Using research techniques from the fields of science, art, and journalism, students in Topics: Document/Investigate will explore the real world and translate those explorations into a variety of forms, including visual reportage, graphic memoir, illuminated interviews, abstract infographics, interpretive films, and more. We will consider questions around fiction and nonfiction, 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, pose questions about hidden-in-plain sight dimensions of the modern world, and develop their own approaches to depicting their findings in works that combine text and image, static and moving pictures. The course is designed to support the development of each student as a unique thinker and creator.

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 section will be a space for students to explore the aesthetic and political possibilities of utopias and dystopias. It will 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 feminist 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. Utopian design will be considered (fonts of the Bauhaus), as will the movement of dystopian imagery (the red cloaks from Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale) into contemporary protest.

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 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.

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.