Welcome to our Virtual Communities Blog

In this course, you will learn about key aspects of virtual communities, while examining virtual narratives and developing hands-on skills with storytelling for the Internet and wireless technologies. The course is intended as a cross-disciplinary opportunity for art and design students to learn and collaborate together. Through lectures and case studies, class discussion, research, field trips and both individual and collaborative group project work, students will learn about both historical and emerging models of virtual community. We will review the history and practices of an array of virtual communities and subcultures: from teleculture, bulletin boards, newsgroups and multi-user domains, to gaming, new media art and design and activist networks. We will examine how stories about virtual communities exist in a context of technological and social change.

Are virtual cultures an escape from the social world? How do virtual communities impact on our local ones? Who accesses virtual technology and how does it affect the quality of life in different localities? New media artists and designers are responding to these questions.

In this course, we will creatively explore the topic of virtual communities, carrying projects from research through to the creation of prototypes for interactive projects. Students will also present small-group seminars on different examples of virtual communities and focus on debates arising from the lectures and case studies.