FPA 812 : Graduate Seminar in Contemporary Art and Theory, Fall 2015

FPA 812 : Graduate Seminar in Contemporary Art and Theory

Semester 2015-3

Instructor: Judy Radul

Time: Thursdays 2:30 to 5:20

Location: GCA 4390

Office Hours: by appointment

 

The course uses a range of essays to focus the group on contemporary theoretical debates particularly formative to artistic practice across a range of discourses.

Central to the course work is the students’ formulation of their own field of research and research questions related to their artistic practice. We engage the question of how to “relate” theory to an artistic practice and how, through reading and writing, to engage issues, ideas, histories and positions generative for one’s artistic practice and milieu. Developing methods of composition that are academically sound but not artificial or imposed (in relation to an artistic practice), structured research and reworking of writing, critical reading and writing, are also goals of the course.

Readings Texts: See below

Assignments/Grading

25% : Research Presentation, 20 minute presentation outlining your research directions for the next year, artists , ideas and writing that relate to your practice. If possible your senior supervisor attends the presentation.

15%: 5 page final paper proposal with annotated bibliography

35%: Final paper, 3500-5000 words due week 13

15%: Preparation and participation: coming well prepared to discuss the essays every week

10%: Weekly essay summaries based on suggested note taking/summary styles. (in progress — discuss in class )

 

Week/Date

Note you have to be logged in to SFU library for links to work, if they don’t work, search the electronic journal data base using author and title.

1/Sept 10

Claire Colebrook, Questioning Representation. SubStance 29 (2) 2000-01-01, p47

Available through SFU Library

http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/journals/substance/v029/29.2colebrook.html

Fuch’s Quotes for discussion: http://www.judyradul.com/courses/?p=1135

Related Reading:

Elinor Fuchs, Presence and the Revenge of Writing: Re-Thinking Theatre after Derrida. Performing Arts Journal, Vol. 9, No. 2/3, 10th Anniversary Issue: The American Theatre Condition  (1985), pp. 163-173  http://www.jstor.org/stable/3245520

Excerpt from Gilles Deleuze: Immanence – A Life

Jaques Derrida “Differance” : http://projectlamar.com/media/Derrida-Differance.pdf

Post Class Note

2/Sept 17

 SCA WOODWARDS event

Stan Douglas HIDDEN PASTS, DIGITAL FUTURES: CIRCA 1948, book a tour : https://www.sfu.ca/sfuwoodwards/events/events1/2015-2016Fall/Circa1948.html

Attend Douglas’ discussion with students Thursday September 24 at 12:30-1:45, (probably in World Art Studio).

Fredric Jameson, The Aesthetics of Singularity, New Left Review 92, March-April 2015, pp. 101-132

Part 1: 101-115.

Available through SFU Library
http://newleftreview.org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/II/92/fredric-jameson-the-aesthetics-of-singularity

Note Style: pre read and identify a set of terms which Jameson is using (postmodernism, globalism, etc) , and note 5 or 6 of your own areas of interest which the article seems to have potential to touch on. Take notes which can be grouped under these two sets of references. The point here is to read through with this set of concerns to guide your movement/comprehension of the text.
Jean Francois Lyotard: The Postmodern Explained, Correspondence 1982-1985 (selections) (Prof Binder in Belzberg)

References:

http://www.iep.utm.edu/lyotard/

Charles Jenks & Lyotard Books

Jameson on space from The Post Modern Condition, quotes

 

3/ Sept 24: Session with Thesis Librarian David Chokroun.

spend some time on library website looking at Thesis Resources:http://www.lib.sfu.ca/help/publish/thesis

 

Some SCA MFA thesis/projects on line to check out before class: 

David Chokroun: A hammer in perpetual motion / The keyboard is the world: http://summit.sfu.ca/item/11654 

You can search: “Project (School for the Contemporary Arts) / Simon Fraser University” in the library. Here are a few below

How is it that there is always something new? , Langille, Jeffrey Edward, author. http://summit.sfu.ca/item/14926

Edmeades, Deborah Ann, On the Validity of Illusion (and its Attractions)http://summit.sfu.ca/item/14586

Calla Churchward, The Impossible Project: http://summit.sfu.ca/item/13885

Juan Manuel Sepulveda; Procedural residues after the shooting of The Ballad of Oppenheimer Park http://summit.sfu.ca/item/14173

 

Attend discussion with visual artist Stan Douglas: 12:30-1:45 (likely will be in World Art.)

4/Oct 1: No class: Radul Away

Please read the second half of the Jameson text on your own, continue notes.

read (but no notes needed) Stuart Hall, “Minimal Selves”, Lisa Appiganesi, The Real Me Postmodernism and the Question of Identity, ICA London, 1987. This is in advance of Henry Daniel’s Oct 14, 15, Stuart Hall event linked below.

This extra Hito Steyerl essay may be a good compliment to the Claire Colebrook Essay, I don’t think we’ll have time to discuss it, but as it addresses a range questions about ‘representation’ it is relevant:

http://www.e-flux.com/journal/the-spam-of-the-earth/

5/Oct 8

Discuss Jameson Part 2. and Stuart Hall.

Research Presentations :  Emiliano Sepulveda, Robert Leveroos

 

October 14 and 15 : Stuart Hall’s Legacy, Continuing Conversations at SFU

http://www.sfu.ca/sca/events/details/continuing-conversations-stuart-halls-legacy

 

6/ Oct 15

Benjamin Bratton, “Blackstack”

http://www.e-flux.com/journal/the-black-stack/

Research Presentations : Alexandra Spence, Vilhelm Sundin

 

7/ Oct 22 

Research Presentations : Scott Saunders, Rebecca Bruton

McKenzie Wark. Selections from The Hacker Manifesto. 2004. Chapters: Abstraction, Hacking, Representation.

