Course_Painting_The Body & Technology

Course Outline: FA/VISA 3000 3.0F
Wed: 2:30-6:30
Course Director: Associate Professor Janet Jones
Office Hours: Wed. 10:30-12:00
jjones@yorku.ca.

This is a thematic hybrid studio / theory course that will focus on contemporary debates surrounding the body and technology through the practice of painting, the discussion of selected readings and the viewing of images of works by artists who are examining these themes in their work. The three studio projects will focus on the following themes:

1. The Real Body: Painting as a Metaphor for the Body
2. The Cyborgian Body;
3. The Body in Virtual Space

The studio projects will reflect upon current body/technology debates through a diversity of painting approaches i.e. painting installation, collage, appropriation. Digital images may be incorporated into the painting but we will not have use of a computer lab in this course. Each of the studio projects will be introduced through a seminar. In the seminars the critical issues relating to the project will be examined through the viewing of images of works done by contemporary artists. Student presentations of the assigned readings, in subsequent classes, will further examine the themes under consideration. At the completion of each studio assignment students will be expected to clearly present her/his work during a class critique.

A. Three assigned studio projects each 23.3% - total 70%
B. Group Presentation of selected readings from the Course Reader - 15%
C. Participation during critiques and seminars -15%

The reader for this course is available through Beta Copy Centre, York Lanes Complex, York University. The following articles are contained in the reader:

Langdon Winner, “Three Paradoxes of the Information Age”, from Culture on the Brink.

Sherry Turkle, “introduction: Identity in the Age of the Internet”, from Life on the Screen.

Jessica Bradley, “Kiki Smith: Transgression, Transcendence, and the Ooze and Beat of Corporeality”, from Cat. Kiki Smith, The Powerplant Nov. 25-Jan.8, 1995.

Julia Kristeva, “Approaching Abjection”, from The Powers of Horror.

Margaret Morse, “What do Cyborgs Eat: Oral Logic in an Information Society”.

Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”, from Simians, Cyborgs and Women.

Arthur Kroker, “Virtual Ideology and the Cultural Logic of the Recombinant Sign”, in Data Trash.

William Gibson, Neuromancer.

Michael Heim, “The Erotic Ontology of Cyberspace”, from Cyberspace: First Steps.

Additional Bibliography
Arthur Kroker, Data Trash: the theory of the Virtual Class. Montreal, Quebec: New World Perspectives, 1994.

David Moos, Painting in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Art & Design, Profile no. 48. London: Academy Group, 1996.

David A. Ross, Endgame: Reference and Simulation in Recent Painting and Sculpture. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1986.

Catherine Richards and Nell Tenhaaf, Bioapparatus. Banff Centre for the Arts, 1991.

Donna J. Haraway, Simians Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature.
New York, NY: Routledge, 1991.

Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet: New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1995.

Louise Dompierre, Press Enter, Between Seduction and Disbelief: Cat. From the Powerplant Exhibition, 1995.

Jessica Bradley, Perspective 96 : Cora Cluett, Eric Glavin, Angela Leach and Steven Shearer. Exhibition cat. from AGO Exhibition, 1997.

Jessica Bradley, Kiki Smith, Exhibition Cat. from the Power plant, 1995.

Louise Dompierre, The Age of Anxiety, Power plant Cat. 1995.

Gretchen Bender & Timothy Druckrey, Culture on the Brink: Ideologies of Technology, Seattle: Bay Press, 1994.

Michael Benedikt (ed. by), Cyberspace; First Steps, Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press, 1991.

Featherstone, Mike. (ed. by) Cyberspace, Cyberbodies, Cyberpunk.

In addition, articles and books that suit the student’s individual project will be recommended.

-Introduction to the key concepts of the course: painting, the body & technology.
-Review of the Course Outline.
-Division into groups for presentations and critiques.
-Introduction to Project One: The 'real' body
-Presentation: Kiki Smith, Jon Baturin, Barbara Balfour, Janet Jones, Corra Cluett, Jana Sterback, Betty Goodwin, Eva Hesse, Yoshiko Shimada, Luc Tuymans, & others.

2:30-4:30:
-Group review & discussion of the articles to be presented
- Presentation Group 1:
"Introduction: Identity in the Age of the Internet", from Life on the Screen, Sherrie Turkle.
"Three Paradoxes of the Information Age", Landon Winner, from Culture on the Brink: Ideologies of Technology.
4:30-6:30 (Studio Area)
-Individual consultations on Project 1

-2:30-4:30
-Group review & discussion of the articles to be presented
- Presentation Group 2:
Kiki Smith: Exhibition Catalogue, The Power Plant -Nov. 25, 1994 - Jan., 1995. p.23-37.
-"Approaching Abjection", from Powers of Horror, Julia Kristeva, p. 1-4.
4:30-6:30(Studio Area)
-Group Critiques: Groups 5 & 6

2:30-4:30 Introduction Project Two: The Cyborgian Body
Slide Presentation: Marcel Duchamp, Taro Chiezo, Cindy Sherman, Chapman Brothers, & others.
Video: Orlan
4:30-6:30 - Initial individual discussion on project II

2:30-4:30-Group review & discussion of the article to be presented
- Presentation Group 3:
"What Do Cyborgs Eat? Oral Logic in an Information Society", Margaret Morse in Culture on the Brink p. 157-189.
4:30-6:30 (Studio Area)
-Individual consultations on Project 2.

9:30-11:30 (Location-Faculty Lounge)
-Group review & discussion of the articles to be presented
- Presentation Group 4:
"Virtual Ideology or the cultural logic of the recombinant sign", in Data Trash: The theory of the virtual class, Arthur Krocker and Michael A. Weinstein. p. 27-40
"A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century", from Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, Donna Haraway. p.149-155.
4:30-6:30 (Studio Area)
-Group Critiques: Groups 1 & 2

Introduction to Project 3: Bodies in Space
Slide Presentation: Jack Goldstein, Steven Shearer, Eric Glavin, Robert Yarber, Janet Jones, Peter Hailey.
Video: Laurie Anderson
-Individual discussions about Project II - 4:30-6:30

-Group review & discussion of the articles to be presented
- Presentation Group 5:
Selection from Neuromancer by William Gibson. The class is required to read only Chapter one that is included in the Course Reader. Group 5 is required to read the entire book for presentation.
4:30-6:30(Studio Area)
-Individual consultations on Project 3

-Group review & discussion of the article to be presented
-Presentation Group 6:
"The Erotic Ontology of Cyberspace", by Michael Heim in Cyberspace: First Steps, p. 59-80.
4:30-6:30 (Studio Area)
-Group Critiques: Groups 3 & 4.

2:30-6:30(Studio Area)
-Scheduled individual final Interviews & one other morning TBA.

FACULTY OF FINE ARTS DEPARTMENT OF VISUAL ARTS PAINTING: THE BODY AND TECHNOLOGY

FACULTY OF FINE ARTS
DEPARTMENT OF VISUAL ARTS
PAINTING: THE BODY AND TECHNOLOGY