         
Krista's overview notes 04
Error: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenThings I've been meaning to post . . . . Hey Paul and Brian -(and Norwood?) Last semester I based a lot of the projects around the following objectives. I had them write about their progress in each of the following areas. The goal was to try to get them to assimilate the information better and to have a stronger idea of what they were learning. If I do this again I plan on spending more in-class time "modeling" this type of self-assesment, giving them time to write and spending more time talking with them and helping them to evaluate their learning process. Fundamental Conceptual Skills: 1) Investigation/Research: Being able to investigate/research a subject in-depth and learn how to apply that research to some type of product (written or visual) 2) Communicate about Art: Being familiar with talking about art/design. Being able to explain how things work formally, and conceptually. 3) Visual Vocabulary: Build a visual language that is both highly individual and culturally relevant. To do this you must familiarize your self with visual culture as well as constantly mine your own thoughts, fears, experiences, and dreams. Knows how to speak in specifics rather than clichés 4) Observation: Build observational skills and learn how techniques of visual observation can be applied to other forms of observation. 5) Understand Contemporary Culture: Build an understanding of culture and contemporary visual language, including the past visual and cultural experiences that have led up to this moment in history. This is important so that you can come to understand how you want to relate to it. 6) Meaning-Making: Understand the different way meaning is created. Familiarity with different strategies of working with meaning such as: literal or linear, narrative, poetic, metaphoric, or analytical. 7) Encoding and Decoding: Roughly, encoding is putting meaning into an image/object, while decoding is pulling meaning out of an image. Both encoding and decoding require an understanding of how form, cultural associations, and context affect the meaning of an image/object. We will learn how images are decoded or “read” by viewers and the difference between dominant, negotiated, and oppositional readings. 8) Deep Reading: Understanding how to really take-apart, read, and understand an image, text or experience. A deep reader does not take things at surface value but can read deeply and between the lines so that an in-depth understanding can be arrived at. 9) Self-Directed: Being a learner that is self-directed; one that can initiate projects and carry them through with their own intrinsic motivation. Become committed to the process of learning so that one’s practice constantly leads them to new places. (The key here: use your passion!) This also means: one who is responsible for their own learning - takes notes, asks questions, one who is able to take in and process input from others while not relying on others to provide a “right” answer. 10) Risk Taking: Being able to take chances on a project, idea or experience knowing that sometimes it may not succeed. Being able to evaluate a “failure” and assimilate and learn from it. Most of these skills are developed and built over a long time. The goal of this course is to familiarize you with all of them and to facilitate their development in a way that gives you the foundation to become an interesting and successful artist. This course is also designed to immerse you in a community of learning comprised of you, your peers and I. Together we will become active investigators of our creative processes, ways of thinking, environments, and each other. Our goal is to develop a wide range of strong creative thinking techniques along with basic computer skills. Additional goals of this course are: to pull you into the depths of your creative processes, gain an understanding of your motivations, interests, affiliations, and inspirations, explore new models of making and thinking, and to connect these new models to your current life/art/design practice. ProjectsError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happen Here are some projects I tried last semester. I was trying to do some quick 1 day projects as well as the longer ones. . Merchant of Cool section - advertising: Personal LogosError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happen We did the logos in one class period using some clip-art that I created from picture fonts. After that lab day they had until the next class to fine-tune them and hand them in. I then printed them on iron-on tranfers and handed them back. We did this after our discussions on merchants of cool. project: For this project we will think about “branding” and extend this thinking to create our own personal logos. We will then “test” these logos by printing them onto an iron-on and wearing. Using the line art given to you in the illustrator document “selflogo”, you will design a logo that represents yourself. You will create seven different solutions, then we will decide on a final logo to printed as an iron-on transfer. You may want to walk yourself through a series of questions as you begin to think about this logo and how it represents you. 1) What is a logo? Where do I see them? What are their qualities and characteristics? How do they communicate with me? 2) What kind of things do I affiliate myself with? Are there things that I am currently using to represent myself (clothing/tattoos/hairstyle/etc.) or create a specific identity through? 3) Who/What do I look to for inspiration? How is this thing represented? 