order to make it easy for you to show everyone. (Email or bring said files in easily viewable formats, i.e. .pdf or .jpg.) Come prepared to have someone from your group present it to the whole class.

In order for you to have time to dedicate to this project (I want to be impressed, in fact I expect to be impressed) Tuesday is a workshop day. That is you have no homework for that day, and you can have the entire class on Tuesday to work on these. (Note I will not be in class that day.)

Some guiding thoughts:
• Think about remixing the story in a way that is only possible once we have computers, i.e. not just cutting up “The Deathbird” and putting it on notecards.
• Be bold and creative, no need to work out all the little details, think vision not obstacles.
• Think about balancing immersion and interactivity, and just what types of interactivity you are going to allow.
• It is hard for me to tell you exactly how much you should bring with you, or how much you have to produce. But think of it this way, it is your homework for two class periods, plus in class time on Tuesday, so each of you should spend 5-6 hours working on this.

If you missed class and have questions on this email me or if you want feedback on your project between now and Thursday.