Banner project (includes images, live links or videos, description and notes)
Notes on Neil Postman chapters – Amusing Ourselves to Death
Presentation of video references from the internet for your project
Field Trip Blog Post
Comprehensive blog posts contribute to getting the full grades for your assignments. The blog in general (especially articles and notes) will be evaluated at the end of term to contribute to your participation grades.
Discuss Field Trip:
Charles Campbell, How Many Colours Has the Sea?Lap See-Lam, Floating Sea Palace – The Power PlantLiquid Gold, Alex McCleod – Harbourfront Centre
VIDEO EDITING DEMO with Nathan
Video editing refresher, using found footage and found sound from the internet
Begin collecting footage, research and work with partners in class.
Using a mix of found footage (video and or sound) from YouTube or other social media video channels, create an original work of video art that responds to aspects of contemporary video culture, intended for gallery exhibition. Videos may be up to 10 minutes MAX.
Videos will be made in groups of two (or solo if you insist!).
PART ONE: Research presentation and discussion DUE in class Jan 22
Forage through the internet for the tropes of popular video culture you would like to explore more deeply. We’ll discuss possible options in class, so a pair of students can each present a video genre. The presentation should take up to 10 minutes MAXIMUM including video time.
Prepare a presentation on your blog page – of one or two examples of internet videos of this genre.
Give a general description of your videos/video genre they are representative of. Consider these questions and others relevant to your selction:
What are some of the key features that define this genre? What are some weird variations on it?
What are some of the reasons these kinds of videos are compelling or useful in this historical moment? Use quotes from published sources to back up your arguments and analysis.
How do you relate to it?
How is it shot, and framed? Where does the material come from? What is the quality of the footage?
How is it edited, and does it flow from clip to clip?
What does it sound like? How are sound or image manipulated and transformed from original footage?
PART TWO: Show proposed samples/work in progress for discussion DUE WED JAN 29th
Together with a partner – prepare some samples of footage and approaches for a final piece to discuss with the class.
Consider some of these questions:
How does your video document a historical moment – in internet culture, and in the wider world?
How does what you want to do amplify, deconstruct, or subvert what is already happening on the internet?
How is what you are doing something new? What is your wider perspective on the material, and/your artistic twist?
What is the kind of experience you want to create for viewers/users?
What is the ideal way for the video to be presented?
What are some of the technologies, software, or technical experiments and gimmicks you may need to achieve? Do you want to use avatars? Live stream? Rip music and video from YouTube? Prepare your ambitious technical goals for Nathan, and we can design demos to support your ideas.
PART THREE: Present your final work for critique – FEB 10-12th.
WEDNESDAY
DUE: Internet video presentations and proposals in class
REMINDER: FRIDAY JAN 24th EXPERIMENTAL FIELD TRIP
9:30 AM to 6PM – Toronto Museums
Here is the eventbrite link for students to purchase tickets:
Mandatory: Create a FIELD TRIP blog post illustrating, describing and responding to two art works from each museum. How are these works relevant to your own research interests and practice? What did you notice, learn, or take away from the experience of the works in the gallery?
Note: Students who are not able to attend the field trip must visit one of these Toronto museums, in addition to the AGG exhibition and create a blog post based on this field research.
Lenka Clayton, “An Everyday Tragedy,” 2016. Billboard text. 36 x 30 feet. Written for The Last Billboard, visible during May 2016. Photo courtesy of The Last Billboard.
Review on how to post to blog BLOG Deadlines and expectations:
All blog posts should be up on the blog ONE WEEK after final critique, reading assignment, proposal assignment or class activity/trip.
Include work in progress, research and references to support your final projects.
For final projects, include the artwork, artists names, a title, and a short description of the work – why did you choose to make it this way? What does it consist of? How did you complete it? How might it work in the gallery or other context?
It’s your blog/portfolio – do update and improve content after critiques, make it useful and feel free to share from the blog.
Note:
You must have at least one final blog post for each project, and you will not receive a grade (or a grade with a significant reduction) if a post is missing. Rich evidence of engagement with course materials will increase your grades on your work.
