Syllabus

Honors seminar 177: Biotech & Art

Mondays, 10:00am - 12:50pm
Professor Victoria Vesna, Ph.D.
Email: vv@ucla.edu
Phone: 310-206-0686
Office hours: Mondays, 3-5pm, Broad Art center, room 5250

3/30:
Introductions: professor, students and class topics and goals.
Assignment: Search and discover who is doing interesting research on campus and physically go to the lab / center / department and see for yourself, maybe meet someone. Write a few paragraphs about what you have discovered and share it will all in the blog. When we put all the info together (and I will add some), you will be amazed at the concentration of intellectual energy on this campus. You will also find that it is more accessible and open to you than you imagined.

4/6:
Two Cultures: definitions of art and science
What is a Meme?
What is BioArt?

4/7:
Required attendance: Amy Franceschini of Future Farmers lecture. 5:30pm. Broad Arts center, EDA: http://eda.ucla.edu

Assignment:
Blog: Discuss what you think the definition of art and/or science is. Let us know what you found most compelling about the Future Farmers talk.

Read:
Snow, C.P. "The Two Cultures."
Vesna, V. "Third Culture: Being in Between."

4/13: FOOD
View: one of the following:
Barry Schuler: Introduction to Genomics
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schuler_genomics_101.html
Mark Bittman: What's wrong with what we eat
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/mark_bittman_on_what_s_wrong_with_what_we_eat.html

Read:
Whitman, Deborah. "GMO: Harmful or Helpful?"
Nature: "Four year fight for biological art"
George Gessert, http://aminima.net/wp/?p=56&language=en
A History of Art Involving DNA
http://biomediale.ncca-kaliningrad.ru/?blang=eng&author=gessert

Blog:
Monday's Lecture

4/20: ANIMALS: genetic engineering and nourishment

4/27 midterm presentations

5/4 ENVIRONMENT

5/5: 6pm. Required attendance: Natalie Jeremijenko. Climate Crisis, Food Crisis or crisis of agency? Technological opportunities for structuring participation in the contemporary environmental movement.

5/11: Discussion / ideas

5/18 Guest lecture: TBD

5/25 Veteran's day. Independent work on final - abstracts due on 5/29

6/1: final work in progress discussion

6/7: final due

6/8: FINAL presentations

GRADING:

Grading is based on the midterm (20%), final (30%), blog (20%), and attendance / participation (30%).

Weekly Blog

Students are required to do weekly blogging related to the topics covered. Specifically, you will be responding to the lecture or reading materials, and are encouraged to incorporate news/research related to the subject. The blog will be reviewed weekly.

Midterm Project

Midterm Due April 26th by Midnight

The midterm is a 10 page ppt presentation in addition to the normal blog. Students will turn in their Midterm Presentation by April 26th at midnight. Blogs are not required midterm week.

FORMAT: If you don't use movies/animations in your presentation, please submit your presentation as a PDF file (you can do this by exporting or printing to a PDF from PowerPoint or Keynote). If you included movies/animations, please send the PowerPoint or Keynote file (reminder: if you are using PowerPoint, you must also email the movie file as the program does not embed them).

POWERPOINT TEMPLATE (use the template to fill in your information):
Page 1: Title Page (HC177: Biotech & Art. Title. Name. Major)
Page 2: Abstract(~100 words)
Page 3: Concept/Topic (~100 words)
Page 4: Context & Precedents (imagery/text)
Page 5-7: Project Proposal + Diagram/Illustration (~100 words)
Page 8: Conclusion (~100 words)
Page 9: References. Please use the MLA Handbook for format guidelines
Page 10: Bibliography/Links (20 minimum). Please use the MLA Handbook for format guidelines

Click Here for an Example Midterm

Midterm Blog

500-800 words
Part 1: write a paragraph or two that ties together the topics from week 1-4 (i.e. discuss how they're related).
Part 2: discuss how your presentation idea relates to the topics discussed in part 1

Final Project

The final is a 12 page presentation. Students will turn in their Final Presentation (via email) by May 30th at midnight. A draft abstract of the project proposal (100 words) is due May 25th at midnight. The presentation template with directions will be uploaded soon. In the meantime, work on the abstract and e-mail the Professor any questions and/or concerns.

FORMAT: If you don't use movies/animations in your presentation, please submit your presentation as a PDF file (you can do this by exporting or printing to a PDF from PowerPoint or Keynote). If you included movies/animations, please send the PowerPoint or Keynote file (reminder: if your using PowerPoint, you must also email the movie file as the program does not embed them).

POWERPOINT TEMPLATE (use the template to fill in your information):
Page 1: Title Page (HC177: Biotech & Art. Title. Name. Major)
Page 2: Abstract
Page 3: Concept/Topic
Page 4: Social Context Page 5: Precedents and literature review
Page 6-9: Project Proposal + Diagram/Illustration
Page 10: Conclusion
Page 11: Discussion
Page 12: References. Please use the MLA Handbook for format guidelines

Final project: guidelines.
Expand the midterm proposal or come up with a new topic
Situate project in a given social context (past, present, future of fictitious)
Every topic in the class should be integrated in your proposal narrative
References should include course related materials -- readings / movies / web: at least 3 books, no wikipedia references, citation required for everything including and especially images in proposal
Use your blogs as background research