DRAFT ONLY – NOT FOR LIVE COURSE!

Art 110: Introduction to the Visual Arts

Summer 2013

■ Section 1: Class No.10997 – 100% Online Course
Instructor: Glenn Zucman
• glenn.zucman@csulb.edu
• Office Hours: Mon 9-10am & Thu 6-7pm via Google Hangouts

ART110 – VISION
In 1439 Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. In 1991 Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. 40 years ago Marshall McLuhan said that our classrooms were (I’m paraphrasing a bit) too Gutenberg and not enough Berners-Lee. Yes! McLuhan, media genius of the 20th century, said that 20 years before Berners-Lee invented The Web! So, for Summer Session 2013, Art110 will try to be a little less Gutenberg and a little more Berners-Lee.

This course will cover 3 million years of Art History: from a proto-human moment in a distant South African cave, to the autonomous, post-human, Images That Think out somewhere in cyber-space. Along this journey we will consider the constantly evolving nature of human consciousness and how our consciousness is revealed & redefined through art. Among many other times and places, we will consider the art, life, culture, and consciousness of: 14,000 years ago, 1660, 1994, and 2013.

PREREQUISITES
• None: This course requires no previous experience studying Studio Art or Art History.

OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this course is to familiarize the student with the practice, appreciation, and cultural interactions of art across the ages and across the globe. This course will survey the entire sweep of history from ancient art to the contemporary moment. Students will be introduced to the terms, principles, methods, theories and practices of art.

LEARNING OUTCOMES
Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to:
• Describe some of the styles, ideas, and issues found in the Western canon.
• Understand and articulate some of the ways that art functions vis-a-vis human culture
• Build upon their direct, introductory experiences, in Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Photography, Animation, and Data Visualization in both Physical and Virtual worlds
• Articulate their understanding of the relationship between art and: culture, speech, creativity, expression.
• Describe the role of the artist in culture / society.

FORMAT OF COURSE
This course includes weekly:
1. Readings
2. Mini-lectures on video
3. “Artist of the Week” talks on video
4. Discussions using the “Tout” App for Mobile Devices and Online
5. Weekly Activities (first 8 weeks)
6. Final Project (last 4 weeks)

For full details, see
• Schedule (below)
• Activities page

TEXTBOOKS
You’ll have the chance to read 3 small Thames & Hudson “World of Art” books this summer:
• The Body in Contemporary Art, by Sally O’Reilly
• Graffiti and Street Art, by Anna Waclawek
• Internet Art, by Rachel Greene

POINTS & GRADES
Most of your course activities will be “turned in” through Tout micro-videos. Here is the points breakdown:

9 Reading Touts x 10 points = 90 points
12 Lecture Touts x 10 points = 120 points

41 Activity Touts (Weeks 1-8) x 5 points = 210 points

Final Proposal – 50 points
Final Proposal Peer Review – 50 Touts x 1 point = 50 points
Final Project – 50 points
Final Project Peer Review – 50 Touts x 1 point = 50 points

Total Points = about 615

A – 540 points
B – 480 points
C – 420 points
D – 360 points
F – 359 points & below

OTHER DETAILS
Univ. Withdrawal Policy
It is the student’s responsibility to withdraw from classes. The Drop deadlines for Summer Session 2013 are:
• xx xxx 2013 before 10pm – ???using MyCSULB??? – without a “W” on your transcript
• xx xxx 2013 – with the ???signature of the Art Department Undergraduate Advisor???
• xx xxx 2013 – with the ???signature of the Dean of the College of the Arts???
???For the first 2 weeks, withdrawal is your choice and done through MyCSULB. After that it requires at least the signature of the Art Department Undergraduate Advisor and is very likely to be denied. The CSULB Art Department is “impacted” and therefore maintains a strict drop policy. The official Art Department Drop Policy is no drops after the second week except for serious and compelling reasons. Severe or extensive medical problems would be a reason to drop late, but fear of receiving a final grade lower than desired, or change in your work schedule, are not considered serious and compelling reasons. If allowed, a “W” will appear on your transcript.???

Incompletes
The Art Department grants “incompletes” rarely and only for the most extreme conditions.

