Final Projects Wikis

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The Wikis are here.

Notes on Website Architecture

Wikis include

• Brainstorming, research, web links
• Project proposal (due April 18), including:

  Single paragraph description of the project. The paragraph should include at least a sentence on each of the following: a) a statement of the problem or situation (what the project engages with), b) a statement of the exact activity and/or deliverable of the project (what it is), c) and a statement of outcomes (what change or new understanding this project might create).

  Single paragraph elaborating the statement of the problem or situation in your description paragraph (a).

  Single paragraph establishing a theoretical context for your project. Describe the background theory (tactical media or psychogeography) by summarizing and quoting the appropriate background texts (refer to links from the syllabus). Focus on the particular aspects of theory relevant to your project.

  Single paragraph elaborating the statement of activity or deliverable in your description paragraph (b). Describe how you will carry out the necessary research or other activities. Describe what users will encounter on the website.

  At least two paragraphs comparing and contrasting at two similar projects (i.e. at least one paragraph per project). These can be drawn from the links on the syllabus or may be things you find on your own. For each example, summarize the project and discuss how it relates to your project.

  Single paragraph elaborating the statement of outcomes from your description paragraph (c). If the project includes some conceptual elements – for example, if the project plans particular changes or events beyond what you can achieve in the rest of the semester – then provide a clear and feasible path towards these events.

• Final presentation (re-organized wiki)
• Grading will be based on the final wiki. In addition, each group member must email Sandy a brief letter describing the group experience. Use the letter to address the overall value of the group project, but also to highlight dysfunctions in the group, including inequities in the work done. Group members all receive the same grade for their project, with a possible differential based on the email evaluation.

Projects are fully realized proposal for actual tactical media or psychogeographic interventions. Topics are focused on local settings (Morgantown).

Tactical media

"Tactical Media are what happens when the cheap do it yourself media, made possible by the revolution in consumer electronics and expanded forms of distribution (from public access cable to the internet) are exploited by groups and individuals who feel aggrieved by or excluded from the wider culture. ... Tactical media are media of crisis, criticism and opposition." - Geert Lovink and David Garcia.

"Thus, tactical media means the bottom-up struggle of the networks against the power centers." - Alex Galloway

• define a local problem and create a tactical media intervention
• problems must be questions of unequal power, distribution of resources, access to information
• interventions must be feasible and legal, but can include conceptual and parodic elements

Psychogeography

"The study of specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals." - Guy Debord

• define a real geographical environment and create an event in that space
• events connect, integrate, explore, wander... in short, return to space as lived space
• your wikis organize and plan the event
• events must be feasible and legal, but can include conceptual and parodic elements