This course introduces students to the fundamentals of photography through both analog and digital photographic processes and investigates the use of photography in the context of contemporary art. The class will cover camera operation, principles of exposure, basic understanding of light, film development, and darkroom/digital manipulation of photographic images. Technical, aesthetic, and conceptual possibilities of photography are explored through assignments, readings, slide presentations, and critiques. Studio.
The course will introduce advanced topics such as color, large-format, and medium-format photography. Technical, aesthetic, and conceptual possibilities of photography are explored through projects, readings, slide presentations, lab work, and critiques. Class time will be spent in lecture, slide presentations, lab work, critique, and occasional field trips. Students will be expected to respond to assignments with technical competence and critical clarity. Prerequisite: Art 190, Art 191, Art 192, Art 296, or Art 298. Studio.
We will explore the use of the moving image, digital video, and interactivity as related to art. Students will be exposed to the concepts and visual strategies surrounding digital media, and techniques of nonlinear, nondestructive video editing and interactivity. First, students will deal with moving image as a medium as practiced in art and will be exposed to media software such as Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects. Then, we will take apart and reexamine the moving image and the tools artists use to edit the moving image in an attempt to expand our understanding of the medium through a graphical programming environment for video, music, and data called Max/MSP/Jitter. Students will be expected to respond to assignments with technical competence and critical clarity. Enrollment limited to 12. Studio.
Introduces students to creative uses of machine learning for generating and transforming text, images, sound, and video. The course approaches these tools as both unavoidable and contested, and asks students to explore their possibilities alongside their limitations and risks. We will use machine learning both as a creative medium for studio practice and as an object of study, combining hands-on making with close analysis of how models, datasets, and interfaces shape media production, circulation, and reception. Students will develop a working understanding of core concepts that underlie contemporary ML systems, including datasets and labeling, training and inference, tokenization and next-word prediction, embeddings and vector space, large language models, and diffusion-based image generation. Studio.
Students will develop an understanding of the technology and the issues surrounding the internet and the web through studio activities, readings, and online and/or physical fieldwork. Students will gain literacy in web development languages (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript). We will cover the history of the use of computers and networks as a tool for empowerment and for creating art, and explore topics such as hypertextuality, nonlinearity, interactivity, authorship, web as archive, net neutrality, and the open-source movement. With the newly acquired literacy in hand we will investigate how the convergence of the web/social media with social practice/activism reconfigures the ways in which artists and citizens view, participate in, understand, and narrate real-world issues. Prerequisite: one 100-level studio art course. Studio.
This class builds upon the foundational engagements with photography, emphasizing independent work alongside structured exploration of photo books, narrative, and serial photography. Through independent projects, students will deepen their practice, exploring the daily act of photography as a medium for expression and social engagement. This course fosters a critical and creative environment, encouraging students to develop a significant body of work that showcases their individual perspective, supported by regular critiques, workshops, and discussions. Prerequisite: Art 190, Art 191, Art 192, or one 200-level studio art course. May be repeated for credit up to 3 times.
The course will examine and experiment with various forms of old and analog media combined with new and speculative twenty-first-century media technology to see if they can be productively remade and integrated into contemporary art practices. Our goal is to defamiliarize photography and new/digital media by finding alternative uses, or by revisiting a time when they had not separated themselves into distinct and different discourses looking at historical devices, methods, and tools that shared common aspirations and limitations. Technical, aesthetic, and conceptual possibilities are explored through studio workshops, projects, readings, slide presentations, lab work, and critiques. Students must be highly self-motivated and will be expected to design independent projects. Prerequisite: two 200-level studio art courses; or two of Art 190, 195, or 196; or one of Art 291, 292, 293, or 294. Enrollment limited to 16. Studio.