Department of the Visual Arts

ARTV 30027. Site-Based Practice: Choreographing The Smart Museum. 100 Units.

This course gives students the unique opportunity to create a collaborative, site-based work that culminates in a final performance at UChicago's Smart Museum of Art. Using embodied research methods that respond to site through moving, sensing, and listening, we'll explore the relationship between the ephemerality of movement and the materiality of bodies and place, and consider how the site-based contexts for dance shift how it is perceived, experienced, and valued. Our quarter-long creation process will begin with a tour of the Smart Museum, guided by curators and members of the Public Practice team, that will provide context to the museum's exhibitions, programming, and its relationship to geography and community. Assigned readings, viewings, and conversations with guest artists will delve into the relationship between dance and the sites where it happens, including museums-from the material relationship between bodies, objects, and architecture to the digital flows of choreography online.

Instructor(s): J. Rhoads     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 20027, CHST 26280, TAPS 26280, TAPS 36280, ARCH 26280

ARTV 30033. Iconology East and West. 100 Units.

Iconology is the study of images across media and cultures. It is also associated with philosophical reflections on the nature of images and their relation to language-the interplay between the "icon" and the "logos." A plausible translation of this compound word into Chinese would describe it as "Words in Pictures, Pictures in Words":  诗中有画，画中有诗. This seminar will explore the relations of word and image in poetics, semiotics, and aesthetics with a particular emphasis on how texts and pictures have been understood in the Anglo-European-American and Chinese theoretical traditions. The interplay of painting and poetry, speech and spectacle, audition and vision will be considered across a variety of media, particularly the textual and graphic arts. The aims of the course will be 1) to critique the simplistic oppositions between "East" and "West" that have bedevilled intercultural and intermedial comparative studies; 2) to identify common principles, zones of interaction and translation that make this a vital area of study. (Theory; 20th/21st)

Instructor(s): WJT Mitchell     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): Enrollment in the course will be with the consent of instructor; it is open to students at all levels, but enrollment will be limited to 15. Students should send a one page statement of their interest to W. J. T. Mitchell (wjtm@uchicago.edu)
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 30230, ENGL 30230, ARTH 30033, ENGL 20230, ARTH 20033, CMLT 20230, ARTV 20033

ARTV 30140. Aesthetic Ecologies. 100 Units.

What would an intellectual history of the environment look like when told from the perspective of the literature of art history? The geographer Friedrich Ratzel, who first began using the term "Umwelt" ("environment") in a systematic way, claimed that, up to the end of the 19th century, the idea of environment had been primarily discussed not in scientific contexts but rather in aesthetic ones, by "artistically predisposed thinkers." In this course, we will take Ratzel's claim seriously and aim to recuperate the aesthetic side of theories of environment across diverse areas such as: notions of landscape ("the picturesque"); aesthetic and biological theories of milieu (Haeckel's "ecology," Taine's "milieu," Uexküll's "Umweltlehre"); Warburg's cultural history; the "sculpture of environment" (Boccioni); the "space-body" in modern dance (Laban); artworks-as-environments in spatial installations. This course is about artworks that continue beyond their material confines into the space environing them. We will focus on evocations of air as the material space surrounding an artwork in texts that thematize the continuity between artwork as image and material object. Additional materials include: J.W. v. Goethe, Jacob Burckhardt, Carl Justi, Adolf v. Hildebrand, Camillo Sitte, Alois Riegl, R.M. Rilke, M. Heidegger, and others.

Instructor(s): Margareta Ingrid Christian     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Open to all students. MAPH students welcome. Interested undergraduates please email instructor:michristian@uchicago.edu.
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 35140

ARTV 30702. Posthuman Becoming. 100 Units.

This course introduces recent developments and advanced approaches in critical posthumanist thought. We will explore emerging theories and practices that renegotiate the human condition through critical inquiry into posthuman desires and the complicated relationship between human and non-human 'others,' including animals, plants and micro-organisms, waste and toxins, artificial life, and hyperobjects. By engaging diverse viewpoints that map the stakes of a non-anthropocentric politics of culture, such as new materialism, object-oriented ontology, and speculative realism, but also eco-feminism, queer performativity, and Indigenous epistemology, we will explore emerging techniques of mediation, communication, and representation that surrender to the relational identities of a posthuman becoming. A central premise of this exploration are post-disciplinary ways of knowing that make such imaginaries visible: in addition to discussing a substantial body of contemporary scholarship from the arts, humanities, and humanistic social sciences, the course includes a studio module that introduces a variety of research-creation methodologies for experimentation with curatorial, artistic, and activist practices.

