Postwar Art, Media, Space
ARHA 363
Spring 2018
| Section:
01
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Is the medium the message, as Marshall McLuhan claimed in 1964? How have developments in media and technology shaped the strategies, reception, and circulation of art after World War II? What is the space of art--both literal and figurative--in today's image-saturated environments? This seminar will investigate intersections of art and media from 1945 to the present. The course will include theoretical texts to provide a critical basis for visual analysis and cultural critique. We will move topically to address video art; television; the tape recorder (sound as raw material for artistic play); tactics of appropriation (and the Pictures generation); the pervasive expansion of photography (large-scale, digital); evolving relations between photography and painting (photorealism, figures from Richard Estes to Gerhard Richter); innovative methods of projection and expanded cinema (from the likes of Charles and Ray Eames to Stan VanDerBeek and Doug Aitken); new media works that challenge the boundaries between virtual and actual space (digital media, virtual reality); the intersection of contemporary image-making and art with conditions of precarity (art and war, surveillance, e.g. Trevor Paglan, Hito Steyerl). While the class will cover many works produced in North American and European contexts, we will strive to take a global view; in particular we will look at contemporary work produced in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Student work will be focused on producing a substantial research paper. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ART |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 50% - 74% |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
No textbook will be used. Recommended for purchase: David Joselit, After Art (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013) (ISBN: 9780691150444). All other assigned readings will be uploaded as pdfs, and will include seminal historical essays by Walter Benjamin, Marshall McLuhan, and Friedrich Kittler, as well as recent articles and book chapters from scholars like WJT Mitchell, Mary Ann Doane, Rosalind Krauss, Pamela Lee, and Carrie Lambert-Beatty. Assigned readings will also feature artists' writings (including Martha Rosler, Harun Farocki) as well as texts from figures outside the mainstream art historical canon, including contemporary media theorist Sybille Krämer and sound studies scholar Jonathan Sterne.
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Examinations and Assignments:
Weekly written work aimed at aiding reading comprehension and enhancing classroom discussion (not formally graded, but part of substantive participation grade); formal analysis paper (3 pages, 10%); final project proposal (10%); oral presentation of final project research (15%); final research paper (12-15 pages, 30%). |
| Instructor(s): Woolsey,Caitlin Times: .....F. 01:20PM-04:10PM; Location: BOGH113; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: 5 | JR major: 5 | | |
| Seats Available: 1 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 3 | JR non-major: 2 | SO: 0 | FR: X |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 3 | 1st Ranked: 1 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 1 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 1 |
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