Problems: Creative Interventions Online and IRL - Art044
- https://www.are.na/grayson-earle/interventionist-art
- Monday/Wednesday 7-10pm
- Media Lab (Venturi 163)
Instructor
- Grayson Earle
- gearle@oberlin.edu
- Office Hours: Venturi 161B Tuesday 1:15 - 4:15 and by appointment
Description
Producing culture in public space is a means of provoking critical dialogue about the political conditions surrounding us. At times, art can move beyond dialogic production and engage systems directly. In this course students will examine and reproduce interventionist strategies invoked by critical artists and technologists. Varied tools will be used to this end, as we will be moving between online and offline sites of public engagement. This class is a studio/seminar hybrid, so students should be prepared to read, discuss, create, and critique.
Attendance & Participation
Attendance is required. You are expected arrive on time, with your materials, and ready to work. This expectation includes arriving before the start of class so that class is uninterrupted.
Students are allowed two unexcused absences, after which each absence or tardiness will negatively impact one's attendance grade. Each absence thereafter will negatively impact your total grade by 3%. Five unexcused absences is grounds for failing. Six excused absences also constitutes failing the course. Arriving late or leaving early is equivalent to half an absence. The class starts at 7pm, not 7:01, be on time.
Lessons will not be repeated in full for absent students. You are responsible for obtaining materials, information, announcements, and/or assignments covered during classes you miss.
Students are expected to participate in class discussion and group critiques regularly. Full participation will require keeping up with the texts. Being unprepared for a discussion, or failing to participate generally, will have a grade penalty equal to tardiness.
Academic Integrity and Honor Code
The Honor Code: Oberlin College students are on their honor to uphold a high degree of academic integrity. All work that students submit is expected to be of their own creation and give proper credit to the ideas and work of others. When students write and sign the Honor Pledge, they are affirming that they have not cheated, plagiarized, fabricated, or falsified information, nor assisted others in these actions.
Honor Pledge: "I have adhered to the Honor Code in this assignment." For more details on academic integrity and the Honor Code, please consult the following link: https://www.oberlin.edu/dean-of-students/student-conduct/academic-integrity
Accommodations / College Disability Services
Students with disabilities of any kind who may need disability-related classroom accommodations for this course are encouraged to contact the staff of Disability Resources at the Center for Student Success. They can be reached at drcss@oberlin.edu or 440-775-5588
I am interested in supporting your success in this course, students needing academic adjustments or accommodations because of a documented disability must present me with a letter/documentation from Disability Resources. Please contact me as early as possible so that we can work together.
Counseling and Mental Health
College is an incredible time of discovery, opportunity, and excitement. College can also be an extremely stressful and difficult experience. If you find yourself struggling, there are resources on campus that can help support you in the ways that you need. The Counseling Center is one of those resources. They are available by phone (M-F, 8:30-4:30) at 440-775-8470 and after hours at 440-775-8470, press "2". More info at https://www.oberlin.edu/counseling
Media Lab & Etiquette
You will need to use the Media Lab outside of class in order to complete your projects. Please refer to the lab monitor hours on the door.
Keep the Media Lab neat and tidy. Remember that this is a shared workspace, and to be courteous of other students and their projects.
Grading
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Participation/Attendance: 30%
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Readings: 30%
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Projects: 40%
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90 - 92 -> A-, 93 - 100 -> A
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80 - 82 -> B-, 83 - 86 -> B, 87 - 89 -> B+
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70 - 72 -> C-, 73 - 76 -> C, 77 - 79 -> C+
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60 - 69 -> D, 0 - 50 -> F
Readings
Each week, a student or group of students will present an assigned text and lead a discussion. When leading a text and discussion, here are some guiding principles:
- Leading an insightful discussion about specific concepts that you think are important from the text
- Proposing fundamental questions about the text
- Putting forward inventive and/or alternative ideas and theory for discussion
- Experimenting with the form of presentation
- Generating excitement about the ideas in the text
- Connecting the text to other media, texts, and ideas from class
It is imperative that all students come to class having done the readings and thought about them in a critical manner. The students that are not leading the discussions for the week will be responsible for the following:
- Submitting a short written response (150-300 words) to each reading via Blackboard
- Coming to class with questions and/or perspectives that you would like to discuss
- Presenting these questions and perspectives in class
I will be available to guide lead groups in their proposed activity and assist you in highlighting and clarifying ideas.
Projects
- Psychogeography
This project is lifted from a quote in Malcolm Coverly’s book Psychogeography.
