First Day of Class
Wednesday 9/8
Syllabus distributed.
Assignment: Pick up reading packet and purchase a reading journal. Complete both readings and reading responses (5) for Monday 9/20. See Creating a Reading Response Journal for specific information related to this semester-long assignment.
Week 1: Professor Holmes in Switzerland • NO CLASS MEETINGS.
Monday-Wednesday, 9/13 and 9/15
Week 2: The State of the Mark
Readings:
Focus questions: What is a painting? What is a body? What is a bit? How have new imaging technologies impacted the process and product of painting and the fine arts in general? What are some of the obstacles that artists face when using new tools and technologies to create work?
•Alan Kaprow, "The Legacy of Jackson Pollock" in Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life, Jeff Kelley, ed., p.1-9.
•Steve Silberman, "Stella," in Wired, March 1999p. 133-137
•Mira Schor, "Painting as Manual," in Wet: On Painting, Feminism, and Art Culture, p. 175-187.
•James Elkins, "Introduction" in What Painting Is, p. 1-8.
•Simon Penny, Consumer Culture and the Technological Imperative: The Artist in Dataspace" in Critical Issues in Electronic Media, p.47-74.
Monday 9/20
Class discussion: Assigned readings, reading responses, etc.
Focus artists: Monique Pietro, Jonathan Lasker, Frank Stella, Jackson Pollock
In-class activity: Collaborative Markmaking
Wednesday 9/22
Laboratory activities: Abstract compositions generated by chance, structured repetition, and collaboration,. Assignment: Sketch #1: Procedural Image Making.
Week 3: Authenticity in Computer Generated Art
Focus questions: What constitutes plagiarism in art today? Does it matter who created a particular work of art? What is the difference between an authentic work of art and a fake? What is the difference, in your opinion, between plagiarism and sampling? How does art created with new technologies change the value of a work of art?
Readings:
•Critical Art Ensemble, Utopian Plagiarism, Hypertextuality, and Electronic Cultural Production, in Critical Issues in Electronic Media, p.105-118.
•William J. Mitchell, "Intention and Artifice" in The Reconfigured Eye, Visual Truth in the Post Photographic Era, p.22-57.
Monday 9/27
Class discussion: Assigned readings, reading responses, etc
Focus artists: Sherrie Levine, Tape Readers, Nancy Burson, etc.
Wednesday 9/29
Critique: Sketch #1: Generating Abstract Digital Compositions
Laboratory activities: Abstract compositions generated by chance, structured repetition, and collaboration, Sketch #2: Metamorphoses, assigned.
Week 4: Cyborg artists and automatons
Readings:
Focus questions: Does the presence of the artist’s hand in a work of art change its value or meaning? Is knowing who created a work of art and why important information to have as a viewer? How have machines and computers infiltrated art and artistic practices in the 20th century?
•James Elkins "Blindness," in The Object Stares Back, p. 226-235.
•Elephant as Artist in National Wildlife
•Steven Holzman, excerpts from Digital Mantras, "The Visual World," p. 171-191 and "Reflections," p. 213-222.
•Holland Cotter, "Rebecca Horn: Delicacy and Danger" in Art in America, December 1993, p. 59-67.
Monday 10/4
Class discussion: Assigned readings, reading responses, etc
Focus Artists: Harold Cohen, Yukinori Yanagi, Siri the elephant, Janine Antoni
Wednesday 10/6
Critique: Sketch #2 due
Laboratory activities: Blind contour drawing, automatic drawing, Sketch #3: Blind Contour Self-Portraits, assigned.
Week 5: The Body in Question: Representations, Transformations, and Manipulations
Focus questions: How have technologies of any sort—medical, computer, or machine—altered our perception of our bodies? How have contemporary artists chosen to express these so-called new representations of the human form? What is a cyborg? Are you a cyborg? Why or why not?
Readings:
•James Elkins, "Seeing Bodies" in The Object Stares Back, p. 125-159.
•N. Katherine Hayles, "Embodied Virtuality: Or How to Put Bodies Back into the Picture" in Immersed in Technology, p. 1-6.
•Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto," in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women, p. 149-155.
•Chris Gray, Steven Mentor, Heidy J. Figueroa-Sarriera, "Cyborgology: Constructing the Knowledge of Cybernetic Organisms" in The Cyborg Handbook, p. 1-14.
Recommended reading:
Margaret Morse, "What Do Cyborgs Eat?" in Culture on the Brink: Ideologies of Technology, Gretchen Bender and Timothy Druckery, eds., p. 157-190.
Monday 10/11
Class discussion: Assigned readings, reading responses, etc
Focus artists: Verushka, Orlan, Rebecca Horn, Doug Kornfeld, Victoria Vesna, etc.
Laboratory activities: Review of keydown scripts and lists in Director, Sketch #4: The Exquisite Corpse-Cyborg Game, assigned and working groups selected.
Wednesday 10/13
Short Critique: Sketch #3 due: Bring images on disk to turn in.
Demonstration: Using a digital camera to create source imagery.
Week 6: Performative Markmaking
Focus questions: Can a simple act such as brushing your teeth become a work of art? How does the presence of a live performer alter the meaning and import of a work of art? What is the difference, in Kaprow’s opinion, between an "artlike" art and a "lifelike" art? What sort of art do you as a viewer prefer to appreciate?
