Art as Research

Over the past fifty years, many visual artists have taken up the process and methods of academic research as an impetus for works of art. Through readings, discussions, case studies, and studio projects, students in this class will engage the immediate context of the University as source material for their artworks, and as a means of exploring the effect that research and knowledge production might have on contemporary artistic practice. How does art produce knowledge? How does the knowledge it produces differ from that of other disciplines? In what ways do artists and researchers use similar source material to different ends?

Sample reading list:
Rike Frank, When Forms Start Talking: On Lecture Performance
Boris Groys, Art in the Age of Biopolitics: Artwork to Art Documentation
Walter Benjamin, The Story Teller
Alan Sekula, The Body and the Archive
Akram Zataari, Photographic Documents, Excavation as Art
Hal Foster, The Archival Impulse

Reading/Writing assignments:
An individual research based project TBP at the end of the semester. A presentation of a case study of a research related art project. Five short assignments exploring forms of research, document, and artifact.

Prerequisites and Restrictions:
Not Open to Freshmen. Any 200-level course offered by ART, CWR, DAN, MUS, THR, or VIS.

Faculty

Sections

S01

Wednesday, 1:30 - 4:20 p.m.

Instructor(s)

Fia Backström