Instructor(s): Andre Uhl     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): KNOW 32208, ANTH 32208, MAAD 12208, ENST 22207

ARTV 30805. Framing, Re-framing, and Un-framing Cinema. 100 Units.

By cinema, we mean the art of the moving image, which is not limited to the material support of a flexible band called film. This art reaches back to early devices to trick the eye into seeing motion and looks forward to new media and new modes of presentation. With the technological possibility of breaking images into tiny pixels and reassembling them and of viewing them in new way that this computerized image allows, we now face the most radical transformation of the moving image since the very beginnings of cinema. A collaboration between the OpenEndedGroup (Marc Downie and Paul Kaiser), artists who have created new modes of the moving image for more than decade, and film scholar Tom Gunning, this course will use this moment of new technologies to explore and expand the moving image before it becomes too rigidly determined by the powerful industrial forces now propelling it forward. This course will be intensely experimental as we see how we might use new computer algorithms to take apart and re-experience classic films of the past. By using new tools, developed for and during this class, students will make new experiences inside virtual reality environments for watching, analyzing, and recombining films and that are unlike any other. These tools will enable students, regardless of previous programming experience, to participate in this crucial technological and cultural juncture.

Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 20805, CMST 37805, CMST 27805

ARTV 30944. Painting with Light in Space. 100 Units.

This course explores projected imagery as a medium to paint ephemeral ideas in the real world through installation and theatrical design. Utilizing visual iconography, architectural forms, objects, and cinema, this course will explore the practical and theoretical applications of video on unorthodox objects and spaces. Using software as an instrument, students will investigate the visceral extents of images both historical and generative to create living light. The course will culminate in student presentations that illustrate and illuminate the ideas and techniques presented throughout the course.

Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 20944, TAPS 27420, MAAD 20420

ARTV 30945. Performance Art Installation: Imagining the End. 100 Units.

Perhaps the most important American play dealing with the prospect of the end of the world is Thorton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth (1942). This class will use this strange and remarkable play that moves through human and geological time to explore contemporary concerns about the end of life as we know it. Our work will culminate in a site-specific performance piece making use of the skills, talents, and experience of the members of the group.

Equivalent Course(s): TAPS 22315, ARTV 20945, TAPS 32315

ARTV 31501. Introduction to Printmaking. 100 Units.

An introduction to basic printmaking techniques, including monoprint, intaglio (drypoint), planographic, and relief printing. Printmaking will be explored as a "bridge medium": a conduit between drawing, painting, and sculpture. Emphasis will be placed upon investigating visual structures through "calculated spontaneity" and "controlled accidents," as well as on the serial potential inherent in printmaking, as opposed to the strictly technical aspects of this medium.

Instructor(s): K. Desjardins     Terms Offered: Autumn Winter
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 21501

ARTV 31702. Drawing Concepts. 100 Units.

This course will focus on expanding the definition and practice of drawing. Studio work will engage traditional, spatial and process-oriented mark making in order to materialize thematically driven projects. Emphasis will be placed equally on the formal concerns of subject, material, and technique as well as the ability to effectively convey one's concept. Projects will include weekly and longer-term assignments, in addition to critique. Participation in field trips is required.

Instructor(s): B. Collins     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200 or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 21702

ARTV 31800. Studio Practice. 100 Units.

This course considers a variety of methods, processes and media to explore conceptual issues pertinent to a contemporary art practice. Through research, material investigation, experimentation and revision, students will develop their own approach to a daily self-directed practice. Projects will include weekly and longer-term assignments, individual and collaborative work. We will also look at the practices of established artists for possible models. Participation in several field trips is required.

Instructor(s): B. Collins     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200 or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 21800

ARTV 31900. Color Theory and Practice. 100 Units.

This course will introduce students to practical aspects of color mixing and the visual impacts of specific color combinations through a series of studio exercises and projects. Conceptual and theoretical investigations into optics, the science of color, and psychological and symbolic effects will contribute to an overall understanding of color in relation to visual culture and perception.

Instructor(s): S. Wolniak     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): MAAD 22900, ARTV 21900

ARTV 32000. Introduction to Sculpture. 100 Units.

This course introduces the technical fundamentals of sculptural practice. Using basic introductions to welding, basic woodworking and metal fabrication students will undertake assignments designed to deploy these new skills conceptually in their projects. Lectures and reading introduce the technical focus of the class in various historical, social and economic contexts. Discussions and gallery visits help engender an understanding of sculpture within a larger societal and historical context.

Instructor(s): C. Bradley     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 22200

ARTV 32200-32202. Introduction to Painting I-II.