REMINDER:
FRIDAY JAN 24th EXPERIMENTAL FIELD TRIP
9:30 AM to 6PM – Toronto Museums
Here is the eventbrite link for students to purchase tickets:
Introduction, forward and Chapter 1 from Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death
Make notes summarizing the material, and include THREE quotes for analysis and reflection. Are some of these ideas from more than 40 years ago applicable to our own historical moment? Did Neil Postman predict the age of television/video media personalities in positions of great power? How does he argue that the overflow of accessible, 24/7 information and entertainment might make us less wise, healthy, and safe? How might these ideas influence how you think about the effects video culture of our own time?
NOTE on the reading: This is a classic media studies text from 1985 – where references to the sophistication of communication technologies of Indigenous people, or references to different body types and their tv appeal are from a less informed, just, or considerate time. If desired, you can use your note space to take on the problematics of his metaphors, or describe ways video culture has changed – or not – in terms of the values the medium implicitly imparts.
In next week’s class we will have time to work with partners and discuss/research presentations.
Note all blog posts are due ONE WEEK after date introduced. At mid term and end of term – there will not be any late blog posts accepted. Always keep your blog up to date!
Joi T. Arcand, Northern Pawn, South Vietnam, 2009. From the Here on Future Earth series. Courtesy the artist.
STUDIO ASSIGNMENT: Make your own GARLAND BANNER*
Explore the reading, Dirty Words by Tammer El Sheik from Canadian Art. Read for meaning, and read like an artist looking for text as material for a new work.
You will excerpt a fragment of text – at least two words in order, up to a full sentence – to create a banner, and hang it in a context that will expand/alter/transform its meaning.
Use the blog to show/make notes and plan your work. Always show work in progress on the blog.
Make, install, and document your banner. Post an image of it with a project description on your blog page.
Consider how artists use conceptual strategies to use text in public/context-specific sites:
Text that gives instructions to the public to act/think/etc.
Text that speaks to the site, transforming perception of it
Text that presents personal information in a public context
Text that manipulates private feelings in public
Text that goes against expectations of commercial messages in public
Text that befuddles, beguiles, creates poetic insights
Text that calls for activist/disruptive action
We will have some time in our next class to print, and craft banners.
Bring all relevant materials on WEDNESDAY! Some paper and printing will be available.
Consider fonts, design, scale, and colours for your final banner.
*Final BANNERS DUE FOR DISCUSSION ON MONDAY NEXT WEEK! Post the final picture of your banner on your blog page.
–
WEDNESDAY
Draft banner ideas, text samples, and site possibilities on the blog.
Remember to BRING materials for banner making today!
Fonts design and printing demo
Printing and cutting and taping and stringing banners….
Work time in class, discussions in progress.
Final blog post with one image of your banner installed in the world due for discussion on MONDAY next week.
“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.
I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge — even wisdom. Like art.”
— Toni Morrison —
MONDAY
All books must be sent to Blurb for publication/printing by this morning – See Nathan ASAP if you haven’t submitted it yet.
Printing spreads, scanning, discussion of all tech specs. A SOLID DRAFT of the book should be ready for approvals and discussion on Wednesday. All books will be ordered by Friday of this week.
FRIDAY Nov. 8th is the final press deadline – after which time no further books will be ordered.
WEDNESDAY
Completing book design
Book time with Nathan today, Thursday to go over final approvals of tech specs to make sure your book is ready to go to press.
FRIDAY Nov. 8th is the final press deadline – after which time no further books will be ordered.
Reminder to post your notes about the Maira Kalman podcast from On Being with Krista Tippet.
Want to learn more? See Kalman’s artist talk about Women Holding Things:
Make notes on two things Kalman says that strike you, and one image from her ouevre – that feed your own thinking about art and the everyday – note/paraphrase the quote (see transcript) and elaborate. Include one image to discuss.
Images from the cover of Women Holding Things, Maira Kalman, 2023.
