History of Art R1B, Fall 2005, UC Berkeley

Thanks!

2005-12-17T19:26:00.000-08:00

Hi, everyone. Thanks for a great semester. I really enjoyed working with you. I wish you the best of luck in the rest of your time at Berkeley.

Oral Presentation Dates

2005-11-15T21:56:00.000-08:00

Hi, everyone. Here are the dates on which you will be presenting the first drafts of your papers (10 min's):

Tuesday, November 29

Jeremy
Joyce
Kat
Kevan
Kristina
Lenny
Patrick
Ryan

Thursday, December 1

Aireen
Alex
Blanca
Brian
Camie
Cheryl
Crystal
David

This is a reversal of the order (date-wise) of the last presentations. Now, if everyone shows up on time and we start at exactly 8:10 each day, and no one goes over their ten minutes, then we will just barely have enough time to squeeze these into two days of presentations. I'm hoping that we can do this so that we can use Tuesday, December 6, as a day for peer review of semi-final drafts... Let's aim for this!

Game Day!

2005-11-14T22:55:00.000-08:00

Hi there! Tomorrow should be fun. It's our last day of discussing any theoretical readings and we'll be talking about video games... I would like us to discuss video games, in general, and then to discuss artists who use video games in their work. The following are a few artists (among MANY) who do so:

Anne-Marie Schleiner
Brody Condon
Eddo Stern
C-Level
Paul Johnson
Cory Arcangel
Paul Slocum
Radical Software Group

Note: If you dig around for even a moment, you'll discover that many of these artists have collaborated with each other on various projects... sort of a multiplayer approach to art-making...

We will also touch on the history of Intro's/Demo's and Machinema (sometimes spelled Machinima).

Final Paper References

2005-11-13T11:11:00.000-08:00

Hey, gang. I hope that everyone's having a nice weekend. I think we're going to have a fun day on Tuesday!

Meanwhile, I wanted to pass on some info from Tommy Becker, for those of you who may be wriitng about him. He said that he'd be happy to answer any questions that any of you may have about his work. I emailed you with his address and it's also available at his website: http://www.tommybecker.com.

Also, I'm sure some of you are scrambling to find references for your papers. I wanted to remind you that it's ok to have a combination of references that are directly about the works and references that are about the wider art historical context and deeper theoretical issues.

The good news is that most contemporary artists now have websites. I'd suggest using google to try to find the artist's website (or scroll through previous blog entries to find links to some of the artists we've discussed in class) and then visiting the site to see if you can fiind references. Sometimes they will post a bibliography and sometimes their cv, resume, or bio will list publications that refer to them.

As for Tommy Becker, he suggested books on Dada & Surrealism and thought that these two books would be good references:

Dada and Surrealist Performance - by Annabelle Melzer
Futurist Performance - by Michael Kirby

If you choose to go that route, you might also look back at some of our readings from earlier in the semester regarding Dada, Surrealism, and Fluxus...

Feel free to email me with questions or to run things by me before Tuesday.

Tactical Media

2005-11-09T19:26:00.000-08:00

Hi. As a reminder, tomorrow we'll be discussing the tactical media projects of Critical Art Ensemble, and considering these writings by the group:
"The Virtual Condition," the intro to The Electronic Disturbance;
"Electronic Civil Disobedience," the first chapter from the book of the same name;
"Electronic Civil Disobedience, Simulation, and the Public Sphere," from Digital Resistance;
"Contestational Biology," the intro to Molecular Invasion

Time permitting, we will also discuss work by these artists:
The Yes Men
http://0100101110101101.org/ (see Nike Ground)
Institute for Applied Autonomy (see GraffitiWriter)
Bureau of Inverse Technology (BIT) (see Suicide Box)
Carbon Defense League (see Re-Code)
RTMark
Surveillance Camera Players
Finishing School
Center for Tactical Magic

Of course, time won't really permit us to look at all of these, but if you become interested in the topics of tactical media and hacktivism, I recommend researching these artists.

I also encourage you to visit the website of the Critical Art Ensemble Legal Defense Fund and making yourself familiar with the details of the federal case against CAE member Steve Kurtz and one of his colleagues.

