Visual Language I, fall 2009, Jane D. Marsching

Assignment 1a: Shadow self

Materials: paper, collage tools (metal ruler, xacto knife, archival glue sticks, paper)

Fundamental: scale / proportion / color scheme: monochromatic

Processes: cut paper

Inspirations: Kara Walker, Ipod ads, Balinese shadow puppets, Egon Schiele, cameos

view Abelardo Morell and Kara Walker videos and discuss the element of scale in 2D design

working with the sun or a clip lamp, experiment with perspectives of light and shadow till you find a silhouette of your own body (with others, objects, buildings, nature or ??)

choose to make this silhouette miniature (4 x 5” or gigantic 4’ x 6’ (you can just use tiled paper or drawing paper rolls for this)

choose your monochromatic color scheme (white and one other color)

reproduce your shadow in paper form (any kind of paper – translucent tissue paper, newspaper, black tar paper from Home Depot, etc.)

take into account the vast difference in scale you will most likely be encountering in your translation—have you made something huge into a miniature, or vica versa? What effect (quality, feeling, idea, concept, etc.) does this give your shadow

Bring to class next week:

find at least 10 different kinds of paper (from the recycling, newspapers, Xeroxes, candy wrappers, cereal boxes, shampoo labels, posters, etc)—do not use magazines
get a posterboard weight 8” x 10” piece of white or colored paper, an archival glue stick, a metal ruler, an xacto knife, and spare paper
bring your laptop, firewire drive, or flash drive to class next week

Assignment: 1b Depression collage

Materials: found paper, collage tools

Fundamentals: Line, shape

Processes: collage: The process or product of affixing paper or objects to a two-dimensional surface.

Inspiration: Margaret Kilgalen, Arturo Herrera, Shepard Fairey, Robert Rauschenberg

We hear over and over again in today’s news that we are going through an economic downturn comparable to the Great Depression. Does this make sense to you? How have you experienced this in your own life? Why do we repeatedly return to thinking about the Great Depression? What images of the Great Depression resonate with you today?

go to the site of the Library of Congress’s Depression era images http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html

choose an image that relates to what is happening today (one with some complexity, details, a lot of information is ideal)

identify how your photograph uses line/shape to give a quality/feeing to the image

find at least 10 different kinds of paper (from the recycling, newspapers, Xeroxes, candy wrappers, cereal boxes, shampoo labels, posters, etc)—do not use magazines

get a posterboard weight 8” x 10” piece of white or colored paper, an archival glue stick, a metal ruler, an xacto knife, and spare paper

recreate your photograph using your found papers paying attention primarily to the use of line/shape to give meaning/feeling/quality to the image—try to use as many of your ten found papers as you can
print the original image from the loc.gov website and bring to class

Bring to class next week
your digital camera, if you have one, and its instruction booklet. If you do not have one, you may need to download it during class to learn how to use the manual options for focus, aperture, shutter, and white balance. Also bring any cord you have to connect your camera to the computer so that you can download images short during class. Finally, bring your hard drive, flash drive, or laptop for saving digital images.
Seeing & Perception

Assignment: 1c: Only photography

Materials: digital camera, computer, printer

Fundamentals: value

Processes: photography, printing (this assignment is intended to develop your ability to work with the technical aspects of photography (freezing or capturing motion, depth of field, etc. by intentionally setting your aperture, shutter, and focal point). Do not use flash.

Inspirations: Duane Michals, Abelardo Morell, Sally Mann

photograph something that can only be seen photographically

consider value primarily when photographing—identify how the use of value in your image communicates your intention. Refer to the powerpoint online if you need a reminder about the parameters of value: http://www.janemarsching.com/massart/ppts/value5.htm

Next shoot that same subject but with the opposite or contrasting value choice. For example, you might shoot a tree moving in the wind with a lot of motion, and create one image that is low contrast (and possibly gentle, quiet or harmonious) and a second image that is high contrast (and possibly intense, dynamic, bold).

Make your image only grayscale in the computer. Some of you can also set your cameras to shoot in grayscale.

