Oral Presentation Dates

Hi. I've received all but one paper proposal, and they're all looking pretty good, so far. I'll be giving you more feedback on your theses & arguments, after your presentations. You will also all be filling out little peer review slips for your classmates, on which you'll be asked to identify the presenter's thesis. Bear in mind that your own thesis should be clear & explicit enough to identify in this way.

Meanwhile, I'm writing to assign presentation dates. I initially thought that I'd find some brilliant connections between each of your paper topics and organize you into thematic groups, but there isn't enough overlap for that. (The good thing is that this means there will be a nice, interesting, diverse range of topics presented.) So you will just be sorted alphabetically by first name. Please look for your name, below, to determine your presentation date.

Presenting on Tuesday, October 4:
Aireen
Alex
Blanca
Brian
Camie
Cheryl
Crystal
Cyrus
David

Presenting on Thursday, October 6:
Jason
Jeremy
Joyce
Kat
Kevan
Kristina
Lenny
Patrick
Ryan

Feel free to email me with any additional questions!

Library Tour Reminder

Here is the info on Tuesday's library tour, which will be led by reference librarian Kathryn Wayne:

Tuesday, September 27: LIBRARY TOUR
8:30-9:30 in 350C Moffitt Library: As you enter the library, it's past the reference desk to your left (in the NW corner). Attendance is mandatory and final paper grades will be reduced for students who do not sign-in at the orientation.

Oral Presentations

A few notes on your presentations. In case it wasn't clear, your presentation should take the form of a shorter first draft of your paper. Also, remember to plan ahead about securing a sample copy of the work, or some way of presenting it, in class.

Paper Proposals and Sources

Hi, there. I hope that you're all having a nice weekend. Kristina sent me some good questions and I thought that I'd share the answers with all of you, in case you're wondering about the same things...

She was wondering whether the paper proposals had to be formatted like a real paper, or more like bullet-points outlining your argument. The proposal can be somewhat bullet-pointed, but if you can send a draft of the paragraph that outlines your thesis & sub-points, that would be great, because it will allow me to give you more feedback up front.

She also asked whether your outside source(s) should be more theoretical (like those in the reader) or more directly related to the work about which you are writing. My first choice would be that you find something directly related to the work and use the theoretical texts we've read together for the intellectual grounding of your writing. But I realize that you may not be able to find somethng and, in any case, I certainly don't want to close you off from looking at other theoretical texts that interest you. So the choice is yours, as long as it meets those "serious source" standards I wrote about, on the handout.

Feel free to write to me with any other questions.

First Paper Assignment & Oral Presentations

Important Dates:
Paper proposal due: Tues, 9/27, via email by 8:00 pm
No class/ office hrs: Thurs, 9/29
Oral presentations: Tu/Th, 10/4 & 10/6
Papers due: Thurs, 10/13, at the beginning of class

Paper Topic:
Your first paper will be an analytic essay about a single work of digital art. You may write about any work covered in Christiane Paul’s book, Digital Art; any work in Rachel Greene’s Internet Art; any work we’ve discussed in class; or any other work of digital art (internet art, robotic work, video art, electronic sculpture, digital photography, installation art, etc.), given prior approval by me.

Paper Format & Guidelines:
The paper must be 6-8 pages long. (As always, it should have a title, your name, and page numbers, and it should be stapled.) This paper will require you to reflect critically on a work of art, offering a coherent thesis in relationship to the interpretation of the work. Formulation of this argument should be dependent upon the formal components or elements of the work, including a close-reading of the rhetorical relationship between word and image (or the visual and the verbal/linguistic, etc), which will also entail contextualizing the relationship between form and content.

I will be evaluating your ability to formulate a clear thesis, to argue in favor of this thesis, to identify and analyze the work’s formal elements, and to synthesize and apply the vocabulary we’ve established through our readings and discussions. Your thesis should make a concise statement about what the work signifies and the way in which it does so.

While primary emphasis should be placed on the work itself, papers should also consider how the piece fits into the artist’s larger body of work and art historical precedents. This will most likely entail inserting a short paragraph on a previous work or works by the same artist, and another short paragraph on the art historical tradition from which the work springs. Given this requirement, your paper must cite at least one reference, in addition to our assigned readings. Considering that most of the discourse about digital art is found online, internet references are ok, but please use your best judgement to determine the seriousness of the reference. Chat room discussions and other “casual” sources are inappropriate. Curatorial statements, journal articles, exhibitions reviews, and other “serious” essays are acceptable. Of course, good old-fashioned books, academic journals, and art magazines are also acceptable.