Telepresence

2005-11-07T20:55:00.000-08:00

In tomorrow's class we'll be discussing Christiane Paul's essay on "Themes in Digital Art" and we will dig more deeply into telepresence by surveying a number of works by Ken Goldberg. Here are a few links...

The Telegarden (1995-Present)
Legal Tender (1996)
Ouija 2000 (2000-Present)
Tele-Twister (2003)
Demonstrate (2004-Present)

Final Paper Assignment

2005-11-02T20:40:00.000-08:00

Important Dates:
Paper proposal due: Tuesday, November 15, in class
First two paragraphs due: Thursday, November 17, in class
Oral presentations: Tu/Th/Tu, 11/29, 12/1, & 12/6 (if needed)
Papers due: Thurs, 12/8, at the beginning of class

NOTE: Students have the option of handing in a stamped, self-addressed postcard with their final papers, if they would like for their paper grades & final grades to be mailed to them. As a reminder: This paper will constitute 30% of your final grade.

Paper Topic:
Expanding on the model of critical writing initiated in the first paper, students will present a critical essay with a major research component. Research components may include: in-depth research into an artist’s or collective’s body of work, a comparison of a “new” work with its self-proclaimed artistic precedent or the source of its appropriation; analysis of the historicization and/or vocabularization of particular practices and/or theories in new media art.

These essays must discuss more than one work of art. Students may only write about digital art works by artists discussed in class presentations and readings.

Paper Format & Guidelines:
The paper must be 10-12 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 more than one work of art, offering a coherent thesis in relationship to the interpretation of the works. Formulation of this argument should be dependent upon the formal components or elements of the works, 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 works' 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 works signify and the way in which they do so.

Oral Presentations:
I will email each of you to assign one of the above oral presentation dates. On this day, you must give an 8-10 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:
You must turn in a 1-2 page paper proposal, outlining your topic, thesis, the main points you anticipate making in support of your thesis, and three potential research references, at least two of which must be from outside of the syllabus and not from the internet. Proposals must also outline the format of your presentation. (Will you be showing a dvd, a vhs tape, something online, a photocopy…?) These proposals must be turned in, in class, on Tuesday, November 15.

NOTE: We will have a Writing Workshop on the following class day, Thursday, November 17, and students must bring two copies of the first two paragraphs of their paper to class, on that day.

MTAA - M.River & T.Whid Art Associates

2005-11-02T20:38:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow we will discuss a number of works by MTAA. You can view these and other works online, here.

Walter Benjamin - The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

2005-11-02T20:27:00.000-08:00

For those of you who would like to read a few contemporary responses to Walter Benjamin's essay, I point you to these oft-cited sources:

David Ross's lecture, Art and the Age of the Digital, at San Jose State University, March 2, 1999

and

THE WORK OF ART IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL REPRODUCTION An Evolving Thesis/1991-1995 by Douglas Davis

You might also pay a visit to Davis's work, "The World's First Collaborative Sentence," which is introduced here and was one of the first internet art pieces to gain major attention from the artworld. Both Christiane Paul and Rachel Greene write about this piece in their books and we'll discuss it more, in class.

Plagiarism

2005-10-24T17:07:00.000-07:00

I wanted to remind all of you that I have a zero-tolerance policy regarding plagiarism. I outlined this on the syllabus, in the section on course policies, which is also posted on this blog, here. Also in the syllabus and on the blog is a link to a University of California page outlinining what constitutes plagiarism and what the consequences are. Once more, this outline is here and the following expresses the consequences of plagiarism:

D. What are the consequences if I get caught plagiarizing?

If you get caught plagiarizing, your professor has several options. After meeting with you to hear your side, he/she may choose to resolve the matter informally by giving you a failing grade on the assignment to giving you a failing grade in the course. Your professor can choose to formally charge you with academic misconduct by referring your case to the Office of Student Conduct and to the Dean of your college. After your case is heard by the OSC or dean, administrative action may be taken against you which can, in rare cases, include expulsion.

I hope you see that this is a serious matter.

Tommy Becker

2005-10-24T17:01:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning, we will meet at our usual time to hear a presentation by artist Tommy Becker. Becker will be showing samples of his work, discussing his artistic process, and answering questions from you. He will also do a bit of performing and will engage the class in some participatory exercises. It will probably be unlike anything you've previously experienced and I hope that it will be a fun, memorable morning. Click on the link in Tommy Becker's name to view his website, if you'd like to find out more about him & his work.

Next week: Field Research Assignment

2005-10-12T19:56:00.000-07:00

This is a reminder that we will not meet next week, but that you will instead be required attend a minimum of one of the following exhibitions and write a 2-4 page interpretive essay:

The Bay Area Now and zine exhibitions at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Edgar Arceneaux at SFMOMA
Tony Labat at New Langton Arts (Free)
Playful Poetics at the Oakland Art Gallery (FREE)
The Lecture & Screening by Peter Kubelka, (on Thursday, 10/19) called "Poetry and Truth," at Berkeley's Pacific Film Archive

You may also write about a different exhibition (including an online exhibition) that fits the focus of our class, if you first run it by me over email.

Please Note: This essay will not count as one of your final papers (instead, it falls under class participation, just as your blog posts do), but it should be taken just as seriously. It needs to have a thesis and strong arguments rooted in close-readings of the works you saw. You can compare and contrast work in the show(s), or write about what the show accomplished or said, overall.

These are due in-class, at the beginning of class, on Tuesday, Oct 25. Email me if you have questions about the assignment before then.

I hope that you have fun visiting these exhibitions and perhaps this essay will form a draft for your second paper.

Artworks That Demonstrate Authorship Issues

2005-10-10T23:59:00.000-07:00

We'll be looking at some of the following, in class, tomorrow:

Michael Mandiberg's AfterSherryLevine.com
Alex Galloway's (Radical Software Group's) Prepared Playstation
Daniel Papasian's walmart-foundation.org
Cat Mazza's (MicroRevolt's) KnitPro Software

We'll also look back on previous examples (including Cory Arcangel & Vuk Cosic) to contextualize (or problematize) Barthes's points about the author.

General Feedback on Oral Presentations

2005-10-10T20:48:00.000-07:00

On the whole, I felt that the oral presentations were pretty good. I have some general feedback, for everyone, and some of these points relate to your presentational style while others relate to the structure of your papers...

* When giving a lecture or oral presentation, don't say "I am going to show you X," just show us. The same is generally true for your papers. You no longer need to say (as you might have in high school or early wriitng classes), "My main point is Z and I will demonstrate A, B, and C." Just do it and work on making smooth transitions.

* By the same token, it's good to constantly remind the reader/listener of how your points relate to your overall thesis.

* Give priority to your thesis (which should involve an interpretation of the work, rather than giving all your time (or space, in your paper) to historical contextualization. As I've said before, you should ask yourself how each sentence and paragraph relates to your thesis. If it doesn't, you should cut it. Historical info should be presented in the service of your thesis.

* Do discuss the significance of your arguments. Explain how they relate to your thesis, but also (in your conclusion) answer the "so what question." So what if your thesis is true? Does it help us understand the piece or the artist's work in a better way? Does it tell us something about the world at large? (Of course, it's great if it does, but avoid making gradiose, subjective claims.)

* Find formal elements in which to root your arguments. Your interpretation should involve a very close reading of the physical and conceptual properties of the work.

* Avoid speaking in the first-person. We've discussed this before. Under the heading of this directive, remember that discussing the fact that you can relate emotionally to a piece is not an adequate thesis because it does not involve an interpretation of the work.

* Throughout the writing process, and particularly during revision and proofreading (which you should do many times!) make sure that your thesis says WHAT the work does (if you're not arguing that it says or does something, you aren't interpreting it), and it should ALSO say HOW it does what it does. This is where the close-reading of the formal elements comes into play.

Also, A NOTE REGARDING YOUR NEXT PRESENTATIONS:

I will be splitting our second set of presentations into three days, to give everyone more time. I will expect these presentations to be a full ten minutes. These presentations should be not merely overviews of the work, but real, in-depth discussions of your arguments regarding the work(s).

Oral Presentation Dates

2005-09-27T21:41:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-25T12:58:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-25T12:56:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-25T12:55:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-21T21:46:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-19T20:47:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-18T18:11:00.000-07:00

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...

