Brian Goldfarb

Associate Professor of Communication, UCSD

office: MCC 205
phone: 858-822-2239
email: bgoldfarb@ucsd.edu

Brian Goldfarb is a digital media artist, curator, and Associate Professor of Communication at the University of California, San Diego. His research and creative production focuses on media studies and contemporary visual and digital culture. He is the author of Visual Pedagogy: Media Cultures in and beyond the Classroom, (Duke University Press, 2002). His current projects include Global Tourette, a digital documentary and transnational media exchange project, and Sense Ability: Fragments on Media Pedagogy, Digital Prosthetics and Assistive Technology. Goldfarb was education curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in NYC from 1994-7, where he organized the exhibition “alt.youth.media”.

Recent publications:

• Visual Pedagogy: Media Cultures of Education in and Beyond the Classroom (Duke University Press, 2002)
• “Fragments on Prosthetics and the Virtual: Ocular Prosthetics and the Embodiment of Digital Visuality,” co-author Lisa Cartwright, Documentary and the Practice of the Visual, ed. Christina Lammer (Vienna: Verlag Turia & Kant, 2002)
• “Local Television and Community Politics in Brazil: São Paulo's TV Anhembi,” Visible Nations: Latin American Cinema and Video, edited by Chon Noriega (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000)

Recent projects

• Global Tourette. (web-based project 2004-present) . A digital documentary and transnational media exchange project involving families of people with Tourettes syndrome.
• Pictures of Waiting Children. (web-based project 2001-2002) exploring the culture and economy of international adoption and the Internet subculture that has grown up to support it.
• Ocular Convergence (interactive CD-ROM/Web project, 1999) A fictional and critical examination of digital ocular prosthetics.

Winter 2008 courses:

• COGN 21 Methods of Media Production TuTh 3:30 - 4:50 (Peterson 110)
  This course introduces you to the language and practice of media production. Through readings, lectures, and activities in section, you will acquire extensive knowledge of the art and practice of video production, film aesthetics, television studies, pre production planning, production management and editing aesthetics and practice. Creative process, issues of representation, and genre are also emphasized.
• COGN 22 Methods of Media Production Hands-on Lab
• COMT109 Digital Media Pedagogy (Section ID 453625) Tues 5- 7:50 PM MCC 201/Seq 142. 
  This course will develop students' critical understanding of pedagogical uses of digital media technology and to provide first-hand experience engaging with students using digital media in educational settings. Participants will consider the challenges, benefits and pitfalls of educational application of communication technology through discussion of readings and experiences in public school classrooms. Questions addressed include: How do digital media shift the relationships between various sites of learning including the school, the home and the workplace? What are the challenges digital media present to teachers, students and schools? How do educational uses of digital media compare to older technologies such as pen and paper, textbooks, typewriters, film cameras and analog video?  How do gender, class and age affect the way students and teachers respond to and learn digital media? Are computers improving school-based education?

Fall 2004 courses:

• COGR 275 Theories of Digital Culture (Section ID 515029) Lecture Th 9:00 - 11:50 (MCC 201)
  This seminar will consider critical approaches to understanding how computer technologies, telecommunication networks, and digital arts are transforming contemporary culture and everyday life. We will also reflect on the ways that digital culture is inflecting intellectual discourse itself. Topics include: theories of the subject and identity in networked culture; political organization and cultural resistance through digital media; intellectual property and privacy; ethics of surveillance and data security; simulation and virtuality; reshaping of institutional and disciplinary boundaries; changing concepts of ability/disability; and the reorganization of education, work, and leisure and private/public space.
• COMT111a Communication and Computers (Section ID 513731) Lecture Tu 9:00 - 11:50 MCC 201/Seq 142
  This course introduces students to computers as media of communication. Each quarter students participate in a variety of networking activities designed to show the interactive potential of the medium. Field work designed to teach basic methods is combined with readings designed to build a deeper theoretical understanding of computer-based communication.

Spring 2004 courses:

• COMT109 Digital Media Pedagogy (Section ID 453625) Lecture Fri 9- 11:50 AM MCC 201/Seq 142. 
  This course will develop students' critical understanding of pedagogical uses of digital media technology and to provide first-hand experience engaging with students using digital media in educational settings. Participants will consider the challenges, benefits and pitfalls of educational application of communication technology through discussion of readings and experiences in public school classrooms. Questions addressed include: How do digital media shift the relationships between various sites of learning including the school, the home and the workplace? What are the challenges digital media present to teachers, students and schools? How do educational uses of digital media compare to older technologies such as pen and paper, textbooks, typewriters, film cameras and analog video?  How do gender, class and age affect the way students and teachers respond to and learn digital media? Are computers improving school-based education?

Winter 2004 courses:

• COGN 100 Time-Based Media Editing: Theory and Practice (non-linear editing) Friday 12-2:50 (MCC 221)
  In this course students develop their critical understanding of editing theory and mastery of digital editing practice. Students consider diverse editing methods, styles and ideas through readings and close analysis of a variety of film/video examples. Students learn to use the Media 100 non-linear editing facilities and read technical information on non-linear editing practice. They will apply their consideration of editing styles and theories to the creation of editing projects. Through discussion and group critiques, students develop an effective language for describing their work, providing constructive critique to peers and collaborators, and analyzing time-based media.
• COGR 280 Advanced Workshop in Communication Media: Interactive Documentaries and Non-fiction Games Wed 2:00 - 4:50 (MCC 201) 
  This course is designed to provide graduate students with the opportunity to explore and experiment in a communication form other than the conventional academic oral presentation or paper. This term we will be addressing the challenges and opportunities presented by digital production and networked presentation of non-fiction media. An important area of consideration will be the ways in which the increasing popularity of game genres suggests new ways of thinking about non-fiction media production. Technical instruction will focus on digital and web-based media (graphics software and interactive design principles).  Students with experience in other media (such as video, or photography) and projects already in progress may pursue them with approval of the instructor.