Winter 2004 Advance Course Information

This information effective for Winter 2004. Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.

Art

[ART-023] [ART-109]

23. Intermedia I

Instructor: E. G. Crichton

Course Description:

This class explores the role of an artist as someone who integrates a variety of media in order to explore conscious subject matter. We will cover:

• How to research an art project
  

• How to identify appropriate materials, media, and technical skills
  

• How to experiment with process, chance, time, motion, space, sound, and motion
  

• How to edit, critique, and revise your own work
  

• How to give articulate feedback about other's work

We will specifically experiment with ways to integrate imagery with time-based elements, objects, space, sound, electrical components, etc. Emphasis will be on contemporary art forms such as ephemeral imagery, assemblage, installation, and performance.

This class is about experimentation. It is about making mistakes and taking the kinds of risks that push your creative process. It is also about being resourceful—finding ways to learn specific techniques suggested by your work itself. This could mean collaboration and exchange of knowledge between people. It could also mean hanging out in the wood shop to make a box or the computer lab because you need to combine text with an image. Class discussions and brainstorming sessions, along with technical demonstrations, will serve as guides to suggest what technical strategies might improve a particular piece.

Assignments

1. Score: Read handout: "The RSVP Cycles." Bring to class: 1 tool to mark with, 1 material to manipulate, 1 small object, 1 text fragment, and 1 verbal instruction. You will make a map/score to pass to another class member.
   

2. Chance Process: Using the score you receive as guide, identify 3 materials to work with, 1 process to use, and 1 way of incorporating motion in your piece. Examples of processes: tearing, wrapping, burning, telling, falling, and sprinkling. Examples of motion: "natural" motions (dripping, growing, decaying, and melting), mechanical (subvert function of a mechanical toy, fan, turntable, blender, etc.), body motions (performative), and interactive motion (flipbook or something the viewer can do with piece).
   

3. Slide Narrative: Create a 5-minute slide projection piece that includes sound. Pair up to plan and shoot your slides (each person creates a separate piece). Each pair gets a roll of 36. Think about pacing and rhythm, sound, what to project onto, and whether to manipulate the physical slides. Sound must be original and can be live or recorded. You can use your voice, someone else's voice, machine, or object sound. No music CDs!! Plan your timing carefully to allow for film development and re-shooting if necessary.
   

4. Installation: Create a space that viewers can enter. Bring 3 found objects you don't already own. Create a piece in which meaning grows out of spatial relationships and juxtaposition of objects. You can replicate an object (Xerox, scan, photograph, project, make a model, describe in words, record), but are otherwise restricted in what you bring to the piece. Consider how the viewer moves among, sees, or interacts with your objects. This space can also be the site/inspiration for your final performance piece.
   

5. Performance: Ask for 1 item from each member of the class, and create a 5-minute performance with what you gather. Examples: a word, a motion, article of clothing, a story, an object, a statistic, a secret, etc. Consider the physical space of the performance and whether you want anyone else to participate and how. You're the boss!

109. Intermedia II

Instructor: E. G. Crichton

Course Description:

Inter-Media II is a continued investigation of the multiple-media art strategies begun in Inter-Media I. Emphasis is on concept development and how to effectively integrate appropriate forms, materials, and media. Students experiment with images (moving and still), objects, language, mixed media, time, sound, and space. Projects address conceptual practices such as interactivity, narrative, media intervention, site specificity, process, simulation, and virtual representation. At the same time, students gain experience in combining mediums effectively to develop conscious subject matter.

Projects

Incorporate the following forms into a project at least once during the quarter:

• Moving image or object (video, film, slide sequence, kinetic object, etc.)
  

• Text
  

• Collaboration on some aspect of a project
  

• Installation: the creation of a space viewers can enter.
  

• Performance or ritual
  

• A medium or technique that you've never used before
  

Subject Matter: Your projects this quarter will start with a specific place in Santa Cruz. The site you choose will provide inspiration and a score/guide for an in-depth artistic investigation. You will research the history, visual and physical properties, politics, sounds, associations, neighborhood, people, traces, smells, atmosphere, and feelings associated with your site. Projects will take different forms and use different media and materials. Remember that as an artist, you are free to play with fact and fiction. The idea is to start a concrete investigation, then allow your artistic imagination to move your project beyond the literal—to abstract and transform it into broader metaphors.

1. Scoping It Out: (read handout "Debated Territory" by Suzanne Lacy)
   Scope out a specific public site in SC that has a strong impact on you, negative or positive (or even uncomfortable). You don't have to understand why yet. It could be a street corner, a restaurant booth, a path, the sidewalk in front of a building, a restroom at the beach, an abandoned lot, a stairwell, etc. It should be a spot where you can hang out (safely!), spend time, and interact in various ways. It should NOT be where you, friends, or family lives. Document this spot exhaustively using at least 3 methods: snapshots, drawings, rubbings, maps, diagrams, writing, audio/video recording, etc. Bring to class.
   

2. Artist as Interpreter: (body piece)
   Make an artwork that is about your personal experience of your site, how your body connects (or doesn't) to it, how it feels, what you do physically while there, how it triggers your memories. Allow traces of this highly personal body experience to inform or enter the piece. Spend time in the place, develop a relationship to it, and perhaps even create part of the piece there.
   

3. Artist as Investigator
   Research your site from sources outside your experience: evidence of past, present, future activity; historical info, the opinions of strangers, consulting the occult, gathering artifacts, looking up city records, etc. Consider what it means for the artist to witness and communicate visually. Come up with an artwork in which you start with documentary "truth," then expand using your imagination.
   

4. Artist as Catalyst
   Create an activity or action at your site—some way that you intervene in or change it. Document what you do with images, sound, text, video, or a short class performance. The final piece will be a combination of what you do publicly at the site, and the studio project you create in response to the public acts. Be conscious of issues of public vs. private in your piece.
   

5. Artist as Transformer
   Your last project will take all the information and experience from the first 3 pieces, and transform them into a new metaphor. What started out fairly literally—the documentation of a place—by now should start to suggest unexpected forms and ideas. In this piece, the original site may not be visible at all.
   

6. Open Studios
   Select your best piece to show in Open Studio. Create a typed label and brief statement to go with the piece. Participate in collectively curating and installing the show.
   

Note: extra credit for significantly reworking a piece.