ADVANCED MEDIA PROJECTS
Spring 2014, M/W 9AM-Noon
Spring 2014, M/W 9AM-Noon
Professor Julia
Christensen
(Office
hours, Tuesday from 10AM-1PM)
Welcome to Advanced Media Projects. This is an upper level workshop for students
who are working on self-directed projects.
In this class, we will practice various skills that artists often use to
stay connected to their projects on an ongoing basis. We will consider context for your work, and
we will think about moving your project/trajectory forward beyond its
completion. As a part of this class, you
will have critiques with three working artists who have been invited to
participate in this year’s Advanced Media Projects class. These artists will also give public talks the
day before the critiques, which you are required to attend. Information about our visitors is listed in
the syllabus. They are all very excited
to meet you and talk with you about your work.
A final presentation of your work will occur at the end of the semester,
details TBA.
The key word for this class is PRACTICE. We will PRACTICE techniques that help artists
move along with their self-directed projects––ultimately helping to develop
your artistic PRACTICE. To that end, we
will practice journaling, looking at and talking about contemporary art and
artists, reading/discussion, holding critiques, and having working studio time.
We will develop a solid working studio
schedule that you can rely on each week, and you will each develop a project
schedule with the professor that will align with the class structure.
Your class reader can be found here:
http://www.youwillneverfind.us/amp/amp2014.html
Our class schedule will look basically like this:
MONDAY
|
WEDNESDAY
|
9-9:20: Journaling
|
9-9:20: Journaling
|
9:20-10AM: Reading/Discussion
|
9:20-10AM: Blog check-in/Skill
Share
|
10-NOON: Studio time
|
10-NOON: Studio time
|
You can see that the first hour of the class is reserved
for seminar time––on Mondays, readings are due; on Wednesdays, “Blog Curator”
and/or “Skill Share” projects are due, and we will view artwork. The next two hours are reserved for studio
time. It is important that you work
together as a community in the Media Lab during this time, so please plan
accordingly. I understand that there are
times when you simply have to work elsewhere (i.e. “I need to go to the
hardware store today in order to continue working,” or “The software is on my
computer in my room so I need to work there”).
To recognize this, you have TWO
get-out-of-studio-time-free cards, which can be used any time to work elsewhere during our designated studio hours. Use them wisely, because once they are used
up, your absences will be counted as absences.
***Participation is very important in
any studio art class. To this end, first
and foremost, you may not miss classes.
You are allowed two absences, and any unexcused absence after that will
result in the loss in a letter grade.
Participation (being here, and being present/engaged while here) counts
for 30% of your grade.
***Your projects are at the heart of this class. You are expected to invest time and energy
into them––perhaps more time than you are used to spending on any one given
thing (especially on the computer screen).
Art-making is a long process---I appreciate seeing true engagement with
the work you are doing, and I promise it will show in the work that you make. We will be critiquing works-in-progress in
this class, as well as formal critiques.
This will give you a chance to make improvements, to complete the most
conceptually rich and aesthetically pleasing pieces that you can. These projects count for 40% of your grade.
***Your reading and writing are the other 30% of your
grade. This means you need to read the
readings due on Mondays, and be ready for a discussion. You are also expected to participate in the
class blog, posting throughout the semester, and being the Blog Curator for
your designated week.
***You must sign up to have your project critiqued in at
least TWO formal crits with visiting artists, and you must take part in all
three. NO EXCEPTIONS. You must also present works-in-progress at
designated points throughout the semester.
You will be expected to spend time out of class with TA’s in
order to ask any technical questions that you might have. Nadya Primyak is always here to help: nprimak@oberlin.edu. My office hours are on Tuesdays
from 10AM-1PM, when you are welcome to come and visit me in my office.
It is the policy in media classes that students have their
own hard drive and SD Flash Card. You
will need these tools for every media class you take at Oberlin College, so if
you do not have one yet, you can go to the Oberlin Computer Store to talk with
someone about buying one. The Computer
Store stocks high-quality, affordable hard drives for use in media
classes. The SD Flash card will allow
you to record using audio and video recorders.