2005-09-13T16:06:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-11T11:59:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-08T11:24:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-08T11:19:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-07T17:29:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-06T14:21:00.000-07:00

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...

2005-09-05T12:54:00.000-07:00

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!

2005-09-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

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!

Photocopies & Waiting List

2005-08-30T12:11:00.000-07:00

Greetings, students. It was good to meet all of you, today. I placed the photocopies of the Foucault and Paul readings in the box marked "Olson," across the hall from the History of Art office. (Which is not to be confused with my actual mailbox, inside the office.) I also put a few extra copies of the syllabus in there, though all the info is obviously posted here...

Since all of the enrolled students showed up, I was unable to add anyone not enrolled or waitlisted to the class. I will officially add three students to the class (pending departmental and computer-protocol ok's on over-enrolling the class), bringing the enrollment to 20, with the idea that some students may drop. The waitlisted students who can expect to enroll are Tyler, Joyce, and Lenny. Sam and Yemi, you are welcome to continue attending the class and see if more people drop.

If you are enrolled or you are Tyler, Joyce, or Lenny and know that you will drop the class, please email ASAP, so that I can give your seat to someone else.

I hope that everything goes well for you, as you set-up your blogs. Again, we can discuss formatting and posting in greater depth on Thursday, and in my office hours. In the mean time, you are welcome to email me with questions. Please do send me the URL for your blog, ASAP.

Thanks!

Welcome - Day 1

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Hello, students. A few first-day notes... If you are enrolled but do not show up on the first day of class, you will be dropped from the course. If you are officially on the waiting list, but do not show up, you will be unable to add the course. Wait-listed students will be added to the enrollment list manually, by the department. If you are not on the list as of the first day of class, it is unlikely that you will be added--sorry.

If you are enrolled (or expect to be enrolled) in the course, please bookmark this blog, asap. Then click the "Get Your Own Blog" button, in the top-right corner of this page. You will need to have your own blog set-up by the second class session (Thursday, September 1), so that you can post comments and questions on the Foucault, Mitchell, and Paul readings before class begins.

I recommend not using your full last name when you create your blog--but it's your choice. Either way, please email me with the URL (web address) of your blog, asap. I will create a "blog roll" on this page, so that you can view each other's blogs. If you've never created a blog or website, have no fear--it is easier than it may look and I am happy to help you with it, in office hours and during the 9/1 class session.

Course Description and Goals

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This course will serve as an introduction to thinking and writing critically about contemporary art and visual culture, including elements of digital literacy. On a primary level, the goal of this course is to strengthen students’ skills in the areas of writing and research. This will be accomplished through workshop-style writing exercises and in-class presentations, research assignments, and thoughtful “close-reading” of critical writing. Students will learn to recognize and craft essays that move beyond description into the realm of original argumentation, and they should expect that their own writings will be held to a similar level of scrutiny as those on our reading list.

The readings and assignments will be organized around three closely-linked themes: the relationship of art and technology, the relationships between words and images, and the relationship between orality and literacy. Becoming familiar with the nuances of these relationships will be a complex (and hopefully exciting) process that will involve looking at the shifting functions of authors and their writing about/in art, ranging from rhetorical operations to writing as art, poetics, narration, criticism, and historiography. Writing assignments will require students to be conversant in each of these areas of practice, while the ultimate emphasis will be placed upon the construction of an original argument, the crafting and revision of essays, and the ultimate development of a well-researched, historically-informed piece of critical writing.

Course Policies

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This seminar will be structured as a workshop, in which we continually revisit and flesh out ideas, and in which students regularly present their own writing to the class. While educated debate is encouraged, students are expected to be respectful of each others’ work and ideas, to contribute constructive criticism as appropriate, and to generally contribute to the class by keeping up with the readings and assignments.

Assigned readings should be brought to every class. Writing assignments are due in-class, at the beginning of the session (ie 8:10am) on the specified due dates. No late or e-mailed papers will be accepted, and all papers must be typed and proofread, with numbered and stapled pages. Reading responses must be posted online before the beginning of the class session for which they were assigned. (See below for more information.) Attendance is mandatory for all class sessions and field trips. Lateness is unacceptable.

