Ithaca College

New media artist and technologist Nicholas Knouf and new media play theorist and artistic collaborator Claudia Costa Pederson will teach the newly-launched 3 creditFLEFF Lab for Spring 2011. Register at DIIS 12000-01 or DIIS 12000-02.

FLEFF Lab provides students with an immersive experience in new media theory, practice, and rapid prototypinig on the 2011 festival theme of Checkpoints, and interaction with international new media artists and designers

Nicholas Knouf is a new media artist, technologist and software/hardware designer whose research explores the interstitial spaces between information science, critical theory, digital art, and science and technology studies. 

Knouf’s artistic projects have been shown internationally in Spain, Greece, and Brazil. Recent projects have been featured in international exhibitions such as “Esse, nosse, posse: Common Wealth for Common People” at the National Museum for Contemporary Art in Athens, Greece (2010) and electro_online (2009). Past and current work has been recognized by a number awards, including an Honorary Mention by Prix Ars Electronica in [the next idea] category (2005), the Leonardo Abstracts Service (LABS) for his master’s thesis (2008), a memefest Award of Distinction (2008), and a special transmediale “Online Highlight” (2009). Additionally, his work has been discussed in print and online media, including ID Magazine, the Boston Globe, CNN, Slashdot, Afterimage, and networked: a (networked_book) about (networked_art).  Knouf is currently is a PhD candidate in information science at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. More about Nicholas Knouf at his website, http://zeitkunst.org

Claudia Costa Pederson is a "play" theorist and creative collaborator with national and international artists. Her research interests center broadly on the interactions of creativity and collectivity in modalities of thought and artistic practices. Her research and work brings these interests to bear on transnational electronic arts, including videogames and digital performance.

Pederson is currently a PhD candidate in the History of Art and Visual Studies at Cornell University, with dissertation research on how digital play reconfigures the technical, formal, and social in relation to the politics of everyday life. Her research examines the convergence of the fields of art, entertainment, the military, and medicine, through experimental game design. She has published on digital culture, gaming and play in such journals  and online research collaborations as Afterimage, Research Center for CyberCulture Studies, Empyre, and other scholarly and new media publications.

FLEFF Lab: Checkpoints is open to all students from all schools at Ithaca College. No prerequisites, and no prior computer, new media, film, video, or social media experience necessary, just a willingness to work in collaborative teams.

FLEFF Lab: Checkpoints  explores the concept of checkpoints, the FLEFF 2011 festival programming stream,  through a range of theories and practices of social media, social networking, emerging technologies, user-generated content, and other structures. Students will engage in group projects that combine conceptual investigation of open space modes with digital interfaces and social media. Finished projects and prototypes will be mounted on the FLEFF website.  

Course also includes sessions with international new media artists, designers and technologists who will interact via live Skype sessions with students. Course will be team taught by new media theorists/designers/artists/technologists Nicholas Knouf and Claudia Costa Pederson.

For more information on this course, please contact the FLEFF Lab lecturers, Nicholas Knouf, nak44@cornell.edu  or Claudia Costa Pederson ccp9@cornell.edu  On the IC campus, interested students can also contact Patricia Zimmermann, codirector, Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival, at patty@ithaca.edu