Part I: Theory and Practice
1. Documentary issues
- Learning to observe in detail and to record those observations while interrogating your own position vis-à-vis what you are observing.
- Documentation as an artificial setup: artificiality is not incompatible with objectivity.
- Art examples:
- Joe Spence
- Debates about documentary cinema (direct cinema vs. cinema verite)
2. The Author as Producer
- Transmitting information vs. Changing the relations of production
- Art examples:
- Epic Theater
- Open works
- Pedagogy of the Oppressed
3. Relations of Production, Needs, and Situations
- A more theoretical discussion of the concept of production relations in relation to human needs.
- Art examples:
- The Situationist International
4. Ideology Critique
- Rigid languages and absolute truths vs. fluid and self-questioning languages
- Art examples:
- Detournement as the fluid language of anti-ideology: (Debord)
- The connection between ideology critique and modern intermedia
- Modern art as a questioning of all stable frames.
5. Radical Psychology: subjectivity and social relations
- Anti-psychiatry and other radical views of subjectivity
6. Gender and Identity
7. Normalization and Space
- Architecture, power, and the body
- The management of everyday life
8. Globalization and its Discontents
Part II: General Theoretical Issues
9. The theory of history:
- Materialism vs. idealism
- Economic determinism vs. over-determination
10. Alienation, reification, and fetishism:
- Difference between these three concepts
- Reappropriation
- Debates about popular culture: the fetish character of popular culture
- Criticisms of the Marxist theory of popular culture
- The question of everyday life
11. Existence and structure:
- A short introduction to structuralism in the context of the debate between structuralists and existentialists
12-3. Psychoanlysis and its alternatives
- Review of Freudian theory
- Criticisms of Freudian theory: schizoanalysis
Assessment
The assessment for the course is based on one ongoing project. The following guidelines must be observed:
- The work must involve both artistic creation and social research.
- The format is open: the work can be a documentary video, web site, interactive installation, etc.
- The student must present a research document that presents a record of the entire research and development process. Assessment will be based on the quality of the entire process, not just the outcome.
- The student must demonstrate an ability to reflect critically about her own position in relation to the subject matter.
- Questions about the author-as-producer, and about the pedagogy or art of the oppressed must be explicitly addressed, either in the work in the research document.
- Questions of social psychology must also be addressed.
- The work can involve a local community.
The work will be assessed in three stages:
- Proposal: must include a detailed description of the subject matter, aims, research methodology, and any additional information about the project. (25% of the final grade).
- Progress report (30% of the final grade)
- Final project. (45% of the final grade)
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please let us know.