ABSTRACT
This introductory book was written for new media practitioners, artists, and students of communications technologies and media art. As a new media educator who teaches art in a department labeled “communications,” I wanted to create a book that I could use in a variety of classroom situations—one that would bridge the gap between theory and practice in a way that satisfies the curiosities of students interested in either or both disciplines. In so many practice-based art texts and classrooms, the technology is divorced from the sociopolitical concerns of those using it. Meanwhile, there are excellent resources for media theorists, but practice-based students sometimes find it difficult to engage with a text that fails to relate theoretical concerns to the act of creating. In my own classroom, I rely on lectures, discussions, demonstrations, and critiques; but I also use my personal experience both in the commercial industry (albeit, that was long ago) and as a practicing artist. Through dialogue with my colleagues and peers, I realized that many of us tell personal stories in the classroom to help students relate to new technologies. This first-person narrative was something I wanted to capture here. So, remaining true to the spirit of Net Works, here is the story of its making:
