Work and The Digital Creative Industries (Spring 2019/20)

Tutor: Alexander Fefegha
Tutor email: ********@ual.ac.uk
UAL CCI Slack: @AlexFefegha
Session Times: Wednesday 9.30-1.30 Location: CCI 5th Floor Block B

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Introduction

In this unit, you will be introduced to how digital creative business are structured and how digital teams put together in different contexts across the digital creative industries.

The unit will include studio visits, guest lectures and seminars to explore London’s diverse and vibrant digital sector.

This unit also covers how to understand your own agency within the creative industries and how you might manage a portfolio career and generate new opportunities for yourself with your newfound skills set. These opportunities might for example include, crowdfunding a technology product or developing an app-based digital service.

The aim of this unit is to provide and in depth understanding of both the structure of the creative industries in London and the varied opportunities that exist in what is a diverse sector for people engaged with creative computing. This will be valuable to you as you now have a new specialism in creative computing in addition to your creative specialism and this unit will help you to understand the new graduate destinations and opportunities open to you as a result.

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Alex's thoughts

My goals for the course for you is:

• To help you self position yourself as an creative practitioner.
• To learn the working practices of other creative practitioners.
• To engage in rapid exploration and experimentation.

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Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit you will be able to:

• Understand how digital creative Industries are structured (Enquiry, Knowledge)

• Understand digital teams work and are assembled in different contexts (Enquiry, Knowledge)

• Understand new graduate opportunities in the digital creative industries (Knowledge)

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Unit Content & Assessment - HAND IN DATE Wed 10/06/2020 by 4pm/ EXTENDED DATE Wed 24/06/2020 by 4pm

Unit Assessment Summary - This unit is assessed holistically
Assignment Description (2,000 words essay)

• The purpose of this project is to position yourself critically within the landscape of creative computing (theory & practice) & to identify a strategy plan outlining how you will begin to impact in this area.

• This project is one in which you are required to consider your own position in the world of creative computing. It is a project that demands critical self-reflection of your own interests, skills and expertise based on an in-depth consideration of the work already carried out on the course. You will draw upon a number of sources in doing this.

• You will need to produce an essay giving:

1. An introduction to an issue that interests you in the worlds of creativity and creative computing (as we encompass it on the course).

2. A coherent, critical analysis of the arguments from a selection of texts that are relevant to this issue (some can be from the reading list). This section will be your mapping of the theoretical area relating to your issue of interest.

3. An analysis of the key practitioners (artists, creatives, designers, organisations/companies etc.) that work in this area—examining between three and five examples of practice. This will be your mapping of the practical area relating to your issue of interest.

4. A concluding section which situates yourself, strategically, within the theoretical and practical areas you have mapped. This is where you describe what your strategy is for entering this area upon leaving university.

• Your essay should be formatted as follows

1. Title Page, stating: Name, Number from your Student ID, Unit & Project Title, Number ofWords, Date of Submission.

2. Main body, structured as follows:

   • Introduction. Introduce & outline the creative area that interests you.
   • Literature Review. Critically evaluate the theoretical literature in this area.
   • Practice Examples. Identify and critically examine the key practitioners in this area: provide between three & five examples of practice.
   • Conclusion. Conclude by locating the possible future strategic opportunities for you as a creative practitioner in the area you’ve mapped by identifying where you might be & what you need to do to get there.

3. List of images, if used.

4. References, properly formatted.

• Please remember, that you must reference all your quotations fully &properly, using the Harvard convention (see UAL’s guide: Cite Them Right).

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Class Rules:

• To be human.
• There is no right or wrong.
• We are here to learn and have fun.
• Collaboration is everything. People are cool.
• Respect everyone and their difference.
• Give everyone a voice, recognize your privilege and be an ally.
• Challenge each other in nice ways :)

Process Log:

• I would love for you to write your thoughts and learnings somewhere. I use medium but it could be github, wordpress blog, twitter, insta, are.na or what every butters your bread.

• Write about the topics discussed in class, projects that inspire you, and the experimentations you will be doing.

• This is your space to reflect and express yourself. It is your digital sketchbook. Decorate your blog however you choose, use an informal tone, scan your drawings, use memes --- so far as the content is intelligible, organised, and shows critical engagement with content of the module.

Research Presentation Tips (from Irene Fubara-Manuel):

• Contextualize the chosen subject, within the proper historical, political, cultural, and artistic environment.

• Illustrate with videos, images, and text, the key pieces in the subject's portfolio.

• Highlight the tools, processes and motivations of the subject.

• Expand on how or why this topic speaks to you.

• Bring 2-3 questions from your research that we can discuss in the seminar.

• Submit your presentation as a PDF of your slides uploaded onto your GitHub repository.

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Reading List (Will be updated weekly)

Kleon, A. (2012). Steal like an artist: 10 things nobody told you about being creative.

Cameron, J. (2002). The artist's way: a spiritual path to higher creativity. New York, J.P. Tarcher/Putnam.

Barton, G. (2016). Don't get a job... make a job how to make it as a creative graduate. London, Laurence King

Baxter, L. (2017) Running a Creative Company in the Digital Age: How to successfully set up your own media company. Oldcastle Books Ltd.