Psychogeography: a beginner’s guide. Unfold a street map of London [New York City], place a glass, rim down, anywhere on the map, and draw round its edge. Pick up the map, go out into the city, and walk the circle, keeping as close as you can to the curve. Record the experience as you go, in whatever medium you favour: film, photograph, manuscript, tape. Catch the textual run-off of the streets; the graffiti, the branded litter, the snatches of conversation. Cut for sign. Log the data-stream. Be alert to the happenstance of metaphors, watch for visual rhymes, coincidences, analogies, family resemblances, the changing moods of the street. Complete the circle, and the record ends. Walking makes for content; footage for footage.
—Robert MacFarlane, A Road of One’s Own.
- Videojam
Using Videogrep, remix video content using search terms to selectively extract video and make your own "supercut." This can be funny, earnest, and use news sources, mass media TV or cinema, etc. The goal is to reveal something via subtraction.
- Unnoticed
Introduce something into public space that, while possessing meaning, is meant to go unnoticed. Document the creation of the object as well as it in public space. You will be required to show this documentation during a group discussion. In developing this work I encourage you to think about spaces, ideas, and objects that are intended to be invisible.
- Visual Reclamation
Using projection mapping or another visual medium, design and produce an intervention on public visual space.
- Final Project
Disclaimer
This syllabus is subject to change. Students who miss class are responsible for learning about any changes to the syllabus.
Schedule
Week 01 (2/4 && 2/6)
SITUATIONISTS
Monday
- Course Intro
- Questionnaire
- Richard Serra Television Delivers People
- Screen Society of the Spectacle
Wednesday
- Discuss
- Introduce Project 1
Week 02 (2/11 && 2/13)
SITUATIONISTISM -> CULTURE JAMMING
Monday
- Discuss
- Screen Can Ideology Break Bricks?
- Alternatively, color version
- Negativland
Wednesday
- Lab
Week 03 (2/18 && 2/20)
CULTURE JAMMING
Monday
- Discuss
- DeLaure & Fink Culture Jamming text
- Naomi Klein - No Logo Chapter 5: Patriarchy Gets Funky
Wednesday
- Lab
Week 04 (2/25 && 2/27)
OVERIDENTIFICATION
Monday
-
Discuss
-
Screen Yes Men Fix the World (2008)
Wednesday
- Lab
Week 05 (3/4 && 3/6)
DISOBEDIENT OBJECTS / PROTEST AND ART
Monday
- Guest Lecturer Shobun Baile
- Discuss
- Graeber - On the Phenomenology of Giant Puppets
- Disobedient Objects
Wednesday
- No class! Work day.
Week 06 (3/11 && 3/13)
RUSSIAN/AVANT-GARDE
Monday
- Discuss
- Alexander Brener
- Oleg Kulik
- VOINA
- Pussy Riot
- Eva and Franco Mattes - Stolen Pieces -- Artists break off pieces of famous artworks
Wednesday
- Lab
Week 07 (3/18 && 3/20)
AIDS EPIDEMIC & CREATIVE RESPONSE
Monday
- Discuss
- Skype with Avram Finkelstein of SILENCE = DEATH
Wednesday
- Lab
Week 08 (3/25 && 3/27) -- SPRING BREAK
Week 09 (4/1 && 4/3)
RECLAIMING VISUAL SPACE / PROJECTION
Monday
- Discuss
- Guerrilla Girls
- Jenny Holzer
- Krzysztof Wodiczko
- Projection Mapping Workshop
Wednesday
- Lab: Projection Mapping
Week 10 (4/8 && 4/10)
HACKTIVISM
Monday
- Discuss
- McKenzie Wark - Hacker Manifesto
- Discuss projection projects Wednesday
- McKenzie Wark - Hacker Manifesto
- Lab: Projection Mapping
Week 11 (4/15 && 4/17)
OCCUPY
Monday
- Discuss Texts
- Discuss Art
- Strike Debt
- Rolling Jubilee
- Debt Resistors Manual (you don't have to read this for class)
- Occupy
- Strike Debt
- Show projection mapping mini-projects
Wednesday
- Lab
Thursday - Saturday
- Illuminator!
Week 12 (4/22 && 4/24)
Monday
- Projection spillover
Wednesday
- Discuss
- Laural Ptak - Wages for Facebook
- Sam Lavigne
- Rafia - #PayBlackTime
- Final Projects
- Discuss options for final projects and the exhibition during Art Walk (May 10th)
Week 13 (4/29 && 5/1)
FINAL PROJECT WORKSHOP
Monday
- Screen
- The Watermelon Woman by Cheryl Dunye
Wednesday
- Lab
Week 14 (5/6 && 5/8)
FINAL PROJECTS
Monday
- Final Project Presentations & Feedback
Wednesday
- Final Project Presentations & Feedback