This studio course introduces students to the fundamental elements of painting (its language and methodologies) as they learn how to initiate and develop an individualized investigation into subject matter and meaning. This course emphasizes group critiques and discussion. Courses taught concurrently.

ARTV 32305. Performing Tableware. 100 Units.

Performing Tableware takes the actions and objects of the table as a site of research. Through demonstrations, readings and production, tableware will be considered in the context of contemporary practices in design, sculpture, installation and performance. Materially rooted in ceramics, this course gives students the opportunity to highlight, interrupt or subvert the patterns associated with sitting around table. Developing projects through a process of questioning behavior and the intimate functions of objects of the table, students will extend and challenge their material knowledge and engage in a range of ceramic processes including using raw clay, slip casting, hand building, slab building and multi-fire glaze processes.

Instructor(s): A. Ginsburg     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 22305

ARTV 32314. Ceramics: Adaptive Practices. 100 Units.

Ceramics has accompanied long the adaptive dance of human survival for at least 30,000 years. Sitting in proximity to food, architecture, death rights and more, this course will think forward with the material. What forms of adaptivity are currently required? This is a course in speculative fiction with the material of clay in all its forms, fix and unfixed, working through wet, dry, fired, and glazed.

Instructor(s): A. Ginsburg     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200 or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 22314

ARTV 32501. Art & Machine Intelligence. 100 Units.

Artists have long used autonomous processes to aid in the creation of their work. From 18th century parlor games to contemporary visual culture, creators have applied stochastic methods, automation, and simulation to generate music, text, and imagery. In the last five years, as machine learning has matured into broadly applicable artificial intelligence, artists have turned towards neural networks as a new frontier for creative practice. This studio course will explore the history and uses of autonomous creative tools and focus, more specifically, on leading edge artistic applications of AI. Students will receive exposure to a breadth of methods in this domain and produce multiple projects engaged with these topics. Software development experience is not required, though it may be useful.

Instructor(s): J. Salavon     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200 or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 22501, MAAD 25201

ARTV 33801. Video. 100 Units.

This is a production course geared towards short experimental works and video within a studio art context.

Instructor(s): S. Wolniak     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200 or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 23801, MAAD 23801

ARTV 33804. Experimental Animation: Exploring Manual Techniques. 100 Units.

Individually directed video shorts will be produced in this intensive studio course. Experimental and improvised approaches to animation and motion picture art will focus on analog and material techniques, with basic digital post-production also being introduced. Early and experimental cinema, puppetry and contemporary low-tech animation will be presented as formal and technical examples.

Instructor(s): S. Wolniak     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 23804, MAAD 23804, CMST 23804

ARTV 33808. Introduction to 16mm Filmmaking. 100 Units.

The goal of this intensive laboratory course is to give its students a working knowledge of film production using the 16mm gauge. The course will emphasize how students can use 16mm technology towards successful cinematography and image design (for use in both analog and digital postproduction scenarios) and how to develop their ideas towards constructing meaning through moving pictures. Through a series of group exercises, students will put their hands on equipment and solve technical and aesthetic problems, learning to operate and care for the 16mm Bolex film camera; prime lenses; Sekonic light meter; Sachtler tripod; and Arri light kit and accessories. For a final project, students will plan and produce footage for an individual or small group short film. The first half the course will be highly structured, with demonstrations, in-class shoots, and lectures. As the semester continues, class time will open up to more of a workshop format to address the specific concerns and issues that arise in the production of the final projects. This course is made possible by the Charles Roven Fund for Cinema and Media Studies. Students will need written permission to enroll in the course. To bid for entry into the class, please email the instructor with your name, major and year -- and please list any other media production or photography experience.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Students will need written permission to enroll in the course. To bid for entry into the class, please email the instructor with your name, major and year -- and please list any other media production or photography experience. Enrollment priority will be given to graduate and undergraduate CMS students, beginning with seniors, then to DoVA graduates and undergraduates, then to students in other departments.
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 28921, MAAD 23808, CMST 38921, ARTV 23808

ARTV 33834. Adaptation Laboratory: Staging Berlin. 100 Units.

From 2000-2018, the graphic novelist Jason Lutes published Berlin, a sprawling, formally inventive, & idiosyncratic account of life in the Weimar Republic. Court Theatre has commissioned the playwright Mickle Maher to prepare an adaptation of Lutes' novel; David Levin is the collaborating dramaturg. The production is slated for Court's 2023-24 season. This interdisciplinary seminar invites students into the process of adaptation, exploring a broad range of conceptual & artistic challenges. We will consider works in a host of genres - e.g., Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori's adaptation of Alison Bechdel's graphic novel Fun Home or Walter Ruttmann's 1927 film "Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis" - to establish a dialogue between Lutes' work, its progenitors, and a range of theoretical materials. An additional & significant component of our work will involve creative exercises. Students will prepare adaptations of their own - first, of Lutes' novel, then of works of their own choosing. We will invite collaborators from the production to join us for workshop sessions. The seminar seeks to serve as an adaptation laboratory, exploring & investigating theoretical stakes and practical problems while seeking to reshape those stakes and problems into diverse forms of practice.

