If you’re looking for an Art and Technology studio course to take this Fall 2019 semester, Blockchain: The New Internet is open for enrollment! The course catalog number is 4144 (Class number 2222), and will be taught by me, Douglas Rosman, on Tuesdays, 9a-4p in MC-414.
If you’re interested, please enroll no later than June 25.
Course description:
The Blockchain is a new technology: a distributed, decentralized, immutable ledger designed to maintain an ever-growing record of transactions. This new technology, invented in 2009, allowed the invention of the first viable crytpocurrency: Bitcoin. But the possibilities of Blockchain go far beyond enabling the exchange of digital money. Silicon Valley, Wall Street, governments, artists and civilian communities all have different ideas for how the Blockchain could (re)structure our entire social reality. Whether the Blockchain changes everything, or if it’s just another hyped-up tech fad, it is undeniable that it is here, and that it continues to permeate and shape our culture.
This studio course will utilize blockchain technology as an artistic medium and present an opportunity to make experimental art works with, about, and around the Blockchain. We will explore the culture and politics of the Blockchain, and how it intersects with systems of economics, governance and social organization. The course will introduce some computer programming, but it is possible to engage meaningfully with blockchain technology without any coding experience.
If you have any questions about the course or about Blockchain, you can reach out to me at drosman@saic.edu.
For anyone interested in learning about this technology, I highly recommend the book ‘Artists Re:Thinking the Blockchain’. The publishers have graciously made the entire PDF free online, which you can find here: https://torquetorque.net/wp-content/uploads/ArtistsReThinkingTheBlockchain.pdf. I think the whole book is great, but even just the introduction is incredibly informative, and a great place to start if this is totally new to you!
(If you try to enroll and it still says the instructor is “To Be Announced”, that should change to show my name pretty soon)
Thank you!
Doug
(and since my bio isn’t on the SAIC faculty page yet…)
I received my MFA from the Art and Technology Studies department from SAIC in 2019, and received my BA from the University of California San Diego in 2014 in Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts (ICAM).
In my art practice, I work with code and emerging technologies to create interactive, generative installations and audio/video performances that explore feedback loops in human and computer relationships. To learn more about me and my work, you can visit my website, dougrosman.com.