Students with two or more unexcused absences, or who fail to complete and turn-in all writing assignments on-time, will not pass the class.

A Note on Plagiarism & Academic Dishonesty:
Plagiarism will not be tolerated, under any circumstances. This includes stealing papers topics and the ideas of others, as well as specific language. If you have any questions as to what constitutes plagiarism or how to properly cite your colleagues or reference resources, see me and/or turn to these helpful online resources:

http://www.reshall.berkeley.edu/academics/resources/plagiarism/
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Citations.html

Student Learning Center and Students with Disabilities:
For assistance/concerns with writing or with questions concerning disabilities please contact the Student Learning Center at http://slc.berkeley.edu (510.642.7332) and the Disabled Students’ Program at http://dsp.berkeley.edu.

Assignments & Grading

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Attendance and class participation (including field trips and peer evaluations) will constitute 30% of your grade. The remaining 70% will be determined according to your performance in each of the following assignments.

Reading Responses: Students must create their own blog for this course, which will act as a writing portfolio for reading responses. For each day on which a reading is assigned, students must create a posting of two or more paragraphs, one of which summarizes the theme and primary argument(s) of the author, and the other of which poses a discussion question. These responses must be posted online, prior to the commencement of the class session for which they were assigned. Students are encouraged to read and comment respectfully on each other’s blogs. 10% of grade (Note: Because these are graded on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis, poor performance on reading responses can result in the lowering of your grade by as much as one letter-grade. )

Diagnostic Essay: All students must turn-in a diagnostic essay at the beginning of the semester, for evaluation. While these will be ungraded, they are mandatory.

Oral Presentations: Twice during the semester, students will be required to give oral presentations of works in progress. These presentations will provide opportunities for feedback and the fleshing-out of ideas, while also providing context for some of our discussions of the relationship between orality & literacy. 10% of grade (5% each)

Essay #1: The critical essay (6-8 pages). This paper will require students to reflect critically on a work of digital or electronic art, offering a coherent thesis in relationship to the interpretation of the work. Formulation of this argument should be dependent upon the components or elements of the work, including a close-reading of the rhetorical relationship between word and image (or the visual and the verbal, etc), which will also entail contextualizing the relationship between form and content. 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. 20% of grade

Prospectus for essay #2: This will be a 1-2 page paper proposal, outlining your topic, thesis, the main points you anticipate making in support of your thesis, and three potential research references, at least two of which must be from outside of the syllabus and not from the internet (though appropriate internet references are encouraged—we will discuss this). Ungraded, but mandatory.

Essay #2: Research paper (10-12 pages). Expanding on the model of critical writing initiated in the first paper, students will present a critical essay with a major research component. We will discuss topics as the due date approaches, but research components may include: in-depth research into an artist’s or collective’s body of work, a comparison of a “new” work with its self-proclaimed artistic precedent or the source of its appropriation; analysis of the historicization and/or vocabularization of particular practices and/or theories in new media art. 30% of grade

Students should keep original copies of all course work turned-in and all edited and graded assignments. Please consult the course schedule for due dates.

Course Schedule

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Please Note: This schedule is subject to revision. Changes will be announced in class and posted on the course blog. In general, we will be revisiting assigned readings throughout the semester, and constantly balancing group discussion of art works with textual analysis.

Week 1: Introduction
Tuesday, August 30

Thursday, September 1:
Michel Foucault, This Is Not a Pipe, Chapters 1 & 2; Christiane Paul, Digital Art (Introduction)

Week 2: Time & Space and the Rhetoric of the Image
Tuesday, September 6:
GE Lessing, “Laocoön: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry;” WJT Mitchell, “Space and Time: Lessing’s Laocoön and the Politics of Genre,” “What Is An Image,” and “Image Versus Text: Figures of the Difference,” from Iconology. In-class writing exercise.

Thursday, September 8:
Roland Barthes, “Rhetoric of the Image,” from Image, Music, Text

Week 3: Technology, Literacy, and Orality
Tuesday, September 13:
DIAGNOSTIC ESSAY DUE
Selections from Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word

Thursday, September 15:
George Landow, “Hypertext as Collage-Writing,” from The Digital Dialectic (ed. Peter Lunenfeld); Christiane Paul, Chapters 1 & 2 of Digital Art.