Readings:
•Allan Kaprow, " The Real Experiment" in Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life, Jeff Kelley, ed., p.201-218.
•Joan Simon, "Ann Hamilton: Inscribing Place" in Art in America, June 1999, p.76-85, 130.
Recommended/Related Readings:
D.W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality. New York: Routledge, 1971.
Erving Goffman. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday, 1959.
Monday 10/18
Laboratory session: Sketch #4: The Exquisite Corpse-Cyborg Game
Wednesday 10/20
Critique: Sketch #4 DUE.
Class discussion: Assigned readings, reading responses, etc.
Focus artists: Janine Antoni, Anne Hamilton, Natalie Bookchin (Databank of the Everyday), Muntadas (The File Room)
Laboratory activities: Introduction to video, using camcorders, digitizing video, basic editing (in and out points, constructing a quicktime).
Assignment: Sketch #5: MIDTERM PROJECT: Embodied Memory.
Week 7: Writing as Markmaking
Focus questions: How has a technology such as writing altered the human capacity to think, to remember, and to record information? How have artists used words and written language to create art? Which is a more powerful communicator of ideas: images or words? Why?
Readings:
•Neil Postman, "The Judgement of Thamus," in Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, p. 3-20.
•Mira Schor, "Afterword: Painting and Language/Painting Language" in Wet: On Painting, Feminism, and Art Culture, p. 204-214.
•Mel Gooding, ed. "Language Games" in A Book of Surrealist Games, p.15-37.
Monday 10/25
Class discussion: Assigned readings, reading responses, etc.
Focus Artists: Cy Twombly, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holtzer, Tristan Tzara, Janet Zweig, Bill Seaman
Laboratory activity: Surrealist language games
Wednesday 10/27
Laboratory activity: Memory narratives/MIDTERM PROJECT work session; constructing textual elements to animate
Demonstration: Using sensors to create interactive multimedia art. Introduction to the EZIO board and using gesture to trigger activity in Director.
Week 8: Marking Space with Sound
Focus questions: In an installation environment, what do you as a viewer tend to be made aware of first, visual or auditory stimuli? What sorts of sounds focus your attention? What sorts of sounds are distracting?
Readings:
Francis Dyson: When is the Ear Pierced: The Clashes of Sound, Technology, and Cyberculture in Immersed in Technology, p. 73-101.
Steven Holzman, "Dissonance," in Digital Mantras, p. 253-260.
Diane Ackerman "Hearing" in A Natural History of the Senses, p. 209-225.
Monday 11/1
Class discussion: Assigned readings, reading responses, etc
Demonstration: Recording/digitizing sound/importing sound into Director
Wednesday 11/3
Laboratory Session: Triggering sound using sensors, switches, etc.
Week 9: Reaching in and out of the Box: Cyberspace and Installation
Focus questions: What sort of art is "typical" of the 1990’s? How have advances in science and technology directly affected artists? What sort of future do you see for art made with machines and emerging technologies?
Readings:
•Bonnie Clearwater, "Defining the Nineties" catalogue essay, Museum on Contemporary Art, Miami, 1996.
•Richard Panek, "Art and Science: A Universe Apart?" Steven Henry Madoff, "Out of the Ether, a New Continent of Art." Vicki Goldberg, "A Playground For Technology’s Arts of Illusion." All articles featured in the New York Times, Arts & Leisure section, February 14, 1999. (Distributed as separate handout, not in packet.)
Recommended Reading:
Florian Rotzer, "Virtual Worlds: Fascinations and Reactions" in Critical Issues in Electronic Media, Simon Penny, ed., p. 119-132.
Monday 11/8
Class discussion: Assigned readings, reading responses, etc
Demonstration: Using projectors, scrims, lighting, etc. to create an immersive installation environment
ASSIGNED: Final Projects: proposals, artist statements, deadlines, etc.
Wednesday 11/10
Critique: MIDTERM PROJECT
DUE: READING JOURNALS
Week 10: Documenting and Distributing Digitally-Generated Work
Monday 11/15
Demonstration: Constructing a Portfolio on CD; documenting your work. Review of how to write paths to alternative movies using a "stub projector" in Director.
BRING ALL SKETCH FILES TO CLASS THIS DAY.
Wednesday 11/17
DUE: Final Project Proposal Form
Week 11: Final Project Work Session
(attendance mandatory at start of class)
Monday 11/22
Wednesday 11/24
Happy Thanksgiving, 11/25
Week 12: Final Project Work Session
(attendance mandatory at start of class)
Monday 11/29
Wednesday 12/1
Week 13: Final Project Work Session
(attendance mandatory at start of class)
Monday 12/6
Wednesday 12/8 DUE: Final Project/ Artist Statements (will be xeroxed and distributed for critiques the following week.
Friday 12/10 Special office hours: TBA, for assistance with final projects
Week 14: Final Project Critiques/Documentation
Monday 12/13 Class evaluations/FINAL PROJECT CRITIQUES
Wednesday 12/15 FINAL PROJECT CRITIQUES/potluck dinner
Friday 12/17 12 NOON sharp: CD portfolios due.