Kansas City Art Institute:
Spring 2008
New Genres/New Media
Professor: Dr. Maria Elena Buszek
Office: 304 Baty House (ext 3378),
Class e-mail: genresmedia@gmail.com;
campus e-mail: mbuszek@kcai.edu
Office Hours: T/Th, 11am-12:30pm, or by appointment
Course Description: Since the Industrial Revolution artists have been utilizing and defining new intellectual, scientific, and technological development in ways that have radically extended the conventional media of sculpture and painting. In this course, we will study the history and evolution of these new genres and media since the rise of reproducible photography in the mid-nineteenth century to the digital arts of today. We will address the growth and relevance of performance art, film, installation, video, and digital media in the gallery world, and the various dialogues with popular and scientific culture in which all these new media have engaged.
Grading: Your grade will be based on two short, essay-writing assignments (20% each), a final exam (40%), and your preparation for/participation in weekly discussion, which will involve composing and turning in (as Word documents by e-mail) weekly questions based on that week’s readings (20%). Because you will have plenty of lead-time to research and compose your papers—the due dates of which have been included in the schedule from the beginning of the semester—late papers will not be accepted under any circumstances.
Attendance and Absence Policy: Attendance in this class is MANDATORY, not just because class material will not necessarily be directly or extensively addressed in your readings, but also because discussion/dialogue is a crucial part of this course. Each student will be allowed TWO unexcused absences from class over the course of the semester. Absences will only be excused when accompanied by official documentation from a physician or counselor explaining one's extended illness or extreme/unusual personal crisis. Such documentation must be presented within a reasonable amount of time (notes explaining one's illness from three months previous, for example, are not acceptable). Students with preexisting health issues that they anticipate may cause them to miss more than two classes are required to provide me with both a written explanation from and a phone number for the student’s physician or counselor, so that I may speak directly with the health care provider should the student’s absences begin to affect his/her grade. In any case, unless I am presented with the proper and timely documentation for a student’s absence/s, upon the THIRD unexcused absence, the student will automatically receive a failing grade (“F”) in the class. Remember that it is the student's responsibility to contact me and deal with absences as soon as possible! Please keep this attendance policy in mind when mulling over your use of the “free” absences—I can assure you that you will regret those two days you skipped to nap on the day a flat tire/broken alarm clock/change in your work schedule occurs after you’ve used up your freebies.
Class Participation: Active participation on the part of each student is essential to the success and effectiveness of this course. Indeed, dialogue will be a crucial part of the way this class addresses the information at hand, and students will be graded on their participation in our weekly meetings. Keep in mind that, contrary to popular belief, some teachers do not necessarily enjoy talking to themselves, and really want to hear your thoughts and insights into the material being discussed. (By the way...I am one of those teachers!) Don’t be afraid to speak up! Or freak out! YOU GUIDE THIS CLASS! So long as you participate earnestly and respectfully, no topics are off-limits. Cheating and plagiarism: Students are expected to be honest in both their test taking and paper writing assignments. Later in the semester, students will be given a handout (also available on our website) on guidelines for citing sources according to the Chicago Manual of Style, which is our discipline’s standard style and which I will expect all students to learn/follow in their writing assignments. Any dishonest student caught cheating or plagiarizing will receive an automatic “zero” on the exam/project at hand and be penalized to the fullest extent of the Academic Dishonesty policy stated in the KCAI Student Handbook. (This means anything from academic probation, to a failing course grade, to expulsion, depending on the findings of the KCAI Judicial Board.) Students with disabilities: Please let me know as soon as possible if you have a disability that may hinder your performance or participation in this class, so that accommodations may be made to satisfy course requirements. Trust me: you will find that I am willing to be extremely accommodating when it comes to student success, and would like to assure just about any student with any disability that they can not only take but do well in my classes. In any case, whether you choose to discuss any disabilities with us or not, all learning- or physically-disabled students are required to disclose as much with our Academic Resource Center in order to qualify for accommodations. Students can get further information through the ARC at (phone) 816/802.3371 or (e-mail) arc@kcai.edu.
A note on class readings: Your textbooks for this class are: Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (eds.) Art in Theory: 1900-2000 and Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort (eds.), The New Media Reader, both of which are on reserve in the library. You will also be assigned “virtual reserve” materials (readings/films/audio) that will be linked to our website as they are assigned. I expect students to read ahead for each week’s class and e-mail me questions concerning the readings before class; ; the textbook readings are listed in our course schedule with specific chapters/pages/authors following each day’s lecture theme, and weekly reserve readings will be posted as the semester progresses. PLEASE NOTE: Because this is a course dealing with new MEDIA as well as new genres in art history, all students are expected to access the reserve material, either from their own computers or those on KCAI’s campus. Moreover, students are all expected to both turn in papers and receive information by e-mail. As such, students will be expected to have done readings and read/responded to e-mail for each class.
