Calendar

 Art 1A Visual Literacy Reading Schedule: Fall 2024

*Weekly writing assignments should be 2-4 pages and they are due each in lecture Wednesday by 9:30AM (unless otherwise stated. Check due dates VERY carefully). All assignments must be submitted to your TA.

 

WEEK 1 (September 30 & October 2): Course Introduction & Representation and Intertextuality.


The first lecture, on Monday, September 30 is via Zoom (no pass code, sign in as an attendee): https://ucsb.zoom.us/j/83111992304


Do the following:

1) Purchase your course reader (from Associated Students) and John Berger's Ways of Seeing (from the campus bookstore or Amazon). Your copy of Your Brain on Art is free, but you will only receive it after you fill out the following liability waivers.

2) Fill out the field trip Liability Waivers: HERE

MANDATORY LIABILITY WAIVERS (PLEASE FILL OUT ALL OF THEM TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR ALL OF THE FIELD TRIPS): 

*Students are responsible for their own transportation to the Los Angeles and Santa Barbara museums. Neither UCSB, nor the UCSB Department of Art will furnish transportation, or organize it. However, students tend to organize their own carpools each quarter.


Representation and Intertextuality Reading Assignments:

• Carl Matheson: The Simpsons, Hyper-Irony and the Meaning of Life


• Kelly L. Richardson. “Simpsons Did It!”: South Park and the Intertextuality of Contemporary Animation


• Joanna Woods-Marsden. "Cindy Sherman’s Reworking of Raphael’s ‘Fornarina’ and Caravaggio’s ‘Bacchus.’
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• Michel Foucault. This is Not a Pipe (Excerpt)


• Scott McCloud, The Vocabulary of Comics (Excerpt) 


Writing Assignment (Due: Wednesday, October 2 by 9:30AM in lecture): This is a 3-part assignment: 

1) Write a 1-page summary about the significant ideas addressed in Joanna Woods-Marsden's "Cindy Sherman's Reworking of Raphael's 'Fornarina' and Caravaggio's 'Bacchus'" 

2) Write a 1-page summary of Kelly L. Richardson's "Simpsons Did It!": South Park and the Intertextuality of Contemporary Animation. 

3) List a few ideas that you found interesting in Scott McCloud's The Vocabulary of Comics. If you have not purchased your course reader, then you will need to go to the library to check out the course reader that I have placed on reserve for you. 


WEEK 2 (October 7 & 9): Understanding Mediation: Photography and Cinema. Monday, October 7 at 9:30AM: meet in Arts 1320 to pick up book.

• John Berger: Ways of Seeing


• Walter Benjamin: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction 

• Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message


• Neil Postman: The Judgment of Thamus 

• Susan Magsamen and Ivy Moss. Your Brain on Art

 

Writing Assignment (Due: Wednesday, October 9 by 9:30AM in lecture): This is a 3-part assignment: 

1) Write a 1-page summary of John Berger’s Ways of Seeing (Chapter 1). 

2) Write a 1-page summary of Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. 

3) Write a 1-2 page summary of the important ideas addressed in Chapter 1 (pages 3-24): "The Anatomy of the Arts" from Your Brain on Art, and write about the most significant ideas advanced in this chapter.


WEEK 3 (October 14 & 16): LACMA Field Trip on Saturday, October 19th. Monday and Wednesday lectures cancelled in lieu of the LACMA trip. Discussion sections scheduled as planned. 


Writing Assignment (Due: Sunday, October 20 by midnight. Email it to your TA): This is a 3-part assignment: 

1) Write a 1-page response to the LACMA Simone Leigh exhibition. 

2) Write a 1-page museum response to the LACMA Magdalena Suarez Frimkess exhibition. 

3) With a 1-page response to the LACMA Josiah McElheny exhibition.

 

Alternative Assignment for the SBMA if you do not go to LACMA (but this means you must go to the Getty Center for the second field trip). This is a 4-part assignment:

Nota Bene: The museum trip is all-day immersive experience, and therefore the museum field trip is in lieu of both of the Art 1A lectures that week (section attendance is as scheduled that week). If you do not go to the museum that week, or do the writing assignment, then you will receive two absences for the missed lectures that week, and you won't be able to do your written assignment that week. Take a selfie at the museum, and works of art that were of interest to you, and include it in your paper as proof of attendance.


WEEK 4 (October 21 & 23): Writing & Researching Workshops in lecture.

Monday, October 21: Mechanics of a Formal Research Paper Writing Workshop

Wednesday, October 23: Scholarly Research Training Workshop


Writing Assignment (Due: Wednesday, October 23 by 9:30AM): This is a 3-part assignment. 

1) Write a summary of the Helen Pashgian Artist Talk. View HERE.

2) Write a summary of Carol S. Eliel's Helen Pashgian p. 17-24, 50-53. Download book PDF HERE. 

3) Read Chapter 5 (pages 135-164): "Amplifying Learning" from Your Brain on Art. 

 

WEEK 5 (October 28 & 30): Fictional and Documentary Space: Blurring the Difference. Helen Pashgian Artist Talk.

