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/she/they will be able to understand how the concept of medium/media was born, developed, and changed in Western visual culture; he/she/they 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.
Bibliography
The slides used to support the lessons will be uploaded on a weekly basis on the Elly platform. To download the slides, you need to register for the online course. The slides are considered an integral part of the teaching material for all students: attending, non-attending and foreign students. Non-attending students are reminded to check the teaching material available, and the information provided by the teacher through the Elly platform.
Attending students’ program:
- Lecture slides
- Diodato R., Somaini A. (a cura di), Estetica dei media e della comunicazione, Il Mulino, Bologna 2011 (only the second part of the book entitled “Estetica dei Media”)
- Antonio Somaini, L’oggetto attualmente più importante dell’estetica. Benjamin, il cinema e il Medium della percezione, in “Fata Morgana”, 20, 2013, pp. 117-146 (pdf file available on Elly platform)
- Antonio Somaini, Visual Meteorology. Le diverse temperature delle immagini, in Menduni A., Marmo L. (a cura di), Fotografia e culture visuali del XXI Secolo, Roma Tre-Press, Roma, 2018, pp. 31-52 (pdf file available on Elly platform)
- Marshall McLuhan, Quentin Fiore, Il medium è il massaggio, Corraini, Mantova, 2011.
Non-attending students’ program:
- Lecture slides
- Diodato R., Somaini A. (a cura di), Estetica dei media e della comunicazione, Il Mulino, Bologna 2011 (only the second part of the book entitled “Estetica dei Media”)
- Antonio Somaini, L’oggetto attualmente più importante dell’estetica. Benjamin, il cinema e il Medium della percezione, in “Fata Morgana”, 20, 2013, pp. 117-146 (pdf file provided on Elly platform)
- Antonio Somaini, Visual Meteorology. Le diverse temperature delle immagini, in Menduni A., Marmo L. (a cura di), Fotografia e culture visuali del XXI Secolo, Roma Tre-Press, Roma, 2018, pp. 31-52 (pdf file available on Elly platform)
- Marshall McLuhan, Gli strumenti del comunicare, Il saggiatore, Milano, 2015.
Erasmus students’ program:
- Lecture slides
- Diodato R., Somaini A. (a cura di), Estetica dei media e della comunicazione, Il Mulino, Bologna 2011 (only the second part of the book entitled “Estetica dei Media”)
- Marshall McLuhan, Gli strumenti del comunicare, Il saggiatore, Milano, 2015.
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. For any questions about the program please write to jennifer.malvezzi@unipr.it
Teaching methods
Frontal lectures: 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.
Assessment methods and criteria
The exam will be consist in a written test with closed answer 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 above-mentioned 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.