4) What do I want my personal legacy to be? How do I want to create a mark on the world? Objectives: 1) To think about “branding” 2) To understand some of the processes and applications of design. 3) To gain additional familiarity with the program Illustrator and understand its practical applications. 4) To work with visual metaphor. 5) To gain experience encoding meaning. 6) To learn about how ideologies and associations can be communicated through visual information and how simple elements like shape and color communicate. 7) To start thinking about a personal visual vocabulary 8) To learn more about one’s self and how one communicates identity through visual means. Error: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenHere is another project I tried - I used part of the text "No Logo" by Naomi Klein. The project was great in terms of discussion. I feel like we really were able to disect and understand some key - issues. It was not as great in terms of the actual output. Some were brilliant - but a lot of students had a hard time carrying it off. No LogoError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenSell the sizzle, not the stake. In the 1950’s, advertising moved towards an “economy of desire”. This meant that advertisers were focused on selling not just products but a whole set of cultural associations around the products. For instance, advertisers were not just selling washing machines but symbols of efficiency, modernity, social status and even a set of values about the roles of Middle Class America. These associations needed to be embedded in the formal qualities of the logo or packaging of the product. For this project we are going to redesign a label or logo to sell it not as a product but as a set of cultural associations. Select a common logo or label that you would find in a store. As a class, we will dissect our labels and look at the lifestyle, values, and cultural meanings it is associated with. We will look at these different associations and redesign the label or logo as if these associations were the actual product. (For instance, Dawn dishwashing liquid might really be selling you the idea of being a good wife or Marlboro cigarettes the idea of an independent ruggedness). Focus on how the formal elements of the original logo (the color, the typography, the composition) work together to communicate associations to the viewer. Work with these formal elements to redesign your logo in a way that would appeal to the original audience. We will scan the logos and work with Streamline to transfer it into a vector-based graphic. We will then work with it in Illustrator, where we will adjust the design elements of the label to create a logo for your new product. You may not use any of Illustrator’s filters for this project. The goal is to work with the main design elements of the original logo/label and rearticulate them into a new form. Mount the print on white illustration board with a 2-inch border around the image. Presentation should include a protective overlay. Due Wed 8: Have your logos scanned and put into the LOGO folder on Vito. The largest dimension of your image should be 400 pixels. Due Mon Oct 13: Three working solutions in Adobe Illustrator. Due Wed Oct 15: Final Solution Mounted on illustration board with 3 inch border and protective overlay. A statement talking about what your original logo was, the intentions of your redesign, and how you used the formal elements to get those intentions accross.Error: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happen Sound/Video Projects Project: Sounds to wake up to/go to sleep by. For this project you will create a short sound piece that can be used either as an alarm clock call – or a sound to lull you to sleep or that plays while you are sleeping. 1) Take a nap with a piece of music playing – notice the noises the images they bring up and how they transform as you being to fall asleep. 2) Take a nap with the window open – notice the sounds that float in an around you as you fall asleep – notice how they change or transform as you begin to fall asleep. 3) Make a list of 20 sounds that you notice and how they affect you or the environment. This is due on Thursday the 11th. 4) Choose 2 of the sounds that interest you. This will be the starting point for your sound piece. On Thursday we will be doing field recordings. Please also bring in any sound effect CDs or other pre-recorded noises you might want to work with. On Tuesday the 16th we will bring this sound into the computer and may tweak/alter and/or build it using the software program Soundedit16. We will be putting all these sound pieces onto one collaborative CD which can then go in your final book. Objectives: 1) Honing observation skills as they pertain to listening, environments, and your own reactions. 2) Learning to be receptive to your environment and what it has to offer you. 3) To learn about working with sound as an element within a work of art. 4) Applying observations about your environment to a creative product. 5) Thinking about inspiration and how it can operate in your creative process. 