Oral Presentations:
I will email each of you to assign one of the above oral presentation dates. On this day, you must give an 8-minute presentation of the work you’ll be discussing. In this presentation, you should introduce us to the work (playing a maximum of three minutes of video, or otherwise projecting or exhibiting the image or work), and present your thesis about the work. The presentation will give you the opportunity to boil down your main argument and the primary evidence for your claim (i.e. sub-points). You should estimate that a full single-spaced page usually takes about 2.5 minutes to read. Therefore, your presentation should convey the content of approximately 2-3 double-spaced pages, allowing time for the display of the work. The goal of this exercise it to get you in the practice of beginning the process of writing by fleshing-out precise, specific claims, and then coming back to fill-in additional observations.

Paper Proposals:
Your proposal must include all of the following:
• the artist and work of art to be discussed (provide a URL, if possible)
• a preliminary thesis
• the one outside resource you anticipate using
• the format of your presentation.
(Will you be showing a dvd, a vhs tape, something online, a photocopy…?)

These proposals must be emailed to me by 8pm, on Tuesday, September 27.

An Art List

Here are some art works at which we'll be looking, tomorrow morning...

Camille Utterback & Romy Achituv - Text Rain

Vuk Cosic - ascii history of moving images

Mark Napier - Shredder

Natalie Bookchin - The Intruder

Radical Software Group - RSG-SMB-TAB

Cory Arcangel - Mario Cloud game mod

Jillian McDonald - To Vincent With Love

Also, this is the project by Jennifer & Kevin McCoy I mentioned, earlier: 201: Space Algorithm (based on 2001: A Space Odyssey).

AND, when you are looking around for art projects about which you might want to write, you might want to visit the Whitney Artport, the Networked Performance blog, the Grand Text Auto blog, Hyper X, the Information Aesthetics blog, and of course Rhizome.org, which has all kinds of resources, including a blog on their front page.

Reading Update

Hi, all. You'll notice that the reader has no Baurdillard excerpts. I decided that this was too much for you, at this time. After the midterm, I will be fleshing out the readings for the second half of the semester and we may move the Baudrillard to one of the later "thematic" weeks. Meanwhile, you only need to read the Cluver (in the Reader) for Tuesday.

For your enjoyment...

Greetings. I wanted to give you a link to the website for Enjoy, the film we watched today.

Also, I strongly encourage you to go to the websites of the art projects mentioned by Christiane Paul & George Landow, in the readings you're doing for Thursday. In most cases, the link will be provided in a footnote, and when it is not, you should be able to use Google to find it. If you'd like to look at a particular project and can't find it, please let me know.

You should already be on the hunt for artworks to write about, in your upcoming paper. If you find that you are somewhat interested in a few elements of a certain work, look online for articles that reference it, as they may also reference similar projects by other artists. I am also always happy to suggest works for you to look at, and I will regularly post links to works, here, and bring videos and other works into the class discussions.

Update-Diagnostic Essay

Alex wrote me with a good question... He asked whether you should turn in a color copy of the image you are analyzing in your papers. I would like a copy of the image. It doesn't have to be a color copy, but I strongly prefer it, especially if you are going to analyze color elements. I hope that the assignment is going well for all of you, Please feel free to write me if you are having difficulty.

Reader & Reading Responses

This is just a reminder that the course reader should be available today, at Replica, which is on Oxford, near Center. The excerpts from Walter Ong's Orality & Literacy are quite long. You do not have to post a response to them, on your blogs, since you will be busy with your diagnostic essays. You may also skim the excerpts, a bit, but please do come to class prepared to discuss the reading and initiate discussion questions. Thanks!