Kare-Silver, M. de (2016) Building the 2020 Digital team. Troubador Publishing Ltd.

Kocienda, K. (2018) Creative Selection: Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs. Pan Macmillan.

Lewrick, M., Link, P. and Leifer, L. (2018) The Design Thinking Playbook: Mindful Digital Transformation of Teams, Products, Services, Businesses and Ecosystems. John Wiley & Sons.

Further Reading

Eubanks, V. (2018) Automating Inequality: How High - Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor. St. Martin’s Press.

Fisher, M. (2009). Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Zero Books.

Lessig, Lawrence. (2005). Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity. Penguin Books.

Tavani, H.T. (2011) Ethics and Technology: Controversies, Questions, and Strategies for Ethical Computing. John Wiley & Sons.

Tozzi, C. (2017). For Fun and Profit. MIT Press.

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Weekly Schedule (Will be updated weekly)

Week 1 (11th February 2020)

Seminar: So you want to be a creative in a digital world? \\ Intro to Alex Fefegha's practice and the different ways of providing for himself + the class sharing about the creatives that inspire their practice.

Homework:

• Read: N/A

• Using the principles thought in class: N/A

Recommended Reading:
N/A

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Week 2 (19th February 2020)

Seminar: Steal like an Artist \\ An introduction to the book Steal like an Artist by Austin Kleon + watch a talk by Zach Lieberman on the creative career of the future.

Homework:

• Read: N/A

• Listen:

• Using the principles thought in class: N/A

Recommended Reading:
KLEON, A. (2012). Steal like an artist: 10 things nobody told you about being creative.

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Week 3 (26th February 2020)

Workshop: Your Action Plan / Vision session \\ A introduction to essay for the module, a workshop for the class to plan their next steps in two years.

Homework:

• Read: N/A

• Listen:

• Using the principles thought in class: N/A

Recommended Reading:

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Week 4 (4th March 2020)

Studio Visit to Ustwo \\ Please check Slack for updates.

Homework:

• Read: N/A

• Listen:

• Using the principles thought in class: N/A

Recommended Reading:

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Week 5 (11th March 2020)

Guest Lecture: Matt Jones, Principal Designer, Google AI \\ Please check Slack for updates.

Homework:

• Read: N/A

• Listen:

• Using the principles thought in class: N/A

Recommended Reading:

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Week 6 (15th April 2020)

Virtual Lecture - Catch up + plan to move the class virtrually due to the impact of COVID-19. \\ Please check Slack for updates.

Homework:

• Read: N/A

• Listen:

• Using the principles thought in class: N/A

Recommended Reading:

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Week 7 (22th April 2020)

Virtual Guest Lecture: Interview with Darren Tenkorang, CEO OF TRIM IT

\\ This is Darren Tenkorang, Founder of Trim-IT, a uber style barber shop. His talk is about raising investment for your tech startup!

Homework:

• Read: N/A

• Listen:

• Using the principles thought in class: N/A

Recommended Reading:

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Week 8 (29th April 2020)

Virtual Guest Lecture: Creative Coders Rifke Sadleir and Daniel Baragwanth talk about their career journey: how they got into creative code, how they met, an example of their work + the imposter syndrome faced + how they are navigating this current covid-19 season.

Homework:

• Read: N/A

• Listen:

• Using the principles thought in class: N/A

Recommended Reading:

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Week 9 (6th May 2020)

Virtual Guest Lecture: Chrystal King, product designer at Depop talks about being an architecture student and ending up in the world of digital product design.

In this talk, she talks about a project she recently conducted at Depop + what she envisions the future designer to be like.

Homework:

• Read: N/A

• Listen:

• Using the principles thought in class: N/A

Recommended Reading:

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Week 10 (13th May 2020)

Virtual Guest Lecture: This week I chat with Maya Man, an artist, dancer and technologist at the Google's Creative Lab.

We talk about her uni experience, talking about art and technology, how she got her job at Google + the people who inspire her work.

Talk is here

Homework:

• Read: N/A

• Listen:

• Using the principles thought in class: N/A

Recommended Reading:

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Week 11 (20th May 2020)

Tutorials for Essay \\ Please check Slack for updates.

Homework:

• Read: N/A

• Listen:

• Using the principles thought in class: N/A

Recommended Reading:

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Week 12 (27th May 2020)

Tutorials for Essay \\ Please check Slack for updates.

Homework:

• Read: N/A

• Listen:

• Using the principles thought in class: N/A

Recommended Reading:

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Week 13 (3rd June 2020)

Tutorials for Essay \\ Please check Slack for updates.

Homework:

• Read: N/A

• Listen:

• Using the principles thought in class: N/A

Recommended Reading:

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Week 14 (10th June 2020)

Virtual Guest Lecture: Hyphen-Labs \\ Please check Slack for updates.

Homework:

• Read: N/A

• Listen:

• Using the principles thought in class: N/A

Recommended Reading:

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Week 14 (17th June 2020)

Cakes - Celebration! \\ Please check Slack for updates.

Homework:

• Read: N/A

• Listen:

• Using the principles thought in class: N/A

Recommended Reading:

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