Month: December 2023

Develop some ideas for unique, artist buttons. Consider how artists use conceptual strategies to make buttons into art including:
-a button series that features an unexpected collection
-a button that acknowledges its own button-ness/materiality; is self-conscious and knows it’s a button
-buttons that work together to create a final work
-a button that creates social interaction
-a button that gives instructions/provokes
-a button that reveals things usually hidden
-a button or series that completes a sculpture
-a button that speaks to the body directly, that knows it’s on a body
-a button that creates a performance act by wearing it

In class we will learn to use the button maker together with the appropriate materials. Create a single design, or a series of buttons.
Consider fonts, design, colours, images to make a professional quality artist multiple. You may make up to 15-20 buttons for your final project, plus a few tests. Upload documentation of your buttons and a short description/artist statement (200-300 words) to the blog by critique day to receive full marks.

For this open media project you will create a representation of someone or something – in a non-literal way. You will create your conceptual portrait by using a system – like a rule, a formula, a series of tasks, or an experiment to plan and create the work. Your work will not be narrative or decorative – it will include only what is necessary to convey your information, follow your task, or show the results of your experiment.
 Let the system be the “machine that makes the art.”

-Uncommon documentation of an aspect of life
-A collection of objects to make a portrait
-A material stand-in for an abstract concept
-Results of an experiment performed to learn about something
Works can be in prints, slide-show images, video, audio, performance, or found object sculptures and installations. Consider using text in your work when needed. Maximum limit for time-based works is 3 minutes.

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Upload documentation of the work to the blog as well as a short description/artist statement (200-300 words) by the critique day to receive full marks.

Group Reading:

Tink’s Bench: a performance piece exploring authentic connection

Questions to Consider

Think of an important person in your life. What objects might you use to represent them?
How might you represent something bigger than a person – a community, an aspect of life, a social system, etc – using objects, colours, textures, sounds, etc?

LENGTH: One minute.
Final works will be posted directly on the blog, or linked to your choice of audio sharing services/sites (ie. Soundcloud)

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Students will create an audio art piece 1 minute in length.
While the conceptual parameters for this project are open, consider some of the themes and strategies of the artists listened to in class.

Some strategies may include:
-You may assign yourself (or others) a conceptual feat, and perform it, or document it in sound.
-You may combine different layers of sounds reflecting places, times, popular media, and voices.
-You may interpret or translate non-audio experiences or spaces in sound.
-You may re-interpret noise or other found sound as music.
-You may perform a list, or other kinds of interesting found or constructed language.
-You may distort or edit found sound or music, to change its original meaning and effect.

After critiques and final revisions – students will post their works with a title and short description/artist statement (200-300 words) on our class blog.

You will work with a partner to make three videos less than 2 minutes each in length each. Your videos should be shot at the studio in controlled, illuminated conditions.

Pick your FEAT. You will repeat variations on your “FEAT” in each video below.

Your FEAT should be an everyday gesture or activity that you can push to its limits. Push yourself to your limits. Push a material to its limits. Do not take ANY risks with your safety – subtle, quiet, funny risks are better and more interesting anyway. Just watching someone smiling as long as they can as hard as you can is fascinating and even painful to watch for its duration.

Examples of gestures from past students include: Eating something, Juggling, Kissing, Blowing up a Balloon, Smiling, Holding an Awkward Pose, Reaching for Things out of Reach… etc.

It might be an absurd thing – something pointless, or an impossible feat that you can’t actually do. The objective is to try to do the thing, not to “act” – and what happens… happens! You, your partner, or someone else may perform. Maintain your concentration and explore how a simple gesture becomes interesting when performed with commitment and intention.

NOTE: Add titles to each video, and videos should be approximately 1-2 minutes in length.

Video #1: The One-Shot
The video will consist of “one shot” – there will be no editing, other than a black screen to mark the beginning and end of the video. You may focus on camera function, unusual points of view, and framing. You will also add titles and end credits to your videos.

Video #2: The Sequence
The object of this video exercise is to shoot a series of shots with the intention to edit them into a sequence. It may require 5 minutes, an hour, a day, or a week, and you can show it in a series of stills or a time lapse. Edit your footage to be less than two minutes.

Video #3: The Loop
The object of this video exercise is to create a video that is meant to be played over and over again indefinitely, without stopping. Consider the content of the video when you are shooting your feat, and use looping to complete the meaning of the work. Don’t make a short GIF type video – think of a longer loop – something that could play in a gallery without end.
Edit your loop footage to be less than 2 minutes long, and then play on a loop for the critique.

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Videos will be graded by the degree to which students demonstrate understanding of the key concepts in the assignment including the clarity and originality of ideas, investment of time and contributions to the group, consideration of context for the video, technical success using lighting and professional camera equipment in works, technical success using editing software and exporting gallery-quality video, presentation and openness to feedback during critique.

Students must post their final videos to the class blog with a title, artist names, and a short description/artist statement (300-500 words) on the day of the critique for final marks. The written portion of this assignment will also be done in your collaborative pairs.

Artist references:

Wood and Harrison
Bas Jan Ader
Maddie Lychek
Bridget Moser
Nao Bustamante
Racquel Rowe
Jon Sasaki
David Hoyle
Mark Igloliorte
Rebecca Moss
Lex Brown

**Be safe and respectful to yourself and others at all times! Talk with me if you have any questions about your project. Never perform unsafe activities for your projects in this or any class in Studio Art.

PAIRS:
Ana + Jamie
Ainsley + Kira
Abby + Paige
Lise + Evelyn
Aleida + Carys
Cam + Roxy
Maya + Leo
Sophie + Amelia
Breanna + Emily

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Bring in a KILOMETRE next week.
Document a kilometre. Walk it. Sculpt it. Talk it. Write it. Draw it. Video record it. Perform it. Get your mom to perform it. Conjure a kilometre in any media.
It could be a walk down the street, a path down an intestine, a line going up into the air, a kilometre’s worth of rocks. It can be a kilometre made of chewing gum. Made of telephone conversations. Made of complaints. Made of a walk with a cat. Made with light. It can be a distance between two points. It can be imagined, traced, documented, listed, performed, evidenced on the bottom of your shoe, rolled up into a ball.
Make sure to measure your kilometre in some way, and be prepared to discuss your process, and justify how it is precisely a kilometre.
You have up to 5 minutes next week to present your kilometre to the class.
Bring it, or show us documentation of it.
IT MUST BE PRECISELY A KILOMETRE – EXPLAIN HOW YOU KNOW IT IS!

Upload documentation of the work (maximum 2 minutes for time-based documentation ie. video/audio recording) to the class blog along with a short description/artist statement (200-300 written words or about 2 minutes of speaking) by the end of the day on Thursday January 18for final marks.