Philosophy of Technology and the Body

This is a formal and applied exploration of an academic course as aesthetic canvas. Operating both as an accredited university course and a meditation on the course as a conventional cultural practice, it worked as performance, collaboration, relational/crowdsourced work, event/happening, among whatever other categories. It has the necessary requirements as a course in interface with the university - types of readings, of assignments, etc - and internally was sculpted by the interests and endeavours of its students. Central was the idea of legitimacy within the course and what makes or breaks that for a given student - here plagiarism, relevance, culture worthy of the classroom, the test/assignment, value in and out of the classroom were among the topics explored. In addition to a blog which operated as the institutional face of the course, over the term of the course, assignments/projects were done, which became collaborative pieces created and recorded online via a course facebook group. As a conceptual/virtual piece, its activities stretched beyond the course time and lack a definite beginning/ending. As a local piece, Philosophy of Technology and the Body was offered in the Spring Semester in 2009 at UBC, where it was classified as a fourth-year, for-credit course.