I can only post a sort of
‘marker’ blogpost for this week; too busy for words: student conference – music
improvisation event – all the usual work – started a new F2F course – finishing
another MOOC - tons of marking. Hey ho.
But this CalArts course is
so excellent, I need to capture it here; if I cannot do all the work this week,
I can at least re-visit it later and catch up with myself. I foresee a very
visual summer!
Art as story
We explored art as public
storytelling, and history- and meaning making from the caves of Lascaux to Persepolis via Davide, Jericho
A key implicit theme was
power: who gets to tell the stories – who has access to the traditions,
resources, vocabulary, training, tradition, time… the cultural, semantic and
semiotic capital to make the meanings that count – that stick – that help us
become who we are – or that deny us alternative ways of being who we might
become.
Out task this week is to
tell our tale of who we are in ten images with a very brief commentary: one for
after the marking!! But a wonderful additional task for this week is to go back
into last week’s assignments and to engage with another participant in a deep
and thoughtful way. I have posted useful questions, suggestions and resources
below – and these are definitely things that I will be embedding in my own
practice as soon as humanly possible.
W2: Assignments
Optional Sketchbook Assignment 1 Follow Up
Regardless
if you did last week’s sketchbook assignment or not, I encourage you to try
this out. Some of you are already commenting on the work that’s been posted to
date, but let’s make our first attempt at critique with the following prompt:
Visit the Sketchbook
Assignment 1: My World and the Art World forum and choose
an assignment. Try especially to spread your attention between assignments that
may have already received a lot of feedback and ones that haven’t. Prioritize
finding an undiscovered gem or two.
Look at the student’s submission. Don’t respond
immediately. Give yourself at least a few minutes to really look or study what
the student has submitted.
In your reply, describe, in words, exactly what you
are seeing or reading in the student’s assignment.
Then, select at least one of the
following and add it to your comment:
a.
What is
one thing about the submission that immediately caught your attention?
b.
What is
one thing about the work that took you a little longer to discover?
c.
What are
three questions you would ask this student about their submission?
d.
How does
the medium/format that the student has chosen (drawing, text, chart, etc.)
affect how you understand the meaning of the submission?
Repeat for another assignment. Try to comment on at
least three assignments this round.
Optional Sketchbook Assignment 2: Mental Map (Tracks A
& B)
It’s good
to try to know yourself as an artist and visual thinker. And it’s interesting
to learn from others. This week I’m asking you to tell your own story in images
and words, and learn about things you might not know from other people’s
stories.
1.
In your
sketchbook, assemble ten (10) images, books, films, or even
music/songs that provide a history and context for your current work or
interests in art, animation and/or gaming, whether as a practitioner, viewer or
player/participant. Choose works that are important to the way you think, and
just as importantly, works that inspire you in ways that you can’t always
perhaps put into words. Reach back into your childhood (where you may perhaps
find some unexpected sources of inspiration) and look around you to collect
some contemporary resources. (This assignment is particularly well-suited to a
digital sketchbook, like a Tumblr or blog, but as before, if you are posting
content that is not your own, please cite where you retrieved each image with a
link.)
2.
Sequence
your images/items in a way that makes sense to you, chronologically or
thematically or some other way.
3.
In this forum, start a new thread. Give your thread a title,
write a short intro (100-200 words), and post your images/list of links, or a
link to your digital sketchbook/blog where you created your sequence.
4.
Click
“Create New Thread.”
Further Reading
See the work in fine detail, panel by panel.
A simulated walkthrough of the caves.
A list of
some photographers working in a way similar to Jeff Wall:
Edward Burtynsky
Andreas Gursky
Thomas Struth
Andreas Gursky
Thomas Struth
Marjane Satrapi’s 2003 graphic novel is highly
recommended, and we encourage you to see her 2007 animated feature, too. It’s
available on Netflix if
you have access to it in your part of the world (membership required), or on
video.
Charles
Baudelaire, “The Painting of Modern Life,” in The Painter of Modern
Life and Other Essays, 1964.
Baudelaire’s seminal collection of essays has been
republished widely. Check your library.
TJ
Clark, The Painter of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his
Followers. Princeton , NJ :
Princeton University
A revised edition was published in 1999.
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