ART 394 Interactive Studio Course Proposal
This is the first version of this course proposal. See the Complete Final proposal at http://look.gvsu.edu:8000/emphasis/55 (including a link to the final version of this course proposal. The final documents all have a tan background). Hitting the Home button at the left of every page will bring you back to the main page of the final version.
Art and Design Majors: completion of Foundations.
Non-Art and Design Majors: Junior Standing and permission of instructor.
10. Rationale for adding this course to the curriculum:
- 10 a. Explain how this course will strengthen and improve the curriculum.
Interactive Studio increases the curriculum’s capacity to represent established practices in contemporary art exploring interactive, social/political, audience-engaged, presentational practices, and the theoretical discourse specific to such practices within a studio context. This class would address the study and creation of interactive art works. Emphasis will be placed on the participatory experience prevalent in contemporary art's exploration of the changing roles of audience, spectator, and art object. The mediums explored could include: interactive installations, participatory theater, community based art, social/political interactions, or electronic interfaces.
By working both in and out of traditional presentation contexts the studio engages a consideration of how art is “instituted”. These understandings transfer back to standardized art contexts by articulating the process of encounter and engagement with audience in distinct ways.
- 10 b. Which student population(s) is this course designed to serve? Explain how and where this course fits into the unit’s existing curriculum.
1. Art and Design students
2. Students from other majors. In particular students whose course of study deals with digital or spatial interactions.
Most studio courses are organized by discipline (medium). Interactive studio is organized around an experiential form (interaction) which has it’s own considerations and may also incorporate products and considerations rooted in various other media. This approach complements the existing curriculum by focussing on important considerations of art practice not primary in other studios.
The course also establishes a structure through which students and faculty can engage in interdisciplinary discourse and understanding across disciplines.
- 10 c. Explain the reasons the proposed prerequisites are necessary. If the proposed course duplicates material covered in existing courses in the unit, specify the nature and degree of the overlap, and explain why it is necessary to add this course rather than to reconfigure existing program offerings.
Prerequisites assure that students enroll in Time Studio at an appropriate point in their studies. The art and design department requires completion of foundations prior to enrolling in any 200 or higher level studio course. Permission of instructor is granted after completion of an interview with instructor in which the student is informed of the unique expectations and challenges of the course.
Interactive Studio connects with content in a couple of courses in the department. As it uses spatial interactions such work relates to Space Studio (concurrent new course proposal), but is distinct in that the interactivity is of primary concern, while Installations don't always use interactive components of space. Students will be expected to employ other means in addition to spatial interaction in this course. This includes the use of new technology which consists mostly now of web-based interfaces. The use of interactive web content connects with another course in the department; Interaction Design. However, the contexts of presentation are quite distinct between the use of interactive technologies in each course. In Interaction Design, Graphic Design oriented personal and commercial use define the context of presentation. In Interactive Studio the focus is the context of contemporary visual art studio and contexts of presentation.
- 10 d. Will this course increase the total number of credits required for students in any major or minor? If so, explain why that is both necessary. Could existing required courses be dropped or modified to accommodate the addition of this material?
The course will not increase total credits required. It is however part of a new emphasis proposed in Art and Design. No existing course could be dropped or modified to accommodate this additional material.
11. Course / content overlap with other units:
- Identify any overlap between this course and courses offered by any programs or units. Indicate the degree of overlap and explain why your students should not take the existing course(s) instead. Submit a copy of this proposal to those units with a request that comments be sent promptly to you and to your C/SCC for consideration and attachment to this proposal. Copies of inter-departmental communication regarding this course must be attached to the proposal.
Much of visual art practice today operates independently of disciplinary/media distinctions. The range of forms and vernaculars that artists engage are quite expansive. Especially with the incorporation of digital media, various (historic and contemporary) processes are blended and merged into hybrid practices. Technological and cultural developments also make possible new contexts of presentation for art. Consequently, it is important for the Art and Design department to offer courses that treat the range of "ways of making" that engage interactivity together. This includes both forms that use technology and forms that do not. It is important to present these practices in the context and near proximity of other studio art practices.
Other courses on campus address the uses of interactivity of the web. Use of existing courses would not adequately serve primary learning considerations in this course. The Interactive Studio course focusses specifically on the use of these media and elements within the context of contemporary visual art studio and contexts of presentation. As such there are particular considerations. Works use technologies in mixed manners and together with forms generated in a range of other media. The course is also focussed on the particular challenges of bringing disparate elements together in deliberate consideration of the context of presentation that incorporates interactivity.
The course may useful as an elective for students who deal with interactivity in other disciplines such as the School of Communications and Computer Science. Reciprocally, as Art and Design students wish to learn more about technical structuring interactivity, in-depth study in other departments will proceed.
12.
Syllabus of Record: ART 394 Interactive Studio -attached
13.
Curriculum Resource Statement: ART 394 Interactive Studio -attached
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