VAST 305 ONLINE DEMO
Weekly outline
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Welcome to VAST 305: Art + Text Studio!
The purpose of this studio course is to offer a practice based learning environment with an Art & Text focus. It will provide a context and framework for students to learn about, and explore how text operates within contemporary visual culture, and within their own art practices. A core learning outcome is to examine current practices that engage with text in a number of ways; from text-as-image, to artworks that use the book form, to works that include text and employ alternative structures of distribution (libraries, online database projects, hypertext experiments, etc.) to sound and writing-based art practices. By working on independent text-based art projects, students will actively engage with text within their individual art practices, while considering the current discourse and production within the field.I have set the course to start on Wednesdays, so each new week will begin on a Wednesday, and all assignments and weekly tasks will be due at 5pm on Wednesdays.
Most of the course will run asyncronously (meaning we will not met up as a group online at a specific time) but there will be times where scheduled meetings/critiques will take place (times and dates TBD).
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1) Introductions...
Please take some time in the first week to look around the Moodle site (that's the name of the software this course comes to you through). This course is designed to be accessible to students beginning with a wide range of technical abilities, so if you have never taken an online course, don't worry if it all seems a bit much at first. It is recommended that you view the course on Firefox, Safari works as well, but it is a little easier to read the content on Firefox. (Download Firefox here).
If you have any questions for me, please pot them in the 'Question Forum' so that everyone can benefit from the dialogue - chances are, if you have a question somebody else does as well!
Please click on the 'Welcome' book, and the Course Outline below to learn about this course, what to expect, and how to starting using 'Moodle'. Take some time this week to upload an image of yourself and fill in your profile.Please start with a very short intro in the 'Discussion Forum', where you should post a few lines about who you are and what you would like to get out of this course. This is the only way we can 'see' each other, so please include a current photo that is actually of you.
Your first assignment is an 'Introductory Presentation' about your practice due Jan. 16 (see the details in the assignment posting below).
For those of you ready to dive in: A proposal for your Term Project(s) will be due at the beginning of week 3, on January 23. You also have a reading to complete by that date.
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2) Introductory Presentations (use forum below)
Slide Lecture: Art + Text Intro (Pt 1)
Also please look down to Week 4. There will be an artist presentation due that day, and I would like you to request artists this week by Friday so you can get started soon.
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This is a powerpoint file. The 'lecture' component is part of the powerpoint as presenter's notes, so in order to read the lecture, you must play this in presentation mode, as if you are presenting it yourself. Any issues with this, please ask!
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Art + Text Introduction Pt 1 (PDF version). This version has notes embedded in a PDF document under each image. (This is the same presentation as the above ppt file, just a different format)
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Art + Text Introduction Pt 2 (PDF version). I integrated the text into the slide presentation this time to make it easier to read and view images at the same time. I hope this format works ok for everyone - let me know of any issues!
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3) Text-as-Image / Image + Text
Proposal for Term Project Due
Reading Discussion (Kim Dhillon essay)
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4) Artist Presentations
This week, after you post your presentations, you are required to view every other student's presentation and comment in response to each of them.
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6) Studio Time
Optional discussion forums/resources TBA
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7) Mid-term Crits and Individual Meetings begin (Reading Week)
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8) Mid-term Crits and Individual Meetings continued
I will be in Vancouver from February 20-March 1, and will provide a wiki sign-up sheet with a few options for meetings with me, either face-to-face or online for those of you not in town.
THE WIKI IS POSTED BELOW - please sign up as soon as possible.
RAYMOND BOISJOLY is speaking at Emily Carr on Monday March 4th at 7pm. Please do your very best to attend the lecture if you are in Vancouver, and if not I will post the video talk here as soon as it is complete and it will be required to watch and comment... (details in News Forum)
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10) The Library, The Archive
(March 13) I decided to change the order of this week's topic (moving up the Library/Archive to this week). I have 3 readings for you here (they are relatively short) and I am going to create a Forum for discussion with some questions, and post a mini-slideshow with some related work.
Expect the materials to all be up in a couple of days (by the weekend). In the mean time, we are a little behind on last week's Artist Book discussion so let's focus on that and any other responses/discussions you would like to have in the Mid-Term Crit Forum...
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11) Writing in, or as, Art Practice
Special Guest: Jacqueline Turner from the Writing Centre
This week, we are really lucky to have Jacqualine Turner as our special guest. I am sure many of you know Jacqueline either from her role at the Writing Centre, or you may have taken classes with her, as she teaches quite a few courses at Emily Carr. Jacqueline is a writer, and has taught here at the art school and has been a very active figure in the art community for some time (she was a board member at Artspeak for some time as well).
I thought I would invite her to come in and provide you with some resources and creative writing exercizes that create an interesting intersection between art and writing... appropriate to this course for obvious reasons...
She is logged into the course for this week (or a bit longer probably) so although as a class we are running behind I would like you to try to address last week and this week (the Library, the Archive as well as Writing In, or As, Art Practice) concurrently so we don't fall too far behind.
Please start by clicking on the intro link where Jacqueline will introduce herself and this week's materials - it is an audio file and may take a minute to load...
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Jacqueline Turner from the Writing Centre at Emily Carr University introducing my guest appearance in your class this week. Thank you for having me in your Art + Text class and good luck with the writing experiments!
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12) Some Special Guests...
Artist Talk: Erdem Tasdelen
Artist Talk: Liz Knox
Artist Talk: Raymond Boisjoly (recording of March 4th talk at ECU)
(links to related resources and discussion forum below)
PLUS: Individual Meetings By Appointment (Wiki will be posted for skype or chat meetings by appnt - see the discussion forum - you have the option of meeting me before or after final crits).
Please note for the same of this demo site I have removed the videos of artist talks as they were only intended to be shared within the original course).
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13) Final Crits
Final Crits are going to start on April 3 - it is coming up fast!
For final crits, I want us to get more of a conversation going rather quickly. You will be required to post your work by the end of the day on April 3, and then you are required to post a comment on everyone else's work within 2 days (it can be short!), and I'd like you to respond multiple times to get a converstaion going on the work.
Then in the second week (April 10) I will ask you to respond to the comments on your work and write a post-crit response (details tba).
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14) Final Crits and Wrap-up (see next week's items)...
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15) Wrap-up
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This is a link to do online course evaluations for this course. I want to make sure you all take the time to fill this in - these are very important both to me as a faculty member (I will be applying for tenure next year and they use these to evaluate me) but also so the school can get feedback on the course.
Mostly these are used as an official way of evaluating faculty performance, so please specify where your feedback is related to me and my performance, and when it is more about the school/structure of the curriculum and resources.
I will also be posting a separate Wrap-Up Forum, in which I will be asking you for specific feedback on this course (and this alternative web-hosting scenario) that will help me improve the course next time I teach it, and I welcome any feedback and suggestions during or after the course ends.
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Additional Optional Resources
This section contains links and files that relate to the course material, but are not mandatory reading/viewing. If anyone has resources they would like to share with the class you can email them to me and I will post them here (or I may add a forum here for sharing these items yourselves...)