ARTT1005 Arts Tech Theories I (Past, Present, Future) and ARTT2005 Arts Tech Theories II (Interaction and Participation) are required introductory theory courses to be offered in the lower-level years of the BASc (Hons) in Arts and Technology programme. They will be offered along with the required practice courses ARTT1006 Arts Tech Practices I (Making Senses) and ARTT2006 Arts Tech Practices II (Transmedia Beyond Spectacles). Together these courses are intended to introduce fundamental practical and theoretical knowledge, skills and work attitude to students to train up their ‘minds’, ‘eyes’ and ‘hands’ for further study in various academic/artistic/technological subject areas within the BASc (Hons) programme, and to familiarise them with the settings of transdisciplinary teaching and learning at the university.

ARTT1006 Arts Tech Practices I (Making Senses) and ARTT2006 Arts Tech Practices II (Transmedia Beyond Spectacles) focuses on introducing students to a selected set of practical “maker” skills that enable them to start off their personal creative and prototyping production and develop a sense for a “maker culture” and hands-on studio practice. As this may be the first instance for students to experience professional practice in arts and technology, the course starts off by reiterating and consolidating elementary principles of creative practice. It then introduces basic skills like analogue and digital sketching, and model making and prototyping, as well as the use of essential tools and equipment, which students are expected to apply through practical exercises.

ARTT1006 Arts Tech Practices I (Making Senses) aims at introducing key concepts and issues in creative practice relating to arts and technology. In the age of AI, algorithms, virtual realities and mediated digital environments, it is more important than ever to put human experiences and sensitivity back at the centre stage. One of the key focuses here is to examine how the sensory spectacles of the modern and contemporary age affect the human sensorium. Would arts and technology be at the epitome of this sensory overload, and desensitise our emotional responsiveness, or could they help reclaim our fundamental senses?

The course aims to open up the students’ senses. Before learning to become makers or content creators, students take their first steps to acquire their senses through creativity, playfulness and imagination. Students make distinctions between looking, seeing, watching and observing. Such distinctions also apply to their five senses and beyond. As embodied and sensitive human beings, students learn to appreciate not only the work of art across histories and genres, but also the aesthetics of the everyday.

Students are expected to apply their understanding of these concepts creatively through hands-on exercises and creative projects.