6) To gain additional experience working with the computer, particularly sound-editing software. Video Error: this should not happenError: this should not happen(I can't seem to find my written assignment for this o ne - I think I accidentally saved some video editing instructions on top of it) I had them create a short video loop to create a metaphor. The loop was to be between 3 and 15 seconds and the footage could be found - or taken with one of the nikon coolpix. The choice of metaphors I gave them was: Utopia, Death, Love, Singing. Of the 2 video projects I've done with CPS, this one seemed the most managable and seemed to make the most sense to the students. Before starting we watched the Art 21 clip of Paul Pfiefer Also the Art 21 site has lesson plans/questions that relate to this. http://www.pbs.org/art21/education/technology/lesson1.html Text from Art 21 Lesson "Pete and Repeat – The Power of Repetition In Bruce Nauman’s work Clown Torture, an actor recites the grade school rhyme “Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence, Pete fell off, who was left, Repeat. Pete and Repeat were sitting on a fence, Pete fell off, who was left, Repeat…” Nauman’s use of repetition is legendary from his early looped videos of actions taken in his studio – bouncing in a corner, playing the violin, walking the perimeter of a square – to the Work and Think video loops where the artist taped himself in extreme close-up repeating the words work and think ad infinitum. In his video loops that depict sports figures and scenes from popular movies, Paul Pfeiffer suggests that repetition, as a stylistic tool, is a compelling element for drawing the viewer in. Ask students to consider the significance of the loop in art and writing and how might a writer employ this tool? Look at Gertrude Stein’s “The Making of Americans” or “Lifting Belly” and Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried.” Compare their use of repetition with Pfeiffer and Nauman’s. How does repetition contribute to the meaning and structure of the story? Have students select a word, idea, sentence or theme that becomes the repetitive element in a short story or poem. Have them include visual elements in their writing that emphasize the repetition and the subject of the story. "Error: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenConceptual Exercises:Error: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenMaterial Investigations Conceptual Exercise (to be done in one class period). (Break into groups of 2 or 3. Have them draw a material out of a hat -(listed below). Have them answer the following questions as thoroughly as possible by talking and doing research on internet. The end result was a quick written proposal with one image.) Material: What is it made of? How is it created/made? How did it come to be? Who/What makes it? What are its cultural connotations? Who uses it? Are there any rituals, stories, or myths surrounding it? How do different people – of different classes, cultures, or backgrounds – use it or relate to it differently? Are there “good” and “bad” versions of it? “Rich” and “poor” versions of it? How does a person’s (personal) interaction with the material make it unique to them? What personal connections or meanings do you have with this material? What are its aesthetic properties? Is it sensual? Is it poetic? Does it have a presence on its own? Does it seem to have an identity, personality, or living quality? What are its historical properties? Is it associated with a specific era in time? In its different forms, does it have different historical connotations? Based on the thinking and research you’ve just done, develop a proposal – through text, sketches, or words – for an art piece/project based around this material. The sky’s the limit. You have no constraints. Money, time, labor, travel, the law - none of these are a concern. Your only requirement is that you use all of the material provided in a meaningful way. You might want to think about exploiting, commenting on, or enhancing one or more of the discoveries you made by doing the above activity. Objectives: 1) thinking about working with a variety of materials 2) understanding the meaning implicit in materials 3) increasing investigation skills. 4) learning how to work with signs Materials: (To be drawn from a hat)
This is a quick assignment that will help us to understand what is essential for our creative process. We will spend 15 minutes “daydreaming”, thinking of everything we want in our studio environment. These includes how it looks, and where it is and what type of materials you need as well as things that feed your creative process such as time of day, weather, community, and music. Also, come up with 2-3 collections that you would want to have around you as a resource for your work. WORD IMAGE A homework excercise to get them thinking and experimenting about word/image and how they relate. I think this one was really successful - both in getting them out of their standard ways of thinking and in having a large amount of work to discuss as a class in terms of interesting combinations. I think it also helped them to not get stuck and to identify when they tended to solve problems in only one way. I started off the class with this and it seemed to be a pretty good opening activity. Word/Image Exploration: Make 25 combinations of a word or short phrase and an image. You can use any strategy possible. The finished composition can range in size from 2 x 3 inches to 8.5 x 11. Concept to illustrate: Sameness. Choose a word and image that share qualities of sameness. Examples of strategies: Stitch an word into an image Decorate a cake and take a picture Write on a stick it note and stick it on an image Take a photograph of a sign in a location Make a t-shirt with a phrase and take a picture of someone wearing it. Form a word out of “cheerleaders” and take a photo. Examples of how an image and word can work together: They could work to reinforce each other. They could contradict each other. One could explain the other: (Conceptual/Analytical) One could change the context of the other. One could