Curation, the process of caring for, assembling, and exhibiting objects, grows into an extremely popular Internet activity. Ideation, the process of generating and developing new ideas, takes form through curation, on scales from personal to social to societal.
This course contextualizes investigation of contemporary curation and ideation practices in and around social media with relevant art practices, and empirical theories of creative cognition and graphical presentation. We will invoke framings such as Duchamp's found objects, assemblage, social capital, and information visualization. We'll examine the role of social media in the ideation processes that impact emergent political movements, including Ferguson and Arab Spring, and other societal events.
Students across disciplines are encouraged to take this course. Each student will focus on strengths from their background, whether it be arts, humanities, social sciences, computer science, or engineering.
Our mission: to understand how curation serves human needs for engagement in ideation, considering social media's involvement. We will imagine and investigate new future personal and social forms of curation and ideation, and roles for people and computing. Projects will involve curation, design, systems, information visualization, studies, and writing.