It is also policy that students using Media pay a $30 lab fee, which
will appear on your term bill.
CLASS SCHEDULE
week 1
M/February 3: Logistics.
W/February 5: Logistics. Project ideas, skill share sign up, blog sign-in, etc.
week 2
M/February 10: READING:
Mission Statements. Assignment: Statements
+ Project ideas.
W/February 12: Blog check, studio.
week 3
M/February 17: READING: Art School
(Propositions for the 21st Century)
T/ February 18: VISITING ARTIST LECTURE-4:30 PM in
Classroom 2, Juan William Chavez
Born
in Lima, Peru, Juan William Chávez is an artist, educator and cultural activist
that is interested in exploring and creating space in both the built and
natural environment. His studio practice incorporates unconventional forms of
beekeeping, agriculture, and architectural interventions that utilizes art as a
way of researching, developing and implementing creative placemaking projects.
In the public realm, his projects take an interdisciplinary approach that
explore neighborhood redevelopment through collaboration by incorporating local
organizations and residents into the conversation. Studio research is
imperative to his practice and takes a multimedia approach in the forms of
photographs and films, drawings, ephemera and public presentations. His
most recent projects focus on addressing community identified issues of
vacancy, food rights and ecology in North Saint Louis. Projects include the
Pruitt-Igoe Bee Sanctuary, Beehive Food Incubator, founder of the Northside
Workshop, Guest Curator of Urban Expression: Theaster Gates, in conjunction
with the exhibition Urban Alchemy: Gordon Matta-Clark, the Pulitzer Foundation
for the Arts and Founder of Boots Contemporary Art Space (2006-2010).He has
received awards and grants from Creative Capital, the Guggenheim Foundation,
the Graham Foundation, Art Matters Foundation, the Gateway Foundation and St.
Louis Regional Arts Commission. Chávez holds a BFA from the Kansas City
Art Institute and a MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
W/February 19: CRITIQUE # 1: WITH JUAN WILLIAM
CHAVEZ
week 4
M/February 24: READING: The Work of Art in
the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (William Benjamin)
W/February 26: Blog
check, studio
week 5
M/March 3: READING: Reading New Media
(Lev Manovich)
W/March 5: Blog
check, studio
week 6
M/March 10: MINI DEADLINE/CLASS WORKSHOP
W/March 12: Blog
check, studio
week 7
M/March 17: MINI DEADLINE/CLASS WORKSHOP
W/March 19: Blog
check, studio
SSSSSPRING BBBBBBBREAK
week 8
M/March 31: Welcome back! Regroup.
T/ April 1: VISTING ARTIST SCREENING---7PM,
Penny Lane
Penny Lane has been making award-winning
documentaries and essay films since 2002.
Her
first feature documentary, OUR NIXON, world premiered in 2013 at the
International Film Festival Rotterdam, had its North American premiere at SXSW,
and was selected as the Closing Night Film at New Directors/New Films. OUR
NIXON went on to win awards at film festivals such as Seattle, Nantucket, Ann
Arbor, Traverse City and IFFB, before being jointly released by Cinedigm and
CNN Films.
Penny is
a Creative Capital grantee and was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New
Faces of Independent Film” in 2012. She has been awarded grants for her work by
Cinereach, Tribeca Film Institute Documentary Fund, LEF Foundation, New York
State Council on the Arts, Adrienne Shelly Foundation, Experimental Television
Center, IFP and the Puffin Foundation. She was named "Most Badass!"
at the Iowa City Documentary Film Festival in 2009.