Instructor(s): David J. Levin and Mickle Maher     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): An interest in some combination of theater & performance practice, translation, adaptation, German culture and/or German history would be welcome. Note: Undergrads admitted by permission
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 35523, CMST 40500, TAPS 40500, CDIN 40500

ARTV 33861. Expanded Cinema. 100 Units.

Though often overlooked, the act of projection is at the heart of cinema (the act or process of causing a picture to appear on a surface). This studio course focuses on the creation of moving image-based work, exploring how time and space are used as materials to create form and inspire content within the contemporary film genre known as expanded cinema. The technical, historical and political aspects of the projected image will be studied in order to re-think cinema as a group and investigate how the projected image can find meaning outside the black box of theaters or the white cube of galleries. Two personal experimental video projects will lead to a third final collective video installation that will use the environment within the vicinity of UChicago's campus to inspire the work while also become the location of the final outdoor projection event. Note(s): Students will need written permission to enroll in the course. To bid for entry into the class, please email the instructor with your name, major, year, and list any other media production experience. Enrollment priority will be given to graduate and undergraduate CMS students, beginning with seniors, then to students in other departments.

Instructor(s): Marco Ferrari     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 28925, CMST 38925, CHST 28925, ARTV 23861

ARTV 33930. Documentary Production I. 100 Units.

Documentary Video Production focuses on the making of independent documentary video. Examples of various modes of documentary production will be screened and discussed. Issues embedded in the genre, such as the ethics, the politics of representation, and the shifting lines between "the real" and "fiction" will be explored. Story development, pre-production strategies, and production techniques will be our focus, in particular-research, relationships, the camera, interviews and sound recording, shooting in available light, working in crews, and post-production editing. Students will work in crews and be expected to purchase a portable hard drive. A five-minute string-out/rough-cut will be screened at the end of the quarter. Students are strongly encouraged to take CMST 23931 Documentary Production II to complete their work. Consent of instructor is required to enroll.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Prior or concurrent enrollment in CMST 10100 recommended for undergraduate students.
Equivalent Course(s): CHST 23930, HMRT 35106, ARTV 23930, HMRT 25106, CMST 23930, CMST 33930, MAAD 23930

ARTV 33931. Documentary Production II. 100 Units.

Documentary Production II focuses on the shaping and crafting of a non-fiction video. Enrollment will be limited to those students who have taken CMST 23930 Documentary Production I. The class will discuss issues of ethics, power, and representation in this most philosophical and problematic of genres. Students will be expected to write a treatment outline detailing their project and learn about granting agencies and budgeting. Production techniques will concentrate on the language of handheld camera versus tripod, interview methodologies, microphone placement including working with wireless systems and mixers, and lighting for the interview. Post-production will cover editing techniques including color correction and audio sweetening, how to prepare for exhibition, and distribution strategies. Consent of instructor is required to enroll.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): CMST 23930, HMRT 25106, or ARTV 23930
Equivalent Course(s): HMRT 35107, HMRT 25107, CMST 33931, CHST 23931, ARTV 23931, MAAD 23931, CMST 23931

ARTV 34000. Introduction to Black and White Film Photography. 100 Units.

Photography is a familiar medium due to its ubiquitous presence in our visual world, including popular culture and personal usage. In this course, students learn technical procedures and basic skills related to the 35mm camera, black and white film, and print development. They also begin to establish criteria for artistic expression. We investigate photography in relation to its historical and social context in order to more consciously engage the photograph's communicative and expressive possibilities. Course work culminates in a portfolio of works exemplary of the student's understanding of the medium. Field trips required.

Instructor(s): E. Hogeman     Terms Offered: Autumn Winter
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200 or 10300.
Note(s): Students need their own 35mm film camera. Some film and paper are provided, but students need to purchase additional supplies. More details will be provided on the first day of class and on Canvas.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 24000

ARTV 34004. Introduction to Color Photography. 100 Units.