Tuesday, July 23

• Edward Branigan: Fiction


• Vivian Sobchack: On the Death of a Rabbit in Fictional Space 

• Susan Magsamen and Ivy Moss. Your Brain on Art

 

Writing Assignment (Due: Wednesday, October 30 by 9:30AM in lecture): This is a 2-part assignment:

1) Write a 2-page summary of the important ideas addressed in Chapter 6 (pages 166-198): "Flourishing" from Your Brain on Art. 

2) Write a 1-2 page summary that reveals the important ideas advanced in the Vivian Sobchack essay, On the Death of the Rabbit in Fictional Space. Discuss the famous hunting scene to which Sobchack refers in her essay. Here are some questions to ask yourself: 

a) Does the fact that these deaths occurred 85 years ago in any way desensitize your response?

b) Does knowing that these animals actually died in the service of this film shift the way that you respond to the scene?

c) While reading Sobchack’s essay, one has the impression that only a single rabbit died– when in fact it is clear that many rabbits and birds died in this hunting scene. Is there a singular moment to which she appears to be referring? If so, identify it and the precise moment in the clip (Example: Renoir, 01:15 - 02:00). Watch HERE.

d) Do you agree with the premise of Sobchack's argument after watching the scene to which she refers? Why, or why not?

WEEK 6 (November 4 & 6): Getty Center Field Trip on Saturday, November 9. Monday and Wednesday lectures cancelled in lieu of the Getty Center trip. Discussion sections scheduled as planned. 


Writing Assignment: (Due: Sunday, November 10 by midnight). This is a 3-part assignment: 

1) Write a 2-page response to the Lumen: Helen Pashgian exhibition

2) Write a 1-page response to the Abstracted Light: Experimental Photography exhibition. 

3) Write a 1-page response discussing some of your favorite experiences and works of art at the Getty Center (that weren't discussed in parts 1 and 2).


Alternative Assignment for the SBMA if you do not go to the Getty Center (but this means you must have gone to LACMA for the first field trip). This is a 4-part assignment:

Nota Bene: The museum trip is all-day immersive experience, and therefore the museum field trip is in lieu of both of the Art 1A lectures that week (section attendance is as scheduled that week). If you do not go to the museum that week, or do the writing assignment, then you will receive two absences for the missed lectures that week, and you won't be able to do your written assignment that week. Take a selfie at the museum, and works of art that were of interest to you, and include it in your paper as proof of attendance.


WEEK 7 (November 11 & 13): Veterans Day Holiday on November 11. A Brief Introduction Semiotics. Research Paper Due on Wednesday, November 13 at 9:30AM in lecture.

• Daniel Chandler: Semiotics for Beginners: Codes

• Roland Barthes: The World of Wrestling

• Roland Barthes: The Romans in Films

• Roland Barthes: The Brain of Einstein

• Roland Barthes: Plastic

• Joseph Kosuth: Context/Text


Writing Assignment (Due: Wednesday, November 13 by 9:30AM in lecture): Formal Research paper. No weekly writing assignment.


WEEK 8 (November 18 & 20): Art in the Age of the Internet.

Art in the Age of the Internet

• Jeff Scheible: Longing to Connect: Cinema’s Year of OS Romance


• Katrina Sluis, Julian Stallabrass and Christiane Paul. The Canon After the Internet 

• Lauren Cornell. Self-Portraiture in the First-Person Age 

• Gloria Sutton. CTRL ALT DELETE: The Problematics of Post-Internet Art 

• Jeffrey De Blois. Hybrid Bodies 

• Susan Magsamen and Ivy Moss. Your Brain on Art


Writing Assignment (Due: Wednesday, November 20): This is a 3-part assignment: 

1) Write a 1-page response paper discussing the important points that were made by Jia Jia Fei in her Ted Talk about Art in the Age of Instagram (Shown HERE). 

2) Write a 1-2-page response to Chapter 7 (pages 201-227) "Creating Community" from Your Brain on Art. 

3) Write a 1-2 page response to Jeff Scheible's "Longing to Connect." 


WEEK 9 (November 25 & 27): Thanksgiving Holiday Thursday, November 28 and Friday, November 29. Artist Talks.

Monday, November 25: Artist Talk featuring Christopher Velasco (in-person)

Wednesday, November 27: Artist Talk featuring Dakota Noot (via Zoom). *Note that you will submit your response to Dakota's Artist Talk on Thursday, December 5 by 12:00PM.


Writing Assignment: (Due: Wednesday, November 27 by 6:00PM email to your TA): This is a 2-part assignment: 

1) Write a 2-page response to "Art of the Future" (pages 229-246) from Your Brain on Art. 

2) Write a 1-page response to the Artist Talk featuring Christopher Velasco.


WEEK 10 (December 2 & 4): Artist Talks featuring Autumn and Vivek

Monday, December 2: Artist Talk featuring Autumn

Wednesday, December 4: Artist Talk featuring Vivek

 

Writing Assignment (Due: Thursday, December 5 by 12:00PM) email to your TA: This is a 3-part assignment. 

1) Write a 1-page response Dakota Noot's Artist Talk

2) Write a 1-page response to Autumn's Artist Talk. 

3) Write a 1-page response to Vivek's Artist Talk.

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