Visual Arts Courses

Visual Arts

Painting I

VIS 203 / ARC 327 · Fall 2019

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Eve Aschheim · Pam Lins

An introduction to the materials and methods of painting.

Analog Photography

VIS 211 · Fall 2019

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Jennifer Calivas · Jeff Whetstone

An introduction to the processes of analog photography through a series of problems directed toward the handling of film-based cameras, light-sensitive paper, darkroom chemistry, and printing.

Graphic Design: Typography

VIS 215 / CWR 215 · Fall 2019

U01 - David Reinfurt · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM and 7:30 - 9:40 PM

Instructors: David Reinfurt

This studio course introduces students to graphic design with a particular emphasis on typography. Students learn typographic history through lectures that highlight major shifts in print technologies and through their engagement in studio design projects.

Graphic Design: Circulation

VIS 217 · Fall 2019

U01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM and 7:30 - 9:40 PM

Instructors: David Reinfurt

Students in this course will consider the ways in which a graphic design object's characteristics are affected by its ability to be copied and shared, and by the environment in which it is intended to circulate.

Graphic Design: Image

VIS 218 · Fall 2019

U01 - Laura Coombs · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM and 7:30 - 9:40 PM

Instructors: Staff

This course engages students in the decoding of and formal experimentation with the image as a two-dimensional surface.

Digital Animation

VIS 220 · Fall 2019

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Tim Szetela

This studio production class will engage in a variety of timed-based collage, composition, visualization, and storytelling techniques. Students will be taught the fundamental techniques of 2D animation production.

Sculpture I

VIS 221 · Fall 2019

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Joe Scanlan · Kenneth Tam

A studio introduction to sculpture, particularly the study of form, space, and the influence of a wide variety of materials and processes on the visual properties of sculpture.

Sound/Material/Mind

VIS 226 / MUS 228 · Fall 2019

U01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Jess Rowland

Sound is at once ephemeral in air, concrete in material, and conceptualized in the mind. This unique transformation makes sound ideal for examining the relationship of our internal experience to physicality.

Documentary Filmmaking I

VIS 263 · Fall 2019

C01 — Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM and 7:30 - 9:40 PM

Instructors: Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt

In the real world, what relationships have the necessary friction to generate compelling films? Documentary Filmmaking will introduce you to the craft, history and theory behind attempts to answer this question.

Narrative Filmmaking I

VIS 265 · Fall 2019

L01 · Wednesdays, 7:30 - 9:40 PM Thursdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Moon Molson

An introduction to narrative and avant-garde narrative film production through the creation of hands-on digital video exercises, short film screenings, critical readings, and group critiques.

Intermediate Photography

VIS 313 · Fall 2019

C01 · Wednesdays, 12:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: James Welling

This course will examine photography's constant negotiation of evolving technologies. Students shoot black and white and color film and scan and print it digitally to broaden their photographic strategies, their technical skills, and their understanding of the medium of photography. A range of tools will be introduced, including analogue film development, scanning negatives, Photoshop processing, and inkjet printing.

Art as Research: Artifactual Fictions

VIS 322 · Fall 2019

C01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Fia Backström

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.

Ceramic Sculpture

VIS 331 · Fall 2019

U01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM and 7:30 - 9:40 PM

Instructors: Adam Welch

This course is course designed for students interested in learning the fundamentals of working with clay.

The Artist at Work

ART 349 / VIS 345 / HUM 349 · Fall 2019

C01 · Fridays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Irene Small

What are the environments, fictions, fantasies, and ideologies that condition the artist at work? This course takes as its investigative locus the artist's studio, a space of experimentation and inspiration, but also of boredom, sociability, exhaustion, and critique.

Narrative Filmmaking II

VIS 365 · Fall 2019

L01 · Wednesdays, 12:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Moon Molson

An intermediate exploration of narrative and avant-garde narrative film production through the creation of hands-on digital video exercises, short film screenings, critical readings, and group critiques.

Artist and Studio

VIS 392 / ART 392 · Fall 2019

C01 — Martha Friedman · Tuesdays, 7:30 - 10:20 PM

Instructors: Martha Friedman

A required seminar for Practice of Art majors and Program in Visual Arts certificate students emphasizing contemporary art practices and ideas. The course addresses current issues in painting, drawing, sculpture, film, video, photography, and performance installation.

Advanced Screenwriting: Writing for Television

CWR 405 / VIS 405 · Fall 2019

C01 - Susanna Styron · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Susanna Styron

This advanced screenwriting workshop will introduce students to the fundamental elements of developing and writing a TV series in the current "golden age of television."

Drawing II

VIS 407 · Fall 2019

U01 — Colleen Asper · Mondays, 12:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Colleen Asper

Drawing is a distinct process; it can serve as a mode of documentation or as a preparatory step in many other processes. This allows drawing to point to a past event, create a primary experience in the present, and/or to serve as a model or plan for what is to come. We will explore these multiple uses of drawing and their accompanying temporalities through approaches that emphasize a wide range of formal effects — illusionistic form, space, flatness, mark-making, opacity, transparency — while simultaneously exploring how artists have turned to drawing to record, index, propose, invent, and fantasize.

Exhibition Issues and Methods

VIS 416 · Fall 2019

S01 — Pam Lins · Tuesdays, 7:30 - 10:20 PM

Instructors: Pam Lins

This seminar provides senior Practice of Art Track and VIS certificate students a context for investigating and discussing contemporary art exhibition practices.

Extraordinary Processes

VIS 418 / CEE 418 · Fall 2019

U01 · Wednesdays, 12:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Joe Scanlan · Sigrid Adriaenssens

This class will be a series of material investigations in relation to the human body at rest. Each student will design, build, and critically analyze a custom bed frame that exploits the inherent properties of a singular material—ash wood—across a spectrum of rigid and flexible structures

Introduction to Screenwriting: Adaptation

CWR 448 / VIS 448 · Fall 2019

C01 · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 3:50 PM

Instructors: Christina Lazaridi

This course will introduce students to screenwriting adaptation techniques, focusing primarily on the challenges of adapting “true stories” pulled from various non-fiction sources.