Week 4: Image, Truth, and Representation
Tuesday, September 20:
Claus Clüver, “On Representation in Concrete and Semiotic Poetry”

Thursday, September 22:
Frederic Jameson, “Video: Surrealism Without the Unconscious,” from Postmodernism;
In-class writing exercise.

Week 5: Research Preparation
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.

*FIRST PAPER PROPOSALS DUE, via email, by the end of the day, 9/27

Thursday, September 29: NO CLASS

Week 6: Workshops
Tuesday, October 4: Student Presentations

Thursday, October 6: Student Presentations, Continued.

Week 7: Authorship, Appropriation, and Reproduction
Tuesday, October 11:
Roland Barthes, “”The Death of the Author,” from Image, Music Text;
Recommended: Michel Foucault, “What Is An Author?”

Thursday, October 13:
FIRST PAPER DUE
Lev Manovich, selections from The Language of New Media;
Recommended: Rachel Greene, selections from Internet Art

Week 8: Field Research
During the week that includes Tuesday, October 18 & Thursday, October 20, students must visit a minimum of one of the following exhibitions and write a 2-4 page interpretive essay:

The Bay Area Now and zine exhibitions at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Edgar Arceneaux at SFMOMA
Tony Labat at New Langton Arts (Free)
Playful Poetics at the Oakland Art Gallery (FREE)
The Lecture & Screening by Peter Kubelka, (on Thursday, 10/19) called "Poetry and Truth," at Berkeley's Pacific Film Archive

The idea is that this exercise will expand your knowledge of contemporary art practice and genres, diversify the topics about which you are writing, give you an additional assignment in which to refine your writing skills, and get you started on researching possible 2nd paper topics.

Week 9: Getting Practical: Writing & Speaking About Art
Tuesday, October 25: Artist Lecture, Tommy Becker

Thursday, October 27:
Writing Workshop

Week 10: Themes in Digital Art I
Tuesday, November 1: Reproduction and the Trope of Reproduction
Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” from Illuminations

Thursday, November 3:
Benjamin, continued

Week 11: Themes in Digital Art II
Tuesday, November 8:
Christiane Paul, “Themes in Digital Art,” from Digital Art

Thursday, November 10:
Tactical Media: Make yourself familiar with the tactical media projects of Critical Art Ensemble, and consider these recommended readings by the group:
"The Virtual Condition," the intro to The Electronic Disturbance;
"Electronic Civil Disobedience," the first chapter from the book of the same name;
"Electronic Civil Disobedience, Simulation, and the Public Sphere," from Digital Resistance;
"Contestational Biology," the intro to Molecular Invasion

Week 12: Themes in Digital Art III
Tuesday, November 15:
2nd PAPER PROSPECTUS DUE
Video game day. We will look at various projects in class, by Anne-Marie Schleiner, Brody Condon, Eddo Stern, C-Level, Paul Johnson, Cory Arcangel, Paul Slocum, the Radical Software Group, and others. Recommended readings:
Julian Stallabrass, "Just Gaming: Allegory and Economy in Computer Games," New Left Review Issue 198 (March/April 1993);
Jesper Juul, "Games Telling stories? A brief note on games and narratives," Game Studies, volume 1, issue 1 (July 2001);
Alexander R. Galloway, "Social Realism in Gaming," Game Studies, volume 4, issue 1 (November 2004)

Thursday, November 17: Writing Workshop
NOTE: STUDENTS MUST BRING TWO COPIES OF THE FIRST TWO PARAGRAPHS OF THEIR 2ND PAPER TO CLASS, TODAY.

Week 13
Tuesday, November 22: TBA

Thursday, November 24: HOLIDAY - NO CLASS

Week 14
Tuesday, November 29: Student Presentations

Thursday, December 1: Student Presentations, Continued

Week 15
Tuesday, December 6: Student Presentations, Continued

Thursday, December 8: Wrap-Up and Student Evaluations
FINAL RESEARCH PAPERS ARE DUE IN-CLASS, DECEMBER 8