SMC Design: May 2009

Hi,

I just added hyperlinks to articles and videos of some of the artists we'll be discussing this week. Scroll down for more info. AND Here is a link to the video documentary on Situationism I promised, titled On the Passage of a few People through a Rather Brief Moment in Time: The Situationist International 1956-1972.

Also, here are the components of a map (as we described them during class last week):

landmarks

direction

capturing movement

symbols, key, color coding

textures, sound

experience

trophies, objects collected

destinations

overall space (of the map, of the area being surveyed, including borders)

levels, or topography

concept, or what is being mapped?

perspective, relative position, proximity

role of different cartographers in generating the map

I included this disclaimer in the syllabus:

As I’ll mention repeatedly, this schedule is designed to respond to the needs of the class. Without the experience of previously working with your group, the projects listed here are meant to be guidelines only, and will/should adapt quickly to the needs of the class, most likely shifting dates (if experience is any teacher). Any changes will be announced well in advance (during class) and posted on the blog (prior to class).

The tentative calendar below isn't so much altering our course than it is clarifying it; I've tried to flush out some of the projects more fully and describe the trajectory that we're following. Where we are and where we're going. To date, you've spent time in class

*moving furniture in Lab I and II, enacting numerous processes (many simultaneously),

*creating collaborative temporary print installations/interventions in the Rotunda,

*building structures to document your actions (book, by any other name), and

*assembling the objects around you into fantastic, awkward, temporary sculptures.

These works are by nature and context arising as experiments, trials, and propositions. As experiments, they are designed to function reflexively, showing how your actions affect these diverse objects and spaces, and simultaneously how those actions are being manifested, utilized, acquired, activated, and articulated by you. How do we continue to build these events and objects and processes into a cohesive sense of your progress?

Week 6
Meeting at Farmhouse, working collaboratively on projects that use garments. Class members will design pieces in teams of two (or three), integrating the garments and the site together. A bandana, pair of jeans, and staircase in a farmhouse? What does that even mean? What can it mean? As a group, we'll come up with a list of conceptual frames for how (and perhaps where) these works will exist. Drawings and words/poems/writing describing the process, the narrative, the outcome, and the expectations will accompany all the pieces.

Some projects by Erwin Wurm, Dario Robleto, and Yoko Ono will inform these works.

Week 7
Mapping. Beginning in the Art Annex, we'll radiate outwards, mapping a route through campus. We'll begin by recognizing the structures of a map, and questioning what possibilities those structures hold.
We'll be looking at projects by Tom Grothus, Janet Cardiff, Ken Lum, Francis Alys, David Claerbout, Stanley Brouwn, Vito Acconci, Bruce Nauman.

Week 8
Boxes, shelter, camp, fort, rest stop. A few weeks ago I asked you to bring in some cardboard boxes. This week we'll finally put those to use. Building off of the campus maps you designed last week, you will revisit the route you created and using only the boxes (and something to hold them together) you will design a space. A space for yourself? A space for others? A space for rest? Communication? Where and what type of makeshift encampment will become crucial questions. We'll make these quickly and take them apart quickly. Portability and context will be topics of these works.

We'll be looking at projects from Aggtelek, Michael Rakowitz, Thomas Hirschhorn, Tom Sachs, Andrea Zittel, Oscar Tuazon, Situationism (maybe), and Francis Alys.

Week 9
Assembly. Looking forward to the last class, the majority of this week will be spent book building. The *books* you make can (obviously, as we've seen) taken various, hybrid, innovative forms. What is the purpose of this book? Recording the previous weeks, unfolding how these disparate projects and approaches may be considered together. Some links may be very clear, depending on a linear succession of criteria. Other weeks, other projects may be loose, transient, separate. How do you translate these connections and fissures into a *book*? What is the shape of this piece and what does it's design mean?

TWIST:
Your *book* will include one element (and it can certainly be the entire book, if you're feeling ambitious) that will be designed/built in an edition of 24. Everyone will get a section of everyone else's book. These parts will be exchanged during class next week.

Projects by Ed Ruscha, Marcel Duchamp, Sophie Calle, Rirkrit Tiravanija, among others.

Week 10
Book presentations and pot luck. We'll spend a good amount of time looking through these books, and depending on how time goes, we'll trade works again. And again and again. Trading cards?!