reveal something hidden about the other. Humor could be created (By changing the context, revealing something, contradicting something etc.) Together they could create a metaphor They could evoke a narrative They could create a poetic association They could provoke a question. Together they could create a pun. Keep these different things in the back of your head as you work. Go about your process playfully –working through as many different solutions as possible. Try to explore the different ways an image/word can work together. You can use the same words or images in different solutions. When we are finished we will examine how these solutions are working in regards to the possibilities listed above asking ourselves questions such as: Is this word reinforcing this image? Is this word contradicting this image? Does this combination create a metaphor? Does it become a pun? Does the word or image explain something about the other? Does the combination evoke a narrative? etc.. Error: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenError: this should not happenCollections Projects Collections: The way we classify, organize and arrange objects creates meaning. The categories that we choose and the items we place within them underlie assumptions about how we organize and understand our world. Think about the organizational structure of the Dewey decimal system. This is not a neutral system but reveals a process of thinking. Fiction and non-fiction are separate, there are classifications for science, art, philosophy etc. That any system of classifying and organizing reveals something about its classifier becomes obvious when we read a passage from Borges’ "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins". Here, he is discussing 'a certain Chinese Encyclopedia,' the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge, in which it is written that animals are divided into these categories: 1. those that belong to the Emperor, 2. embalmed ones, 3. those that are trained, 4. suckling pigs, 5. mermaids, 6. fabulous ones, 7. stray dogs, 8. those included in the present classification, 9. those that tremble as if they were mad, 10. innumerable ones, 11. those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, 12. others, 13. those that have just broken a flower vase, 14. those that from a long way off look like flies. The same process of collecting, classifying, and arrangement is an inherent part of art/design practice. In both art and design you are constantly making decisions in regard to the juxtapositions and placement of visual elements; combining elements into deliberate arrangements to set up meaning-making in the viewer. This assignment also alludes to the cultural practice of collecting and presenting objects and images. Museums and galleries gather objects, images and artifacts and create displays as presentations of human significance. We wish to learn a bit about these practices and institutions here. What is the impact of varied modes of display? How is meaning (and perception) affected by context (environment) and juxtaposition (groupings /combinations /placement). We will do 2 parts for this assignment. The first will be a collection of like objects represented through photographs. The third is an interactive collection. Objectives: Concepts: Syntax, Metaphors, System of classification, Denotation, Connotation, Context, Index (Indexicality) Part One, Collection of Like Objects: For this project you will assemble a collection of like objects. This is similar to our standard ideas of a collection (a stamp collection, a coin collection, etc.). However, think creatively about the type of objects you decide to collect, let them reveal something unexpected about you and your way of thinking. You will use a series of photographs to document the objects in this collection. This series will appear in your final book. Examples of past collections by artists: Cat whiskers, the worn-away shapes of lipsticks, naps, bread left in ziplock bags at different locations with a document of their experience. Note that each of these collections reveals something to the viewer that is perhaps funny, engaging and unexpected. Part Three, Interactive Collection: This is a collection of 5-9 objects that are not alike but form a series of relationships. these relationships can be formal (i.e. color, shape) metaphorical, function-based, or could work together to create a story. These objects are meant to be interacted with by the viewer. You will house these objects in a physical container that works with your collection and the type of experience you want the viewer to have. Guidelines: 1. Quantity of Elements: Each collection can be made up of between 5 and 9 objects/images. 2. Origination of Elements: At least one of the images/objects in the collection must be made by you. At least one of the images/objects in the collection must be found. (copyright acknowledged). The remaining portion is either made or found and is up to the artist/designer. 3. Container: Create/design/remake/alter a container for the objects. This container will house, protect, transport, display, present, introduce as well as contextualize 4. Size: The expectation for the objects is the maximum would be about the size of a hand. If you wish to deviate from this size guideline, confer with instructor. 5. Interactivity: The viewer should be able to take out and interact with all the elements of your collection. 5. Be responsible for, and deliberate about each and every detail of the presentation. Motifs: - These are motifs or models upon which you can structure or organize your collections. |