Questions? Problems? Frustrations? These, my friends, are what your professors are here to help you deal with! I place a priority upon making myself accessible to students, and do my best to be extremely flexible when it comes to meeting and talking with students who would like help. My crucial numbers (phone, e-mail, office) are located above, and I am always willing to answer questions, discuss problems, and ease anxiety.
DATES TO REMEMBER:
February 20th: NO CLASS! College Art Association conference
March 5th: First essay topics due!
March 19th: NO CLASS! Spring break
April 23rd: Second essay topics due!
May 14th: Final examination
COURSE SCHEDULE:
January
30: Introductions, syllabus, questions Origins: Industry, technology, mass
culture
February
6: New Media and “The Total Work of Art”
Readings: Georg Simmel, “The Metropolis and Mental Life” (Art in Theory, p. 132)
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti “The Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism” (AiT,
p.146)
Virtual reserves
27: The Dada revolution: Confronting the public on the
stage of mass culture
Readings: Ludwig Meidner, “Instructions for Painting Pictures of the Metropolis”
(AiT, p. 167)
Hugo Ball, “Dada Fragments” (AiT, p. 250)
Sergei Tretyakov, “We Are Searching” and “We Raise the Alarm” (AiT, p.473)
Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (AiT,
p. 520) Virtual reserves
13: Surrealism and Cinema
Readings: Francis Picabia, “Thank You, Francis!” (AiT, p. 274)
André Breton, Excerpt from The First Manifesto of Surrealism (AiT, p. 447)
Bertolt Brecht, “Popularity and Realism” (AiT, p. 499)
Virtual reserves
20: NO CLASS! College Art Association conference
March
5: Surreality or reality? The postwar era
Readings: Vannevar Bush, “As We May Think” (New Media Reader, p. 35)
Allan Kaprow, “’Happenings’ in the New York Scene” (NMR, p. 83)
William Burroughs, “The Cut-up Method of Brion Gysin” (NMR, p. 89)
John Cage, “On Robert Rauschenberg,” (AiT, p. 734)
Jiro Yoshihara, “Gutai Manifesto” (AiT, p. 698)
Virtual reserves
FIRST ESSAYS DUE BY E-MAIL/DISCUSSED IN CLASS
12: Politics/pop/pleasure
Readings: Marshall McLuhan, “Two Selections by Marshall McLuhan” (NMR, p. 193)
Marshall McLuhan, Excerpts from Understanding Media, (AiT, p. 754)
Lawrence Alloway, “The Arts and Mass Media,” (AiT, p. 715)
Virtual reserves
19: NO CLASS! Spring Break
26: Toward a critical theory of new media
Readings: Guy Debord, Writings from the Situationist International (AiT, p. 701)
Jean Baudrillard, “The Hyper-realism of Simulation” (AiT, p. 1019)
Laura Mulvey, Excerpts from “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (AiT, 982)
Virtual reserves
April
2: “Beyond Objects:” Conceptualism
Readings: Roland Barthes, “From Work to Text” (AiT, p. 965)
Robert Morris, “Notes on Sculpture 4: Beyond Objects” (AiT, p. 881)
Lawrence Weiner, “Statements” (AiT, p. 893)
Victor Burgin, “Situational Aesthetics” (AiT, p.894)
Virtual reserves
9: Participation and Information
Readings: Germano Celant, From Arte Povera (AiT, p. 897)
Hélio Oiticica, “Appearance of the Supra-Sensorial” (AiT, p.913)
Billy Klüver, “Four Selections by E.A.T.” (NMR, p.211)
Nam Jun Paik, “Cybernated Art” (NMR, p. 227)
Virtual reserves
16: Culture clashes: Out of the ‘70s/Into the ‘80s
Readings: Hans Magnus Enzensberger, “Constituents of a Theory of the Media” (NMR,
p. 259)
Jean Baudrillard, “Requiem for the Media” (NMR, p. 277)
Rosalind Krauss, “Notes on the Index: Part I” (AiT, p. 994) Virtual reserves
23: New forms and new formalism in new media
Readings: Jürgen Habermas, “Modernity—an Incomplete Project” (AiT, p. 1123)
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Excerpt from A Thousand Plateaus (NMR, p.
405)
Bill Viola, “Will There Be Condominiums in Data Space?” (NMR, p. 463)
Virtual reserves
SECOND PAPERS DUE BY E-MAIL/DISCUSSED IN CLASS
30: Simulation/stimulation
Readings: Bill Nichols, “The Work of Culture in the Age of Cybernetic Systems) (NMR,
p.625)
Lynn Hershman, “The Fantasy Beyond Control” (NMR, p. 643) AND Hershman on NMR
disc
Robert Coover, “The End of Books” (NMR, p. 705)
Virtual reserves
May
7: History, allegory, and self in the “televisual” era
Readings: Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto” (NMR, p. 515)
Critical Art Ensemble, “Nomadic Power and Cultural Resistance” (NMR, p. 781)
Virtual reserves
14: FINAL EXAM