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CS92PROD
Postwar Art, Media, Space
ARHA 363
Spring 2018
Section: 01  

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.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ART
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: None
Past Enrollment Probability: 50% - 74%

Last Updated on MAR-28-2024
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