Why study literature? In many contexts, including the contexts of most other academic disciplines, one reads in order to extract the gist of a text. By studying literature, we enable ourselves to do much more than that. Studying literature makes it possible to recover a relationship to language that we all once had, in which words and their interrelationships were new, strange, and rich with possibility.
Though the foundation of this seminar will be object-based research and writing, this course differs from a typical art history seminar in that the final product is not a traditional research paper but rather a collaboratively produced, student-curated exhibition, which will open at the Mead Art Museum in spring 2015.
This course offers an in-depth exploration of three-dimensional practice. The focus will be on extending the range of object-based art. Projects will involve combining materials, using alternative materials and processes and employing contemporary formats including installation and site-specific work. Basic sculptural processes such as carving, casting and welding will be revaluated for new potential. Figurative, abstract, architectural and conceptual approaches will be considered.
Since the thorough renegotiation of the concept of art in the 1960s and 70s, contemporary art has continuously come to explore new media, sites, and expressions. Conceptual art, performance, video- and sound-based art are examples that often illustrate this development. However, they also act alongside an expanded understanding of traditional art forms such as painting and sculpture, both of which have taken radically new directions during the past decades.
This class takes an ethno-historical approach to the architecture of societies that are under-represented in canonical architectural theory. We study the architecture of traditional societies through two supplementary lenses. On the one hand we look at the Euro-American perspective, studying how this type of architecture has been represented in classical architectural literature. The second lens is ethnographic and looks at traditional building from a locally informed perspective. Added to the seminar discussions, this class includes a visual analysis component.
(Offered as ARCH 206 and MUSI 114) Enlivened with sound, ancient sites, structures, and musical instruments are given voice by archaeoacoustics research techniques. How can digital technologies enable us to engage these long-silent traces of past life? How might sonic re-constructions or "auralizations" be situated to communicate multiple interpretations of the distant past? How do sonic architectures relate to other archaeological evidence?
