Art & the History of Art 347 - The Fingerprint and the Gesture: A Cross-Disciplinary Studio in Personal Voice

(Offered as ARHA 347, FAMS 347, and THDA 147) What makes a creative gesture feel unmistakably one’s own? How do artists across disciplines—for example, visual artists, filmmakers, writers, musicians, designers, and performers—develop a perceptual “fingerprint,” a recognizable presence that carries across form, medium, and process? In this intermediate-level studio course, students will explore these questions through weekly experiments, critique, and reflection. Drawing on approaches from studio art, sound practices, experimental cinema, performance, and poetics, the course emphasizes attention to formal rhythm, embodied repetition, and the generative potential of error, failure, and unintended gesture as ways of accessing personal voice. Students will explore how creative identity emerges not only through conscious authorship, but also through accumulated habit, disrupted pattern, and material response. Students will work in their chosen medium while developing a body of work that brings out the unconscious structures and tendencies that shape their creative decisions. This course welcomes students working in any creative medium. It is designed to support artistic and personal growth, cross-modal thinking, and greater intentionality in process and practice.

Limited to 14 students. Spring 2026: Prof. Levine.

How to handle overenrollment: Instructor's consent needed

Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Emphasis on artistic practice, group critique, conceptual experimentation, cross-disciplinary dialogue, and reflection on process.