Photography is a familiar medium due to its ubiquitous presence in our visual world, including popular culture and personal usage. We all have photographic habits and ample experience taking and consuming images. In this course, we will use photography as a means toward developing an aesthetic and theoretical language for creating art. Through readings, slideshows, and discussions, we will investigate color photography in relation to its historical and social context in order to more consciously engage the contemporary photograph's communicative and expressive possibilities. Students will be given constraint-driven assignments to help them unpack their habits and develop an understanding of the principles of photography and color editing workflows. Students are recommended to have their own DSLR camera with manual settings, but all camera formats are welcome.

Instructor(s): E. Hogeman     Terms Offered: Spring Winter
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200 or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 24004

ARTV 34007. Thinking About and Making Pictures. 100 Units.

With the advent of the digital smart phone, we are all photographers. Just as we all use words, photography, like language, carries meaning that has and gives rise to a myriad of purposes, possibilities, and limitations. The goal of this course is to develop students' investigations and explorations in photography, building on beginning level techniques and ideas to explore technical and conceptual image-making strategies to refine students' visual eloquence. Students will make photographs in response to prompts that interrogate various photographic processes, readings and artists' work (gallery visits, books and image presentations), Critiques and discussions will hone students' critical and evaluative capabilities. Processes will range from silver gelatin black-and-white or color printing, small, medium and/or large format cameras usage, as well as experimenting with alternative light-sensitive materials and digital negatives and printing.

Instructor(s): L. Letinsky     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 24000 or ARTV 24004
Equivalent Course(s): MAAD 24007, ARTV 24007

ARTV 34124. Beyond Subject Past Object. 100 Units.

In this course we will interrogate the history of the fights of nature, and work to observe and even 'model' an expanded political subject that is not just human, but human-in-relation to other-than-human beings. If we are, in fact, entangled beings, and the "individual" subject is a kind of friction, could we cast a wider net and protect this entangled being that is both us and Other? We will explore the "expanded field" in sculpture and relational art as parallel to contemporary political theory, eco-criticism, and environmental justice. This is a site based course, in the Untidy Object sculpture on the south side of the Logan Center for the Arts. Students will engage in terra responce to the plants and animals ready inhabiting the space, daily field observations of plant and animal communities, horticultural design, creative writing excercises, discussions, reflective summaries and produce one site-specific temporary sculptural and/or relational form in collaboration or individually.

Instructor(s): A. Ginsburg     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CHST 24124, ARTV 24124

ARTV 34201. Collage. 100 Units.

This studio course explores collage as a means for developing content and examining complex cultural and material relationships. Projects and assigned texts outline the history of collage as a dynamic art form with a strong political dimension, as well as critically addressing how it is being used today.

Instructor(s): S. Wolniak     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 24201

ARTV 34703. Mixed-Media Drawing: From Object to Concept. 100 Units.

An object of your choice will serve as a departure point for this process-oriented studio course that takes you through a sequenced exploration of a variety of mixed media drawing materials, methods, and approaches: from observation to abstraction-to the purely conceptual. Readings, critical writing, and discussion are intended to reinforce fluidity between theory, your ideas, and your art practice. This course is augmented by an image bank and gallery visits. Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300 Note(s): Open to all levels of experience.

Instructor(s): K. Desjardins     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Note(s): Open to all levels of experience.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 24703

ARTV 34706. Drawing Through the World: Relational Ways of Seeing. 100 Units.

This studio drawing course proposes an examination of the relationship between drawing and seeing, knowing, and revealing connections in our experience of the world. Our departure point is the human figure. Rather than moving inward (anatomy), we move outward from the figure in to space, drawing diagrammatically through the visual field, intent on expanding our ability to make visual and conceptual connections as we sharpen our observational drawing skills. A wide range of ideas--including Klee, Piaget, and Bourriaud-will be considered alongside our efforts in class. Guest speakers, field trips, and seminar discussions augment this studio drawing course. No prior drawing experience required. Students from across disciplines/working with any art media welcome.

Instructor(s): K. Desjardins     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200 or 10300
Note(s): This is a 3-week intensive class that meets the first three weeks of the quarter.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 24706

ARTV 34709. Experimental Drawing. 100 Units.

This course takes an expansive view of drawing. We will begin with traditional techniques and materials, while moving beyond observational frameworks to examine the relationship between drawing and other disciplines, including performance and sculpture. Our focus will be non-objective drawing, non-traditional materials, and process-based works. Lectures, slide presentations, readings and dedicated studio time will familiarize students with contemporary drawing practices through less traditional means and a wide variety of drawing media. Critiques will follow each of the four longer-duration projects.

Instructor(s): B. Collins     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 24709

ARTV 34711. In the Service of Ideas: Conceptual Art. 100 Units.