Diagnostic Essay Assignment

Your first full-fledged paper assignment is a 2-4 page (double-spaced) paper analyzing the rhetoric of a single image. You must use the vocabulary established by Roland Barthes, in your analysis, but you are also encouraged to use the ideas and expressions of the other writers we’ve read. The paper needs to be a minimum of two complete pages, and should reflect your very best writing abilities. You may choose any image, including (for the case of this paper only) an advertisement. If you choose an ad, you may want to pay extra attention to those points Barthes made about how advertising images are distinct from other images. I will be looking closely at the four following things in evaluating this and all of your papers:

1) Your ability to form a thesis and properly “defend” it, through clear, argumentative writing;

2) Your ability to move beyond description and into the realm of interpretation, when writing about an image;

3) Your ability to effectively synthesize and apply what you’ve learned in the assigned readings and your own research to your argument. This means properly citing references, of course. It also means not simply bouncing between quotes from authors and your own ideas, but incorporating their arguments into your own analysis. Your papers will then entail close reading of our texts as well as close reading of images;

4) Your ability to tailor your essay (your topic, your thesis, and your ancillary arguments) to the theme of the class. In this case, you will want to discuss the relationship(s) between words and images, in your paper. As I said in class, you may choose an image which contains no proper words, but which still employs a “visual language,” or has some other special relationship to language—as we’ve seen that all images do. You will want your interpretation to revolve, at least to some extent, around interpreting this relationship;

These abilities will be fine-tuned throughout the semester and are crucial to successful writing in any class, not just an Art History class...

Some very important reminders: The paper is due in class, at the beginning of class, on Tuesday, September 13. Please do give your paper a title, put your name on it, and number and staple the pages. I look forward to reading these!

Add/Drop/Pass-Not Pass Grade Changes

Hi. I've been asked to pass the following info on to you...

As you may have heard, the deadlines governing changes to undergraduate class schedules are changing effective fall 2005.
For most, the deadline to drop, to add, and to change the grading option from pass/not pass to letter grade will be midnight on Friday of the 5th week of instruction (September 30, 2005). [....] For all courses, the deadline to change the grading option from letter grade to pass/not pass will be midnight on Friday of the 10th week of instruction (November 4, 2005). [....] Questions about the new deadlines may be directed to Alix Schwartz (642-8378, alix@berkeley.edu).

Hurricane Katrina Support

Thanks for another great discussion today, everyone! I'm excited by the level of participation and personal reflection you are displaying, in our seminars...

Meanwhile, I know that Hurricane Katrina came up, very briefly, in the context of differing representations of race by the media. I ended the discussion, there, because I wasn't sure that people wanted to enter into a very emotional discussion about Katrina. Nonetheless, I understand that many people on campus (possibly including yourselves) have been deeply effected by the hurricane. The following link was just distributed to instructors and it provides info on counseling, support groups, and means of contributing to the recovery effort, in case any of you are interested:

http://www.uhs.berkeley.edu/home/news/supportforkatrina.shtml

Let's Not Forget About the Art...

Hello. Happy Labor Day! I wanted to check-in with a message about looking at art. Let's not forget that your writing assignments will focus on interpreting art, so it's hardly too soon to start looking at work that might interest you. To get started, you can peruse Christiane Paul's & Rachel Greene's books, and there are also a few places to look online. I'll be bringing in videos and walking you through net art pieces, in class, throughout the semester. For now, I'd say take a peek at this online exhibit I curated, called Net.Narrative, which includes eight pieces of internet-based art that play with image and text in interesting ways. (The show was about how internet art expands our definitions of "narrative.") I also highly recommend that you get a free membership at Rhizome (where I happen to work when I'm not teaching). When you do so, you can browse the Artbase, a database of new media art projects, organized by themes and keywords, and you can look through the archives of Net Art News, an email-based publication about new media which will point you to a number of art projects and exhibits. You can also sign-up to receive Net Art News, or other Rhizome publications, via email, if you'd like.

Update: Kat said that she had trouble accessing the site for Net.Narrative. Try clicking on this link, and if it doesn't work, try copying the address into your browser... http://www.sfcamerawork.org/past_exhibits/netnarrative.html

Good work, so far!

Hi. I just wanted to thank you for the great discussion we had, today. I know it's not easy to dissect Foucault, at any time of day, let alone 8 am! The key, as I said in class, is not to give up and say that's it's confusing, but to think about why it's confusing--i.e. to think about what the different elements of the argument are and how they are functioning. We might even consider that Foucault wanted to present us with a text that was calligramic or "contradictory" in the way that Magritte's painting is. (Which would be another way of thinking of text as art, even in the case of academic essays.) I think today set a great pace for our discussions in the rest of the semester, with regard to thoughtful, close reading and analysis of the texts. Your blog postings are also looking good. Keep up the good work and have a good weekend!