Book Number 3

  +  The Present

Your last "book" will be a Tumblr blog. 

You will produce, in Tumblr form, a networked recirculation of material which indexes the present tense of your subject —- and one which additionally investigates the unique potentials of the networked blog as a publication medium.

A major concern in this project is to uncover and experiment with the things that Tumblr is especially suited to, with Tumblr-logic if you will.

How do images and texts relate in this medium? What is the difference between found and invented material? How can you activate tumblr's "social" and networked capacities? You need not merely reproduce the well known tropes like animated gifs -— you can also experiment against the grain and force tumblr to do things it wasn't meant for.

Think about the overall organizational logic. Is your Tumblr a narrative, with a beginning, middle and end; or is it a database, marked up with tags which allow multiple navigational paths? Both?

Is your Tumblr open and iterative -- i.e. will it be something which might be continuously updated into the future, or is it a closed set of materials?

  +  Content

Images: 30 reposts from other Tumblrs, 30 "original"

Caption all of them!

You may include video content as an image.

Remember: images are the currency in this medium!!

Texts: 10 citations with source and links (if possible).

These can be either html or print (scans or photos of pages).

These should be both image captions (for shortish citations) or individual posts (longer-form essays).

Words: 10 words related to your subject. These should be individual posts with unique CSS. They might be links.

Introduction: your 500 intro text.

Navigation: develop at least 5 tags for your content and use these as a basis for your site navigation.

  +  Schedule

M 31 March

Register your tumblr. Find a name. Choose a theme. Collect content.

Present to the class your first research as well as 5 Tumblrs which will serve as reference models: conceptually, formally, etc. These may be direct references or more "inspirational".

W 2 April

Studio day and desk crits

M 7 April

Tumblr CSS demo

Possible forms. What are the unique formal possibilities of this platform? 

Studio day

W 9 April

due: Intro text posted to blogspot

Presentation of Tumblrs

M 14 April

W 16 April

Final site presentations