Using research techniques from the fields of science, art, and journalism, students in Topics: Stories Real/Imagined will push the boundaries of familiar narrative forms and experiment with new possibilities. We will explore visual reportage, graphic memoir, illuminated interviews, narrative in sculpture, and forms that may not yet have names or categories. We will consider questions around objectivity, neutrality, positionality, and perspective. In an age of AI, we’ll create work that avoids algorithms and data scraped from the internet and instead draws upon original reporting and primary sources. Students will hone skills of observation and invention, pose questions about hidden-in-plain sight dimensions of the modern world, and develop projects that combine text and image, static and moving pictures, 2-, 3- and 4-dimensions. The course is designed to support the development of each student as a unique thinker and creator.

This section is a space for students with an interest in sci-fi, fantasy and folklore to explore the aesthetic and narrative possibilities of other realities through lectures, readings, films, exercises, and individual projects. The intertwined concepts of utopia and dystopia are a grounding point as we consider the way in which sci-fi and fantasy are used to comment on contemporary life or to propose alternative ways of living. Issues to discuss include the transhumanist implications of the cyborg and the play space of digital games, as well as changing visions of dystopia/utopia and how to draw utopian practice into everyday life. Through exercises in object invention, character creation, and map-making, students are encouraged to develop their own worlds as the foundations for strong visual narratives.

This section will explore the juxtaposition and inter-relation of cute, kitsch, and horror in the service of storytelling through lectures, readings, exercises, and individual projects. It will consider the origins of cute--including cultural, biological, and psychological understandings of cuteness--and look at the history of Kawaii and its increasing global dominance. In contrast, we will also lift the veil to expose “horror,” the shadow of cute, or the underlying tragedy that engenders the vulnerabilities that evoke “cuteness.” Students will be encouraged to think about their visual guilty pleasures and to examine the value of kitsch and its relationship to folk art and may discuss camp and the re-use of aesthetic in non-normative gender roles. We will also look at sentimentality and notions of worth and value associated with particular images. Students should take this section if: They want to explore the origins and contemporary meaning(s) of what is cute or what is absolutely not, they want to make work exploring appeal and the affect of objects or characters.

This course explores printmaking without relying on access to presses or other large print studio facilities. Students will experiment with a variety of printmaking techniques including monotypes, cyanotypes, lino and woodcuts, and Risograph. Thematically, the course will encourage students to explore ideas of multiplicity and accessibility, affordability, community building, the role of print in protest movements and underground information dissemination. We will look at type and text, as well as coded and symbolic language.

This course explores animation in relation to the natural world and the laws of nature. Students will explore existing environments and interrogate their relationship to light, trash, sound, condensation, deterioration, and nature inside and outside of the body. Students will work with materials that elude finite control and challenge the idea of authorship. Investigation and research will play a vital role in the creation of animated forms. The course welcomes students who consider themselves animators but wish to expand their practice in more experimental directions as well as students who do not focus on animation but would like to develop new perspectives and time-based work.