Office Hours: Monday, Tuesday & Thursday by appointment.
This course will introduce students to video as an artistic medium. We will study its history, its relationship to television, its formal and temporal structures, and its changing identity in the digital era. We will pay particular attention to the concepts of feedback, liveness, real-time transmission, and the appropriation of television as a source material and as an outlet. The class will make full use of the MRC's collection of early video and the online resource Ubuweb.com, as well as BAM's exhibition of Joan Jonas, SFMOM's Douglas Gordon exhibition. The students will write three papers of increasing complexity and length- analyzing a single work, comparing two works, and a research paper on a specific artist or theme. Shorter writing assignments such as reviews of the BAM shows and response papers are also required.
This course is an introduction to visuality and the disciplines of art history. Its primary aim is to guide students through the processes of learning to recognize and craft persuasive and elegant arguments about visual experience. We will anchor our inquiry of vision and perception, and our efforts to develop our capacity for interpretation, by focusing on the work of selected artists. We will also expand our inquiry beyond the fine arts, testing the applicability of our perceptual and analytic skills on other kinds of visual phenomena. To begin, we will familiarize ourselves with fundamental concepts and tools for reading and writing about visual experience. These include questions of material and form; models of attention and perception, the relationship between language and vision; the role of description in interpretation; and what constitutes a satisfying and complete account of visual experience. Throughout the semester we will analyze and improve our writing abilities as we move from basic compositional skills to the construction of a compelling and effective argument. Our work will be practical in nature, and a good portion of our class time will be spent talking in small groups and working on in-class writing exercises. We will devote much of our home preparation and class time to the discussion of short essays, analyzing them both for their rhetorical strategies and for the lessons they have to teach us about our own writing. Students should expect to submit their prose to the same kinds of analysis that will be applied to the work of published authors, counting themselves members of the wider community of writers.
See the syllabus for all assignments by date.
Doug Hall & Sally Jo Fifer. Illuminating Video: An Essential Guide to Video Art.
Course reader available at University Copy (2425 Channing Way, just west of Telegraph).
Recommended:
Sylvan Barnet. A Short Guide to Writing About Art
Reading: You are responsible for all assigned reading and will be expected to have completed the reading for the day before coming to class. Readings may be added or removed from the syllabus. Changes will be announced in class and on the course blog.
Screenings: You are required to watch some videos on your own time. All of these videos will be available either in the Media Resource Center (in Moffitt) or online at UBU web. Watch these before class. You must be prepared to discuss the video.
Response Essays (Homework): Students will be asked to post response essays to the course Blog several times throughout the semester. These essays will be responses to assigned readings or reviews of art exhibitions we visit. Responses must be posted by 8pm the day before the reading/exhibition is discussed in class. Refer to the 'Guidelines for Response Essays' on the course website before posting.
Writing: For this course, you will submit a minimum of 32 pages of writing, which is the university requirement to satisfy the second part of the Reading and Composition sequence. You will submit three papers, each increasing in length and complexity. The second and third will be revised and turned in again. You must submit every paper - including drafts and peer edits - in order to pass the course.
Keep all drafts of your papers. You will turn in all of your papers, drafts, and peer edits at the end of the semester. Improvement and hard work are rewarded!
For each first draft of a paper, you need to bring two copies on the due date. You will turn in one to the teacher and one to your peer editor.
Papers are due at the beginning of class on their due date. Late papers will not be accepted. If you are going to need an extension, ask for it in advance.
Plagiarism is ground for failure in the class.
Attendance: Attendance is mandatory. More than one absence will seriously affect your grade. Lateness is rude, disruptive, and will not be tolerated. Three late days will be counted as one absence.
Disabilities: Disabilities will be accommodated. If you need disability-related accommodations in this class, if you have emergency medical information you wish to share with me, or if you need special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please inform me immediately. Please see me privately after class or in office hours.
Essays: 60 points Homework and other assignments: 20 points Participation: 20 points
In assigning your participation grade, I will take into consideration your participation in discussion and group work, attendance at office hours, and your effort and improvement throughout the semester.