Prototyping and Pedagogy
in the Humanities
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Image of Edward Jones-Imhotep + Jacqueline Wernimont care of the Maker Lab
Scholarship of
Teaching and Learning
Prototyping and Pedagogy
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Today: Four Examples
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McPherson on Media Studies + Digital Humanities
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Example 1: Hardware
Building, Bending, Hacking, Modding (see Collins)
Informed by Platform Studies + Media Art
Invested in Interface and Embodiment
Glitches Are Features, Not Exceptions
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"Glitch Controls"
By Nina Belojevic + Jon Johnson
Modified NES Console and SNES Controller
Circuit Bending as Primary Technique
Critique of Screen Essentialism + Immaterial Labor
Rather than engaging videogames primarily through the screen,
hardware hacking offers a tacit form of interaction
often resistant to symbolic or graphical logic.
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Hardware Pedagogy
Demands Attention to Manufacture (see Belojevic)
Prompts Tangible Awareness of Audience (see Johnson)
Learning through Repair (see Rosner)
Ground Theory in Material Particulars (see Kirschenbaum)
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Example 2: Simulations
Rehabilitate or Mimic Events
Informed by Software + Information Studies (see Fuller)
Invested in Abstraction and the Materiality of Form
Experiment with Procedures in Real Time
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"From Grain to Glitch"
By Patrick Close
Archival Work Based in Microsound and Noise
Prototype in Max/MSP (Visual Programming)
Simulate Iannis Xenakis’s "Sound Particles" (1954-1970s)
Continuous movement from the ephemeral click to the stochastic mass
to the pure sine tone and finally to white noise (and back again)
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Image and Max patch care of Patrick Close
Simulation Pedagogy
Demands a Productive Reduction (see McCarty)
Students Remediate and Teach Concepts (see Drucker et al.)
Learning through Process Modeling (see Close)
Understand Systems by Reproducing Relations (see Molleindustria)
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Example 3: Indie Games
Games Are Zines (see Anthropy)
Informed by Design + Cultural Studies
Invested in Games as Writing, Rhetoric, Gifts + Biography
Experiment with DIY/DIO Production and Publication
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"Right"
By Danielle Morgan
Videogame Prototype in Axure
Game Manual in Ink and Paper
Play with the Concept of "Geometric Ethnography"
In a world of right angles, you search for acuteness.
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Indie Game Pedagogy
Demands Creative and Conceptual Thinking (see Flanagan)
Approach Games as Values (see kopas)
Learning through Design Workshops (see Fullerton)
Test How Processes Are Persuasive (see Bogost)
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Example 4: Design Fiction
Enact a Technocultural Future (Dystopia, Utopia, or...)
Informed by Design + Film Studies (see Sterling)
Invested in Performing or Rehearsing Possibilities
Speculate about (Unrecognized) Wants, Needs, and Uses
Image care of Nina Belojevic + Jon Johnson
HyperLit
By Nina Belojevic + Jon Johnson
Wireframe in Balsamiq
Prototype in Paper and Video
Use Joyce to Parody the Attention Economy
Interactions encourage audiences to become aware of
how gamification renders them productive subjects.
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Video care of Nina Belojevic and Jon Johnson
Design Fiction Pedagogy
Demands Conjectural Criticism (see Kraus)
Imagine Beyond Instrumentalism (see Lukens + DiSalvo)
Create Conditions for Narrative and Experience (see Roesler)
Hermeneut Inhabits the System (see Drucker + Nowviskie)
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Pedagogical Issues
Beyond "Brochure" Humanities (Test Ideas in Things)
Understand "Making" Broadly (Not Only Computational)
Resist "You Must Code" (Design + Writing, Too)
Synthesized Arguments (Not Just Process Documentation)
Determining Foundations (Require a Platform? A Standard?)
The Relevance of Place (Collaborating On- and Offline)
Assessment Across Disciplines (Create a Rubric?)
For more research, see Ball, Kuhn, Selfe, and Vee.
Thank You
Special thanks to:
Mike Widner, Jordan Thomas Chin + Daniel Bush