Confession

Catching up

Wow--with so much going on for the do it show, I'm two projects behind on posting!! First more endurance...

Endurance Animation

Another beautiful "endurance' project

So, the students again outdid themselves on "Project 2: Endurance"

Here are the instructions:

endurance |enˈd(y)oŏrəns|

noun

the fact or power of enduring an unpleasant or difficult process or situation without giving way : she was close to the limit of her endurance.

• the capacity of something to last or to withstand wear and tear

Make a project using: stamina, staying power, fortitude, perseverance, persistence, tenacity, doggedness, grit, indefatigability, resolution, determination. You do not need to subject yourself to pain to do this project—and please do not attempt anything that will physically damage you or anyone else. The idea is to push outside the normal mental or physical “comfort zone” to discover something new. These projects may be meditative, physically strenuous, emotionally uncomfortable, hedonistic or contemplative.

The students approached this a number of ways--here are a few projects.

critique for Interruption Project

The first project critique went amazingly well--students are doing some interesting work--I've posted video and still documentation. Even more, the students gave thoughtful criticism, praise, advice and suggestions to their classmates-wonderful energy.

Interventions were done---craftily (Foam Letters)

We also had a great discussion about issues of narcissism in performance art, why so many female artists do work about the body, and why the personal and every day experiences of war make it seem so much more real than media reports.

Some were humorous...



Others were dreamy

Thursday July 1

Well, we are coming to the end of the first week in class--so far students seem excited about the artists we have looked at and the final "do it!" exhibition project. Some artists we've seen and discussed include Bill Viola, Allan Kaprow, Robbie McCauley, Patty Chang, Adrian Piper and Ann Hamilton... I can't wait to see the student's 1 st projects on Tuesday. Here is their assignment:

Create a work that interrupts or intervenes with the everyday—this could be personal, public, or somewhere in between. It is fine to use humor, to be political or philosophical, and/or ambiguous. This interruption can be positive, negative or neutral.

What is this course about?

In official academiceese:This upper level course focuses on exploring “4-D” AKA “Time-Based” arts. Students will be expected to develop an understanding of the art historical and theoretical roots of contemporary video, performance, interactive, sound and other 4-D art practices.

But in the more casual tone of this blog, I will say that this course is about understanding and creating artwork outside of the tradition of "object making"-- Which is a pretty important idea whose genesis was probably in dada, but which came into full bloom in the late 1960s early 1970s. Technically we are thinking about working in the 4th dimension-artworks that exist in time (of course all work exists and changes over time, physically, in terms of context it even has a beginning and an end) but the stuff we will study and make has an awareness of temporality in both process and 'product'.

We start June 30th--and I can't wait to see what my students come up with.