ProQuest ebrary.text on line at SFU Library

http://site.ebrary.com.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/lib/sfu/detail.action?docID=10312824

Melissa Gregg interviews McKenzie Wark

Courting Vectoralists: An Interview with McKenzie Wark on the 10 Year Anniversary of “A Hacker Manifesto”

http://lareviewofbooks.org/interview/courting-vectoralists-interview-mckenzie-wark-10-year-anniversary-hacker-manifesto

 

Oct 24 Event to be aware of : Fred Moten at OR Gallery Vancouver: https://www.facebook.com/events/1489460231348862/

8/ Oct 29

Stefano Harvey and Fred Moten, The Undercommons, http://www.tenstakonsthall.se/uploads/141-The_Undercommons_Harney_Moten.pdf

Please come prepared to discuss introduction and first three chapters: The Wild Beyond:With and for the Undercommons, 1. Politics Surrounded,2. The University and the Undercommons, 3. Blackness and Governance

Research Presentations:Kevin Doherty  , Matthew Horrigan

Benjamin Wylie, Paul Paroczai only: 5 page final paper proposal with annotated bibliography due

 

9/ Nov 5

Continued: Stefano Harvey and Fred Moten, The Undercommons, http://www.tenstakonsthall.se/uploads/141-The_Undercommons_Harney_Moten.pdf

–We are going to pick up some of the key points in the Harney/Moton which we didn’t finish from last week (primarily Ch. 2) and to review some of the themes/main ideas in what we have read so far. Please bring the readings so far (I imagine you have them digitally) so you have access to them. We will break into small groups and comb through looking for varying discussions/definitions/and figures of thought that connect across the essays, a quick list that comes to mind would include:

-representation

-subject: individual, singular, minimal self, user, hacker, fugitive

-permutations of late capital: differential etc

-attitudes to “critique”

-questions of technology

 

Research Presentations:  Benjamin Wylie, Paul Paroczai

All remaining students 5 page final paper proposal with annotated bibliography due

Set up individual Meetings regarding final paper

10/ Nov 12

Sonic Process: Diedrich Diederichsen “Digital Electronic Music: Between Pop and Pure Mediality”, Elie During: “Appropriations: Death of the Author in Electronic Music” and Kodo Eschun and Eward George “Ghostlines, Migration, Morphology, Mutations” (Prof Binder in Belzberg)

From Previous Class might be interesting notes on composition: http://www.sfu.ca/~jaradul/811compositionA.html

Also on Eschun’s method of “sonic fictions” http://journal.sonicstudies.org/vol04/nr01/a10

11/ Nov 19

-see quote (also above in class 1)  from Elenor Fuchs re Derrida, writing, theatre and “presence” 

-Derrida “Differance” http://projectlamar.com/media/Derrida-Differance.pdf (1971)

–Notes on “Supplement” 

-Kurt Schwitters, Mertzbau : http://www.merzbarn.net/hanovermerzbau.html

-Aby Warburg, Atlas : http://warburg.library.cornell.edu/

-quotes from Lyotard What is Postmodern which we read earlier http://www.judyradul.com/courses/?p=1228

12/ Nov 26

Selections from Rosi Braidotti “Nomadic Theory”

The Deleuze Dictionary might be helpful. 

13/Dec 3

 

Final Paper Due MONDAY DEC 7

Extra References and Readings:

Selections from Eflux Supercommunity http://supercommunity.e-flux.com/ (we will choose together)

Rosi Braidotti and Reza Negarstani on “Posthuman” and “Inhuman”

 

ASSIGNMENTS:
The research presentation: is an audio/visual presentation that maps an area of interest which you are exploring in your work and (academic) writing. You should be clear on you “research question” (even if the “answer” isn’t clear, what, beyond just an “area of interest” are you trying to get at, if you had to pose your interest as a question what would it be? Posing a “research question” can feel reductive, but it is a good way to focus.) What are some other artists/works that are relevant to your work/research. Articulate what exactly about those works is interesting/generative/instructive for your practice/research/theory. Using your own work/future work/ give an idea how all this relates to gestures/decisions/materials/artworks/compositions/questions etc in your own art. What are some of the related areas of research that you will expand on in your paper.

 

Final Paper Proposal with annotated Bibliography

This proposal should outline the research question, subsequent research, relevance to artistic practice, structure of final paper. It should site at least five bibliographic sources relevant to the final paper.

I would think most of you would have more than 5 sources, but 5 is the minimum.

In terms of annotation: http://guides.library.cornell.edu/annotatedbibliography

This link offers good advice. I am more interested in how the source relates to your argument/research/paper than a lengthly synopsis of the book or essay. The annotations should be a paragraph 150 to 200 words

Final Paper

A document of approximately 5000 words, that gives a clear exposition of the student’s original research and is formatted according to library thesis guidelines. Even though this is not a thesis per se it should be written with the intention of being archived as such in the library. The paper and the research toward it constitute an investigation of a research question (area of research) significant to the student’s artistic work as it develops toward the thesis project. The nature of the paper will be further discussed in class.

Use MLA style citations (Author, Year, page) in parentheses. Or if you find that breaks the flow of your text, use Chicago Style “notes and bibliography” style, in which each reference has a footnote at the bottom of the page (formatted as per the style) and a bibliography at back. There are many online style guides available.

Preparation and Participation

Coming to class with the weekly readings done and with questions, discussion topics, artistic examples, further related research, on hand to offer to the discussion.

 

Weekly Summaries

Note taking is a form of text analysis and there are lots of different ways to take notes while reading an essay. The class requires the student to explore different note taking styles, some of which are described in this link as a way to focus their engagement/understanding of the texts.