Summer ’22 – Week 1

Hi there!

Welcome to the 1st of our 12 weeks of Artful Summer!

Art Idea #1 – Media Connects Us

One great thing about an online class like Summer Art 110 is that you can stay in SoCal, or go home to Stockholm, or Hong Kong, or Fresno, and still work on your degree. Most students I’ve talked to love this. But they miss the F2F-fulness of a traditional class. They miss meeting their peers. And if you think about it, meeting your peers is an essential part of the college experience.

As F2F college gets more and more expensive, will more students turn to fully online colleges? If they do, the knowledge they develop there might be comparable to F2F knowledge, but there will be less peer networking. Will the future be F2F college, the college experience, and career networking only for the rich.

Being Yourself, online

Whether it’s a global pandemic or just a regular old online class, one way to share yourself with others is by vlogging. Vlogging is a way to share your identity & style with other people. Vlogging is a way to share your place, your city, and your home, with others. Vlogging is a way to say hello to 29 Art 110 classmates you might not have a chance to meet F2F.

Useful

Beyond Art 110, being able to express yourself on video is a powerful career skill. Whether it’s to argue an idea, or to share detailed information, if you can communicate with video, you’ve taken a significant step toward building a career.

Week 1 – Art Activity #1 – Vlogging

Take your phone or laptop (or real camera if you happen to have one) and point it at yourself. Say “hello” to your Summer Art 110 classmates. Introduce yourself. Talk about anything you like. You might talk about your progress in school. Or your major. Or your career plans. You might talk about the pandemic and how you’re getting by in school and life under this new normal. You might, if you choose to, talk about your emotional state. Was the pandemic depressing? Has it been a chance to rethink your goals in life?

Tech Stuff

1. Drop by our Roster page and leave your Name & the URL of your blog there so I can see your stuff. After Week 1, you won’t have to “turn in” your Weekly Art Activity or Artist Essay, you’ll just post them on your blog and I’ll go visit it each week and give you points for your work
2. Drop by YouTube (or Vimeo) and make your video. You could record on phone/laptop/camera first and upload to YouTube, or go live to YouTube. It’s your choice how fancy to make your video. Just 1 straight take is fine. Or you can edit. Or you can add music. Titles. After Effects. Or not. Your video is yours.
3. Once your video is on YouTube, grab the URL for that, go to your blog, make a new post, and paste your video there.
4. Name your post: Week 1 – Activity – Vlogging
5. Almost every week in addition to photos or video of your Art Activity, you will also need to write something about your project. This week you only have to post your video.
6. You’re done with this week’s Art Activity.

Artists of the Week

Every week we’ll have 2 living artists to think about.

Some weeks I’ll give you 2 artists to research. Some weeks you’ll get to pick. This week, you pick.

Find 2 Artists who…

The 2 artists you should find this week are YouTubers or Content Creators. Here’s the criteria for the 2 YouTubers you should find:

1. Must be currently active. We’ll define that as posting at least 6 videos in 2022.
2. Must be personally relevant to you. Define this as you choose – it might be similar ethnic or cultural heritage, it might be same nerdy obsession, it might be similar personal issues or fashion or politics, religion, ideology, or anything else. But do find 2 content creators who you feel some kinship with.
3. One should be “popular” and one should be less well known. We’ll define “popular” as having at least 100k subscribers. We’ll define “less well known” as having less than 10k, preferably less than 1k if you can find them, subscribers.

When you find 2 content artists that meet the 3 criteria, go ahead and explore their work!

1. Watch some videos from each artist
2. Make a new blog post analyzing these two artists
3. Name your post: Week 1 – Artist – (name) & (name)
4. Compare and contrast – discuss how each artist works. What is their content? What are their goals? How do you perceive them? What do their YouTube channels have in common? How are they different? How do you experience them? Do they seem authentic? Do you feel like you know them? Do their videos seem performative? If you were going to start a YouTube channel, would either of them be a model for you? How would your channel be similar or different from theirs? What would your focus be? What would your goals be?