Print your strongest 2 images (one of each contrasting value choice) on the color laser printers. You are welcome to bring in other choices as well. Up to 10 images will be considered in class critique The prints can be around 8 x 10 and on regular paper (do not have to be on expensive digital printing paper). You can also print these on your own printers. The important thing is that your print renders the value range that you choose.

Make sure to keep the original files of the images in a folder on your laptop, hard drive, or flash, as you will include them in your digital portfolio, due the last week of class.

‘Shakespeare’s fools are mostly wise; they hover on the edges of the play’s action, enabled by their classlessness to move easily between high and low characters, glancing obliquely in anecdote, jest, and song at the follies of their social betters... No one could be more sympathetic than the apotheosis of Shakespeare’s use of the character type, the Fool of King Lear, whose very namelessness assists the sense of disembodied intelligence existing purely for the sake of his master’ (Wells, 2002: 140).

This is not a far cry from the character of the wise clown that Buster Keaton develops in his films. Audiences everywhere recognise the individual who confronts the mundane aspects of daily life. The seeming fool lifts the veil of authority, pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes, unmasking the more unpleasant aspects of power, encouraging society to reflect on and laugh at its own foibles.

For the artists the figure of 'the fool' is a way of taking a 'vantage point' - we might say a disadvantage point - from which to view society's rituals and codes of conduct. 'The fool' makes strange our relations to one another: he can tell uncomfortable truths when everyone around is bowing to received wisdom.

Make an image of yourself which shows you in a situation where you seem foolish, but might also be suggesting something else.

1. photograph yourself (you can use your self timer and a tripod, or have a friend work with you). Imagine a scene in which you appear absolutely ridiculous, so much so that it is obviously sarcastic. Think of Cindy Sherman’s fake breasts which show their seams). Show us how this is an illusion.

2. consider the use of texture as a compositional tool to draw your eyes around the image, create emphasis, or organize the picture plane

c. use your digital imaging and collage skills to cut your image up and reconstruct it (fragment, collage, recompose, juxtapose, isolate, combine parts of your images in new ways to bring out your meaning)

e. your final image should be on 8.5 x 11 paper. Bring your collage to class as well.

Find examples of historical and contemporary heroes in mythology, literature, cinema, and politics.

Color The goal of this project is to work with basic color theory and practice, but also to explore the use of color as a way to communicate ideas and meaning in contemporary art and culture. Our aim is to understand and explore the cultural, political and social use of color, by carefully choosing the quality, placement, and relationship of our colors, arranging them in a certain way to communicate about your hero.

Inspirations: Shepard Fairey, Barbara Kruger, Yosuf Karsh, Andy Warhol

Proceed/Strategy:
• Choose one hero you wish to work with.
• Research and collect imagery (high quality from books, magazines, or the web—at least 600 x 800 pixels at 180 dpi—NOT poor tiny web images) and text samples (sentence, phrase, collection of words).
• Sketch ideas.
• Scan the image and cut out the figure in photoshop using layers and selection tools
• Create an abstract background using color
• Use text to communicate an aspect of your hero
• When composing, consider the color quality, relationship and combination of each image
• Simplify each image so that there are no more than three dominant colors
• Create 4 versions that emphasize different aspects of your hero choosing from the following terms (or others that seem relevant): Political, emotional, cultural, geographical, hopeful, change, power, inspiration, love, mourning

Here is the vocabulary that applies to this week’s assignment. I have uploaded both a color powerpoint that defines these terms, as well as a very brief visual cheat sheet that can help if you are overwhelmed by all this info.

DEFINING COLOR HUE / VALUE / INTENSITY / SATURATION / CHROMA / SHADE / TINT / TONE / TEMPERATURE

* COLOR SYSTEMS MONOCHROMATIC / ANALOGOUS / COMPLIMENTARY / SPLIT COMPLIMENTARY / TRIDAIC /CHROMATIC

* COLOR COMBINATIONS DISHARMONY / COLOR DIESTRIBUTION / WEIGHT AND BALANCE / EMPHASIS OR FOCAL POINT / COLOR KEYS