Accommodation
CSULB will make reasonable accommodations for any student who has a disability. It is the student’s responsibility to notify me in advance of the need for special accommodations. This course utilizes many activities and many tools. Most of you should have no trouble with any of this, however if anyone has challenges with any course aspect for any reason, please be in touch ASAP and we can work to find suitable alternatives. A sincere effort should result in real learning and a good grade, so never be afraid to ask for any accommodations you need, but do make a sincere effort.

FUN!
In addition to all the stuff you have to do to get a grade in this course… don’t forget to have fun! Art is a fun, interesting, exciting, and enjoyable subject. Art offers pleasure to the viewer, consolation to the distraught, and wisdom to the seeker. Art will enrich your leisure time, resonate with your life, and offer surprising relevance to almost any career field you choose!

SCHEDULE

Week 1

Week of May 28
This Week’s Learning Objective: Consider the 3-million-year impulse of human beings and our ancestors to make art and aesthetic experience. How art expresses who we are, our hopes and our fears, and how Allan Kaprow used the most subtle activities to explore art and life, and our human presence on this earth.

Week 2

Week of June 4
This Week’s Learning Objective: To think briefly about cave art and how the markings on cave walls have so much to say about who we are today.

Week 3

Week of June 11
This Week’s Learning Objective: Brief introduction to art in Classical Greece and Rome and how it influences Western and American culture today.

Week 4

Week of June 18
This Week’s Learning Objective: The Middle Ages, Internet Art, and Joseph Cornell are very different art experiences and we’ll look at them all. Different as they are we may find some sort of kinship in the style and often obsessive detail found in Middle Ages architecture and illuminated manuscripts, in the endless labyrinths of Internet Art, and the elaborate “Wonder Cabinets” of Cornell.

Week 5

Week of June 25
This Week’s Learning Objective: The Renaissance, The Baroque, The Body, and a young, 19-year-old woman who, 150-years-ago this year, changed the nature of the representation of women in art.

Week 6

Week of July 4
This Week’s Learning Objective: We’ll look at the manufacturing of identity in the photography of Nikki S. Lee and in our own “Art110 Life” group photography project.

Week 7

Week of July 9
This Week’s Learning Objective: This week’s artist of the week, sound artist Janet Cardiff, creates sonic narratives you experience in specific sites. As Cardiff remaps urban spaces, we’ll think about our own mapping of experiences into “realist” or “romantic” spaces.

Week 8

Week of July 16
This Week’s Learning Objective: It’s Performance Art week as we read another chapter in The Body in Contemporary Art, and spend a few minutes with “The Grandmother of Performance Art,” Marina Abramovic.

Week 9

Week of July 23
This Week’s Learning Objective: This week we’ll visit the poster-children of New Media pranks: Eva & Franco Mattes. Their work is cheeky and silly, but also a powerful, even scathing critique of contemporary culture. We also begin our final project which will run for the last 4 weeks of our course.

Week 10

Week of July 30
This Week’s Learning Objective: Back in the old 20th century, Copyright was relevant to very few people. If you were a rock star, a record label, or a movie studio, you wanted to control your copyrights, and you may have made a fortune doing so, but for “the rest of us” the topic was mostly irrelevant. We don’t live in that century any more. Today almost everyone creates their own “Intellectual Property” and uses / abuses the “Intellectual Property” of others, every day. We’ll think about what freedom and creativity mean in our time, and do so by considering the sad case of Aaron Swartz who died earlier this year.

Week 11

Week of August 6
This Week’s Learning Objective: Last week we thought about Free Culture and Hacking. This week Hacking and Activism meet Art in our consideration of Hacktivism. We’ll meet the man who read the names of real dead American soldiers in the game America’s Army, and became a virtual Gandhi in cyberspace.

Week 12

Week of August 13
This Week’s Learning Objective: To wrap up our “formal” Art110 class and send you off on your “informal” Art Appreciation that I hope will go with you for the rest of your life, we’ll have a little virtual party with two eccentric but enormously powerful thinkers of the 20th century: Andy Warhol & Marshall McLuhan.