What constitutes a "good idea" for an artwork, and how are ideas brought into material existence? How does the form of artwork communicate meaning? Can an idea be heavier and longer lasting than a block of stone? Questions of medium and form persist in conversations about and approaches to visual art. In this multidisciplinary studio class, students will be challenged to develop projects from conceptual origins- manifesting works from the ether of thought, and locating the best possible medium for a given idea. Traditional visual art principles such as observation, composition, process, representation and visual language will be considered through the prism of concept. A wide variety of mediums including drawing, sculpture, installation, and video will be introduced as possible outcomes for student work, with the expectation that new forms, hybrid "intermedia" and entirely non-material outcomes may also result. Art historical models such as text art, land art, site-specific installation, video, social practice and institutional critique will be presented in support of studio assignments and projects.

Instructor(s): S. Wolniak     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 24711

ARTV 35119. Mingei: Origins and Futures - A Seminar Studio on Crafting Things. 100 Units.

This course will approach the question of sculpture, design, and architecture from the position of Mingei. Paying particular attention to the ideologies associated with Japanese Mingei and to consider craft and the built environment made by common folk, who have over time with their imaginations created technical marvels, beauty, unbelievable cultural traditions, and idioms. Mingei in the sense, is a celebration of the hand as much as it is a political ideology that aided in the maintenance of Japanese folk craft at the height of westernization. This class on Mingei will explore other great craft histories around the world and the ways in which contemporary art might beg itself for an adjacency to the great makers of this world.

Instructor(s): T. Gates     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Consent only. Students who would like to register for the class are invited to send a brief (2-3 sentence) request to theaster@uchicago.edu expressing their interest.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 25119

ARTV 36214. On Art and Life. 100 Units.

This course is a multidisciplinary intensive into the ways in which artistic production is dependent on and part of larger cultural tropes. Utilizing contemporary culture as a framework, how does art form connective tissues with the worlds that happen outside of the artist's studio? Visual art is a communicative form that requires subject matter, and this course will investigate the myriad of ways that artists mine culturally meaningful materials, forms, and images as both subjects and as palette. Participation in several field trips and out-of-class film screenings is required. Reference materials are drawn from a variety of disciplines.

Instructor(s): G. Oppenheimer     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Note(s): Participation in several field trips and out-of-class film screenings is required.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 26214

ARTV 36215. Comedy Central 2: The Body's Genres. 100 Units.

The story of comedy from the classics on focuses on the comedic as a weapon, as play that disrupts communication, and as a scene of moral revelation. This course will take up those relations, but begins with the body. We will focus on the plastic, corporeal, affective, and psychodramatic dynamics of the comedic. So much so, in fact, that we're calling it a studio seminar: it will involve actively participating in exercises adapted from the somatic arts, contemporary dance, music, theatre and contemporary comedy and developing new ones. Recognizing that bodies are as much created by movement as engendering it, and recognizing that the comedic is a register for translating the impact of other bodies including the world's body, the course will partition "the body" into focal themes such as: scale/gesture, the vocal grotesque/irony, movement/interruption, trauma/repair, slapstick/satire, ritual/convention, spontaneity/improvisation; cognitive laughter/belly laughter. Readings will include texts by Linda Williams, Erving Goffman, J.L. Moreno, Elias Canetti, Moshe Feldenkrais, Steve Paxton, Mikhail Bakhtin, Mae West, Jerry Lewis and Fred Moten. Students will contribute their own choices to an exploration of individual performances by Buster Keaton, Louise Lasser, Eleo Pomare, Phyllis Diller, Jackie "Moms" Mabley, and Jerrod Carmichael.

Instructor(s): L. Berlant, C. Sullivan     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): TAPS 36215, ENGL 36407

ARTV 36220. Paraäcademia- art, spirituality, and social healing. 100 Units.

Paraäcedemia is a set of knowledge bases that typically exist outside of officially recognized institutions of higher learning. It is the space where new, heretofore unknown forms of art may come into being and underrecognized traditions thrive. Coinciding with visiting artist vanessa german's 2023- 24 residency at the Gray Center, this experimental and interdisciplinary seminar will explore various schools of mysticism, art as a form of social healing, the political histories and methodologies of witchcraft, the aesthetics of the occult, and the technics of the supernatural A number of guest speakers from various backgrounds will lecture, join discussions and participate in class critiques. Assignments include weekly readings and an updated Google doc of class notes, two short writing assignments, one on a para-academic thinker, and a creative writing assignment based on your own para-academic practice/interest/experience, along with dedicated weekly studio time in class. A final project of the student's choice may be a research paper (10-12 pages) or a creative project with a choice of medium. All work in the course will culminate in an elective student exhibition in the Summer of 2024. Readings will include excerpts from Maria Tatar's The Heroine with a Thousand Faces, Ytasha Womak's Afrofuturism, Lauren Berlant's The Female Complaint, Mona Cholett's In Defense of Witches, as well as texts by Jan Verwoert, Fred Moten, Rebecca Solnit, and others.

