What is Media Philosophy - a fad or a new paradigm? One thing is clear: It is time for media practioners to get serious about the conceptual underpinnings of mediation.
This graduate level seminar will lead you through previous and current ideas of how select philosophers, many situated in the European context, are evaluating the effect of media on thinking. We will follow these ideas and ask ourselves: What are the consequences for media art makers?

W1 (Aug 31)
Introduction

W2 (Sept 7)
1 Walter Benjamin: “The Artwork in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”
2 Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Message, 1967

W3 (Sept 14)
3 Allan Turing: “Computing, Machinery and Intelligence”

W4 (Sept 21)
4 Donna Haraway: “A Cyborg Manifesto”

W5 (Sept 28)
5 Frank Hartmann: Discipline Design: The Rise of Media Philosophy (Interview mit G. Lovink)
6 Alan Kay: “Personal Dynamic Media”

W6 (Oct 5)
7 Friedrich Kittler: “The History of Communication Media”

W7 (Oct 12)
reading assignment

W8 (Oct 19)
8 Maurice Merleau-Ponty: “Phenomenology of Perception”
Routledge Classics + Dreyfus on Merleau-Ponty

W9 (Oct 26)
9 Mark Hansen: “New Philosophy for New Media”
chapter 6: affective topology of new media art / chapter 7: body times

W10 (Nov 2)
10 Hakim Bey: “ T. A. Z. “
11 Richard Stallman: “The GNU Manifesto”

W11 (Nov 9)
12 Francisco Varela: “The Specious Present : A Neurophenomenology of Time Consciousness”
13 Jean Baudrillard: “ Requiem for the Media”

W12 (Nov 16)
14 Paul Miller: “Rhythm Science”, MIT Press

W13 (Nov 23)
15 Shery Turkle: “Video Games and Computer Holding Power“

W14 (Nov 30)
16 Matthew Fuller: “It looks like you are writing a letter”

W15 (Dec 7)
Presentations

W16 (Dec 14)
Proposals due via electronic submission – no paper copies (hard deadline)