Course Description
Summary
Unlike any other medium, animation provides unmatched suspicion of disbelief. Moreover, in digital space, one can exercise their imagination beyond material and physical limitations. The combination of the two provides the permissive space to live out our wildest reveries: utopias, dystopias, social experiments, psi-fic scenarios, or dollhouses for amphibians.
This class can be technically involved. The goal is to equip students with a survey of software such as Adobe CC( Photoshop, Premiere, Adobe After Effects), Blender, and data processing software like Touch Designer. Although the class is recommended to those who have experience working with computers or are digitally inclined. It is worth emphasizing, the teaching of these tools is in service of realizing your creative visions. Software mastery is not the end goal of the course.
The classes will be composed of software tutorials as well as presentations and discussions. We will begin with introductory examples of “worlding” in contemporary art practices (Pierre Huyghe, Ian Chang, Wong ping. etc). However, the aim is to go beyond the canon of western art and expose students to every facet of culture far beyond the museum context. One of the most important responsibilities that the students will take on is to expand our collective references by bringing in and presenting works that inspire and interest them.
Students will be asked to keep a sketchbook for the duration of the semester. This is where ideas, personal reflection, and research will live. It will help to anchor our conversation guide the production process. The semester is also punctuated by critiques, where look at the in-progress work and share a discussion. At the end of the semester, students will have completed their “world” by utilizing some of the tools we have learned throughout the semester. Whether it is a system, a narrative, a conceptual structure, an environment, or a model. By December, each student will have had the experience of building their personal world from scratch.
