This document provides an introduction to a course on the digital liberal arts. It discusses the history of the liberal arts as stemming from the medieval trivium and quadrivium. It notes how the liberal arts curriculum has changed over time. The document asks students about their majors and explores how the digital represents information through binary code. It gives examples of how different media like music, art, and text can be represented digitally. The course will examine how reasoning and rhetoric change with new digital media and technologies. Students are assigned homework to set up course accounts and install software in preparation for the seminar.
39. Plan of the Course
• Seminar and studio tracks (Tues and Thurs)
• Survey of ideas, projects, and technologies
• Historical, Critical, and Practical
• Focus on core theme of how rhetoric and
reasoning change with the new media
– Are linear, verbal arguments side effects of literacy?
– Do new media bring there new forms of reasoning?
• See WordPress site and syllabus
40. Homework!
– Set up your home directories
• http://its.virginia.edu/homedir/
– Install JEdit on your computer
• http://www.jedit.org/
– Read Kirschenbaum, “Hello Worlds”
• To be posted …
To understand this question, we need to understand the core idea of the digital … what does “digital” mean?
So, these are ZEROS and ONES. This is how things have to be represented in order for computers to “understand” them. Every computer, from you Android or iPhone to your car to your laptop to the information system that stores your grades and transcript – speaks this and only this language.
Like words … this I the ASCII code
http://www.turbulence.org/Works/song/method/method.htmlhttp://www.turbulence.org/Works/song/mono.htmlFor example, the picture above was built from the first line of a very simple piece: Mary Had a Little Lamb. Each arch connects two identical passages. To clarify the connection between the visualization and the song, in this diagram the score is displayed beneath the arches.