Her
short experimental films, such as THE VOYAGERS (2010), THE COMMONERS (2009),
SHE USED TO SEE HIM MOST WEEKENDS (2007) and WE ARE THE LITTLETONS (2004), have
screened and won accolades at film festivals such as Rotterdam, Images, IMPAKT,
FLEX FEST, Citizen Jane, New Orleans Film Festival, AFI FEST and Rooftop
Films. Her short documentary THE ABORTION DIARIES (2005) has become an
important organizing and educational tool across the nation. THE ABORTION
DIARIES has screened in 42 states & worldwide at over 350 different
community venues, ranging from bars to art centers to clinics to colleges, and
also on Yes! Television and Free Speech TV.
She
has taught film, video and new media arts at Bard College, Hampshire College
and Williams College, and is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department
of Art and Art History at Colgate University.
And
yes, Penny Lane is her real name!
W/April 2: CRITIQUE #2 WITH PENNY LANE
week 9
M/April 7: READING: How the Web Was
Won/An Oral History of Occupy Wall Street
W/April 9: Blog
check, studio
week 10
M/April 14: READING: “Attention!
Production! Audience! Performing Video in its First Decade, 1968-1990,”
by Chris Hill
W/April 16: Blog
check, studio
week 11
M/April 21: READING: Radical Light:
Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-2000
W/April 23: Blog
check, studio
week 12
M/April 28: STUDIO TIME
T/ April 29: VISITING ARTIST LECTURE: NICK
HALLET
Nick
Hallett is a NYC-based composer, vocalist and impresario who works across
genre and media to create innovative, multidisciplinary music-based
performance. After organizing a performance for the Joshua Light Show at The
Kitchen in 2007, Hallett became its music curator and producer, collaborating
with founder Joshua White to contextualize his pioneering approach to live
cinema for contemporary audiences. More recently, Nick’s original music
has featured in the project.
Nick’s first original opera, a collaboration with video artist Shana Moulton, Whispering Pines 10, premiered at The Kitchen in April 2010 and has since been presented at the New Museum of Contemporary Art,SFMOMA, Carolina Performing Arts, PICA TBA Festival, and The Warhol Museum. Nick held the first Re:New Re:Play artist residency at the New Museum in May 2009, creating a four-part series of concerts connecting the voice to visual art, and his work was featured in the 2007 and 2009PERFORMA biennials. Joe’s Pub has hosted two evenings of his original songs, The Nick Hallett Songbook (2008) and Man in the Matriarchy (2009) and his music is performed at other downtown cabarets such as Weimar New York, while he concertizes experimental songcraft at venues such as ISSUE Project Room, Le Poisson Rouge and The Stone.
As a vocalist, he has performed in the operas of Anthony Braxton, Susie Ibarra, and Matthew Welch, among others. With Zach Layton, he co-directs the celebrated Darmstadt new music series. From 2000 to 2003, he led the band Plantains, a new wave-cabaret act incorporating electronic music and video, collaborating with Ray Sweeten and Seth Kirby, among others.
Nick’s first original opera, a collaboration with video artist Shana Moulton, Whispering Pines 10, premiered at The Kitchen in April 2010 and has since been presented at the New Museum of Contemporary Art,SFMOMA, Carolina Performing Arts, PICA TBA Festival, and The Warhol Museum. Nick held the first Re:New Re:Play artist residency at the New Museum in May 2009, creating a four-part series of concerts connecting the voice to visual art, and his work was featured in the 2007 and 2009PERFORMA biennials. Joe’s Pub has hosted two evenings of his original songs, The Nick Hallett Songbook (2008) and Man in the Matriarchy (2009) and his music is performed at other downtown cabarets such as Weimar New York, while he concertizes experimental songcraft at venues such as ISSUE Project Room, Le Poisson Rouge and The Stone.
As a vocalist, he has performed in the operas of Anthony Braxton, Susie Ibarra, and Matthew Welch, among others. With Zach Layton, he co-directs the celebrated Darmstadt new music series. From 2000 to 2003, he led the band Plantains, a new wave-cabaret act incorporating electronic music and video, collaborating with Ray Sweeten and Seth Kirby, among others.
W/April 30: CRITIQUE WITH NICK HALLETT
week 13
M/May 5: STUDIO TIME
W/May 7: STUDIO TIME
