2D/3D for SIM Majors
Professor: Jane D. Marsching, spring 2006, SIM 206X-01
Email: jane@janemarsching.com
Course site: http://www.janemarsching.com/massart
office 3rd floor South, hours: Mon 1:30-3:30, Wed 9-10 signup sheet is on the door

This studio course is particularly oriented towards SIM students who work intensively in 2D and 3D. Questions will include: what is the role of different media in our culture today, what does it mean to work in diverse media, what is the role of 2D/3D in SIM. Students develop and refine their vision in 2D and 3D through long-term projects that experiment with a variety of media as well as a deeper familiarity with uses of their own medium. Readings, critiques and visits to exhibitions and artists studios strengthen student’s conceptual thinking.

Course Objectives:
Gain an understanding of the distinct role of different media in visual culture today
Strengthen students conceptual understanding of their studio practice
Familiarity with multidisciplinary art practices
Develop ability to critique work in any media

Course Content:
Studio work: semester long project of series of projects developing student’s work across disciplines
Research: readings, art viewings, gallery visits, studio visits
Critique and discussion
Exhibition: a SIM 2D/3D student exhibition produced by and with work by the class
Artists statement writing assignments

Projects
Collaborative one week blowout extravaganza
Intermedia project
2d/3d in SIM manifesto
ten words + artist statement
list of resources to feed your mind
what is your art world now?—analyze a segment of the art world (magazine, gallery scene, web scene, etc.)
critique methodologies
Group show at end of semester

Possible Readings :
Rosalind Krass, A Voyage on the North Sea: Art in the Age of the Post-Medium Condition
Martha Burskirk, excerpts from The Contingent Object of Contemporary Art
Linda Weintraub, Making it Real, excerpts
Echoes: Contemporary Art at the Age of Endless Conclusions
Jay Boulter, Remeditation: Understanding New Media
Peter Lunenfeld, Snap to Grid: A Users Guide to Digital Arts, Media, and Cultures
Vitamin P and Vitamin D
Painting Pictures: Painting and Media in the Digital Age
Mark Hansen, New Philosophy for New Media
Online exhibitions
Art magazines

Class Requirements:
1. attendance: you are required to notify instructor by email before class if you will be missing class. you are allowed 2 explained absences during the semester. this is a class that builds on trust and exchange. if you don’t come, we can’t build it. If you have to miss class (it happens) then please email the yahoo within 48 hours to find out what happened and what to do next.
Late means more than a half hour after class begins.
3 Late arrivals = 1 absence
3 absences = an F grade or need to withdraw from class
2. yahoo group: join the group in the first week of class, check it at least a couple times a week, contribute to discussions, answer questions, ask for help
3. artist statement: we will begin the class experimenting with writing your artist’s statement and then re/vision/fashion/write them again at the end of the semester.
4. readings: there will be a few group readings and a few independent readings chosen in conjunction with me. you will be required to read these, perhaps commenting on the readings in a journal, perhaps not. but there will be class discussion on the readings. come prepared with a set of questions. there is no specific list right now, as i plan to tailor the list to you all personally.
5. by the end of the semester, either one piece that has been continually evolving over the semester will be completed, or a series of work generated for this class will have been presented in ongoing fashion. if work occurs outside of the class, documentation will be required. if the class is to go to a critique that must occur in a site specific location, the class requires one week’s time email notification.
6. ongoing work presentation and critique. making work in this class is imperative and equally, so is the study of your classmates’ creative output. we will continually show and critique work in class. discussion will be demanding and respectful. disrespect of work will not be tolerated. at all. the main crux of work will be textual, and as such, we will all be editing each other’s work. this serve’s to heighten our perception of language, and also to better understand how we might better edit ourselves.

if you want to learn about the parameters of honors work, look here.

Yahoo group info:
Group name: 2d3dsim
Group home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/2d3dsim
Group email: 2d3dsim@yahoogroups.com
Post message: 2d3dsim@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe: 2d3dsim-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

This syllabus is just a guess and will totally depend upon you, what you are interested in, and what we decide to do together.
The academy is not paradise. But learning is a place where paradise can be created. The classroom with all its limitations remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labour for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as the practice of freedom. --bell hooks 1994

1/24 intro, discussion of course ideas
Assgn: collaborative project
Reading: excerpts from In the Making and Echoes: Contemporary Art at the Age of Endless Conclusions

1/31 view collaborative project, discuss reading, work on artists statements
Assgn: work on your artist statement and bring in to class next week
Reading: more from Echoes: Contemporary Art at the Age of Endless Conclusions

2/7 discuss artist statements, discuss reading, go to gallery TBA
Assgn: complete your artist statement and put together a significant body of work to show next week in class to introduce us to your conceptual concerns

2/14 look at student work, intro to new critique methodologies
Assgn: begin your intermedia project, due 3/14--—take your current concerns in the 2D/3D media you work in now and extend those interest/concepts/ideas into a new media of your choice
Reading: TBA

2/21 go to galleries/studios--TBA
Assgn: continue work on intermedia project

2/28 one on one discussions of intermedia project, assignment of independent readings, presentation by Meg Rotzel
assgn: continue work on intermedia project
Reading: TBA

3/7 no class spring break

3/14 critique intermedia projects
Assgn: resources, your art world—look at one component of the art world and analyze how you might fit into it, be very specific, come up with a list of 10-20 resources that you need to pursue regularly to understand that art world (magazines, websites, galleries, shows, key artists, etc.)—due next week

3/21 look at resources projects
Assgn: from now on work will be on your own ongoing projects to be critiqued in class every two weeks
Reading: independent choices

3/28 critique independent projects—group A
Assgn: work on production of exhibition and promotional materials

4/4 critique independent projects—Group B
brainstorm 2D/3D in SIM manifesto
Reading: independent choices
Assgn: work on 2D/3D manifesto

4/11 discuss manifesto, critique independent projects—Group A

4/18 critique independent projects—Group B
Reading: independent choices

4/25 critique independent projects—Groups A&B as necessary
Assgn: artist statement for your project due next week

5/2 critique independent projects
final critiques, hang group show