Instructor(s): Z. Cahill     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): 2023-24 Gray Center Colloquium
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 26220

ARTV 37200. Painting. 100 Units.

Presuming fundamental considerations, this studio course emphasizes the purposeful and sustained development of a student's visual investigation through painting, accentuating both invention and clarity of image. Requirements include group critiques and discussion.

Instructor(s): D. Schutter     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300; and 22000 or 22002
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 27200

ARTV 37204. Painting Matters. 100 Units.

Some prior painting experience is required. This studio aims to support the development of a student's personal visual investigation through painting while also challenging habits of thought and making. We will ask questions about form, content, and context with words and with paint. Participation in group critiques, and discussion will take place regularly throughout. It is likely that two classes will take place outside. (If this is not possible given individual circumstances, accommodations will be made.)

Instructor(s): J. Stockholder     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): PQ: ARTV 10100, 10200 or 10300 and some prior experience in painting. Basic supplies for the class will be provided, but students may wish to purchase additional supplies. More information will be provided on the first day of class.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 27204

ARTV 37212. Around Concepts and Material Arrangements. 100 Units.

This interdisciplinary and conversation-oriented studio course pairs casual conceptual exercises with formal projects, focusing less on drafting and building skills than on a discursive investigation of art, art history, and contemporaneity. Critical elements that inform studio assignments include but are not limited to time/episode, site/institution, and self-image/identity. Routine examinations on context and demonstrations on means, both in the "Western" and "Eastern" traditions, will underpin individual chats, progress discussions, and group critiques. We will host at least one session in an on-campus arts space, and students are strongly encouraged to participate in city-wide events. Ultimately, balancing thinking and making is key, and the final project, in the most ideal sense, will introduce students to an organic commitment to a creative life.

Instructor(s): T. P. Qian     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 27212

ARTV 37213. Painting from Observation and Imagination. 100 Units.

This is an intermediate painting course. This course will begin with observational painting (painting from life) and move into different modes of image making. Painting from memory, narrative, photography as well as abstraction will be explored. We will look at the work of representational painters and abstract painters whose work was informed by observational painting. Students will develop their own themes and technique through writing, iterative and generative processes, sketching, and other methods. The class will culminate in an individual project. Analyzing paintings will be developed through critiques, discussions, and readings. There will be a field trip to a museum or artist studio. Students are expected to work on their paintings outside of class hours for four to six hours a week.

Instructor(s): M. Eastman     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 27213

ARTV 37314. Writing Art Criticism. 100 Units.

This course is a practicum in writing art criticism. Unlike art historians, art critics primarily respond to the art of their time and to developments in the contemporary art world. They write reviews of Chicago exhibitions that may be on view in galleries or museums and that may focus on single artists or broad themes. Importantly, art critics often produce the very first discourse on a given art, shaping subsequent thinking and historiography. Accordingly, art criticism is a genre that requires particular skills, for example, identifying why and how artworks matter, taking a fresh look at something familiar or developing a set of ideas even if unfamiliar with a subject, expressing strong yet sound opinions, and writing in impeccable and engaging ways. Students will develop these skills by reading and writing art criticism. We will examine the work of modern art critics ranging from Denis Diderot to Peter Schjeldahl and of artists active as critics ranging from Donald Judd to Barbara Kruger. Class discussions will be as much about the craft of writing as about the art reviewed. We will deliberate the style and rhetoric of exhibition reviews, including details such as first and last sentences, order of paragraphs, word choices, and the like. This seminar is writing intensive with a total of six exhibition reviews, four of which will be rewritten substantially based on instructor, visitor, and peer feedback and general class discussion. Off-campus field trips also required.

Instructor(s): C. Mehring     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Enrollment is limited and permission of instructor is required. Preference will be given to students with a background in the visual arts or writing about the arts. Please email the instructor (mehring@uchicago.edu) explaining relevant background.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 37314, ARTH 27314, ARTV 27314

ARTV 37920. Virtual Reality Production. 100 Units.

Focusing on experimental moving-image approaches at a crucial moment in the emerging medium of virtual reality, this class will explore and interrogate each stage of production for VR. By hacking their way around the barriers and conventions of current software and hardware to create new optical experiences, students will design, construct and deploy new ways of capturing the world with cameras and develop new strategies and interactive logics for placing images into virtual spaces. Underpinning these explorations will be a careful discussion, dissection and reconstruction of techniques found in the emerging VR "canon" that spans new modes of journalism and documentary, computer games, and narrative "VR cinema." Film production and computer programming experience is welcome but not a prerequisite for the course. Students will be expected to complete short "sketches" of approaches in VR towards a final short VR experience.

Instructor(s): Marc Downie     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Film production and computer programming experience is welcome but not a prerequisite for the course. Students will be expected to complete short "sketches" of approaches in VR towards a final short VR experience.
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 37920, MAAD 24920, CMST 27920, ARTV 27920

ARTV 37921. Augmented Reality Production. 100 Units.

Focusing on experimental moving-image approaches at a crucial moment in the emerging medium of augmented reality, this class will explore and interrogate each stage of production of AR works. Students in this production-based class will examine the techniques and opportunities of this new kind of moving image. During this class we'll study the construction of examples across a gamut from locative media, journalism, and gameplay-based works to museum installations. Students will complete a series of critical essays and sketches towards a final augmented reality project using a custom set of software tools developed in and for the class.

Instructor(s): Marc Downie     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Not offered in 2023-24.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 27921, MAAD 22911, CMST 37911, CMST 27911

ARTV 37923. Experimental Captures. 100 Units.

This production-based class will explore the possibilities and limits of capturing the world with imaging approaches that go beyond the conventional camera. What new and experimental image-based artworks can be created with technologies such as laser scanning, structured light projection, time of flight cameras, photogrammetry, stereography, motion capture, sensor augmented cameras or light field photography? This hands-on course welcomes students with production experience while being designed to keep established tools and commercial practices off-kilter and constantly in question.

Instructor(s): M. Downie     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Not offered in 2022-23.
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 27011, CMST 37011, MAAD 21011, ARTV 27923

ARTV 38100. Art/World in Practice. 100 Units.

As an attempt to experience art making as a profession and as a practice we will spend the majority of class time off campus. We will visit exhibitions, meet people behind the scenes (curators / artists / collectors / gallerists / fabricators), if the heath condition allows visit a screening / lecture and allow for informal time together to give space to questions that arise from our shared experiences. Participants will be asked to prepare reports on our various planned activities. There will also be a tight selection of readings that will be in relation to our activities. Participants should be prepared to gather in various places throughout the city of Chicago, and for class time to end with a bit of flexibility towards the end. Depending on the mode of transportation, commute times might be up to 30-45 min, and ride sharing is strongly encouraged.

Instructor(s): J. Phillips     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 28100, CHST 28100

ARTV 39700. Independent Study in Visual Arts. 100-300 Units.

Students in this course should have already done fundamental course work and be ready to explore a particular area of interest much more closely.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

ARTV 39901. 21st Century Art. 100 Units.

This course will consider the practice and theory of visual art since 1989. We will focus on questions of art's location within society and art's varied development in differing locales.

Instructor(s): M.J. Jackson     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Instructor's consent is required.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 42911

ARTV 40000. Graduate Studio Project. 100-300 Units.

Only MFA students in the Department of Visual Arts may register for this class.

Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Winter

ARTV 40100. Mexico: Near and Far, a la distance y for dentro. 100 Units.

This travel seminar is only open to MFA students in the Department of Visual Arts.

Instructor(s): L. Letinsky     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): This travel seminar is only open to MFA students in the Department of Visual Arts.

ARTV 40310. Technology and Aesthetics. 100 Units.

New technologies regularly enable new mediums, styles, genres, and narrative forms as they offer us new ways to record the world, express ourselves, and tell stories. But the advent of each new artistic and literary form raises anew fundamental theoretical questions: what is the difference between an objective record of the world and an artistic rendition of it? Is what makes something art the creator's intent or the viewer's perception of it as art? That is, can something be experienced as art if it is not intended as such? What, even, is a narrative, given our minds' tendency to resolve any random pattern into a coherent series of cause and effect? And, finally, as new technologies offer endless new creative possibilities, how can we continuously recalibrate how we define art and engage with it? This class will span the 19th through the 21st centuries to explore how technological innovation has produced new literary and aesthetic forms while addressing the above questions. Its aim is two-fold: to offer a deeper understanding of literary and artistic movements and (often-canonical) texts by relating them to technoscientific concerns and contexts, and to strengthen students' foundation in literary and aesthetic theory. Thus, we will read key works of fiction that represent new aesthetic paradigms alongside scholarship that puts them into context and theoretical texts, including those of Walter Benjamin, Michael Saler, Catherine Gallagher, and Henry Jenkins.

Instructor(s): Anastasia Klimchynskaya     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CHSS 40410, KNOW 40310, ARTH 40311