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DM 7152-01
RESEARCH STUDIO: TECHLANDS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Participants in the Technological Landscapes research group are passionate but critical observers of today's living environment in relation to ubiquitous, integrated, and emerging technologies. It is important that we draw inspiration not necessarily just from art, design, but from real-world events influenced or caused by technological advancement and/or failure. This research group will foster a dynamic, and highly collaborative environment through discussions, readings and excursions. Participants are expected to drive and determine the focus and interests of the group through conversations and consensus. In turn this will feed each participant's artistic sensibility and will form the conceptual foundations necessary for building a strong critical art work. Participants will explore research methodologies and various forms of research as material, social, and symbolic creative practice. The projects, individual or collaborative, should be thought of on a scale of landscape physical or virtual. One is encouraged to exploit the imaginative, speculate possible near futures and position them where the poetic crosses between science fiction and the built reality. Each year the group works together to locate and secure an exhibition space and or develop a site-specific work within the site/topic of study for that year. Each year the site/topic of focus changes, please contact faculty for current information.
Estimated Materials Cost: $100.00 - $200.00
Please contact the instructor for permission to register; registration is not available in Workday.
Preference is given to Graduate Students and upper level undergraduates from the Divisions of Architecture + Design and Fine Arts.
Elective
DM 7199-01
THESIS PROJECT
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course supports the practical, conceptual, theoretical and historical development of the M.F.A. thesis (exhibition and written document). Students are required to work independently and in individual consultation with their thesis committee to develop and finalize the thesis exhibition and written document for presentation at the end of the year. The exhibition and written thesis should articulate one's personal studio art / design practice in an historically and theoretically informed context. Formal group critiques are required at the midterm and end of the semester. A major final critique with visiting critics is held in the context of the final MFA Exhibition. The accompanying written thesis is expected to be of publishable quality and is also placed within the public sphere through electronic publication and filing with the RISD Library. Final submissions for this course include the presentation of a final exhibition, submission of the final written thesis, and timely completion of work for preliminary deadlines throughout the semester (draft theses, exhibition plans and press materials). Please see Digital + Media Thesis Timeline for a clear sequence of required deadlines. Please refer to the DM Thesis Guidelines and Policies for clarification of the goals and expectations of the RISD DM MFA.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00 - $300.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Digital + Media Students.
Major Requirement | MFA Digital + Media
DM 7538-01
CRITICAL THEORY + ARTISTIC RESEARCH IN CONTEXT
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This seminar course analyzes the aesthetic conventions, narratives, and formats of works in new media. As a group, we will examine the impact digital technologies and new media have had on existing media, as well as the ways in which new media function as a unique system of communication. While investigating the aesthetic conventions, economic conditions and infrastructures that affect the production of new media, we will address the social and political contexts in which new media are disseminated, interpreted and privileged. Within this course, students will be expected to identify, analyze, and critique readings that critically inform and underwrite the foundations of their written thesis and studio practice. Students will contribute to the focus of the course through discussions and writings that contextualize their own work as it relates to critical theory. Class time will be mainly used for discussion of readings and concepts, critique of work and to introduce methods and theory.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Digital + Media Students.
Major Requirement | MFA Digital + Media
DRAW 1106-01
DRAWING AND COLLAGE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course will explore drawing and collage using various methods, materials and subjects. Students will use a variety of media, including their own drawings, found objects and photographic images. Students will be encouraged to instigate intuitive and open responses to perceptual and conceptual sources. The form of collage will give students the opportunity to build, develop and reprocess their drawings. Scale, subject, abstraction and materiality are some of the visual elements addressed in the course.
Estimated Cost of Materials $50.00
Open to Sophomore, Junior, Senior or Graduate Students.
Elective
DRAW 1114-01
INDEPENDENT DRAWING PROJECT
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The goal of Independent Drawing Projects is for students to develop a distinct, carefully conceived, and self-directed body of works through a process of investigation, critical assessment and production. Through a rigorous studio practice, students are expected to identify and develop their own conceptual interests and material approaches. Individual and group critiques support, facilitate, and intensify this process. While drawing concentrators will be given priority, interested students outside of the concentration and beyond the sophomore level may take this course. For the drawing concentrator, the work created for the Independent Drawing Project serves as the culmination of the Drawing Concentration program. Critiques will run from 6:00 - 9:00PM, followed by independent studio work.
Open to Sophomore, Junior and Senior Undergraduate Students.
Elective
DRAW 1114-101
INDEPENDENT DRAWING PROJECT
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The goal of Independent Drawing Projects is for students to develop a distinct, carefully conceived, and self-directed body of works through a process of investigation, critical assessment and production. Through a rigorous studio practice, students are expected to identify and develop their own conceptual interests and material approaches. Individual and group critiques support, facilitate, and intensify this process. While drawing concentrators will be given priority, interested students outside of the concentration and beyond the sophomore level may take this course. For the drawing concentrator, the work created for the Independent Drawing Project serves as the culmination of the Drawing Concentration program.
Elective
DRAW 1122-101
DRAWING STUDIO GYM
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The course is designed as a drawing exploration of the relationships between various drawing media and as an introduction to strategies in developing a flexible dialogue between concept and process. Starting with large collaborative group drawings and responding to a series of visual and media prompts, this course challenges students to reconsider their drawings each week through various studio constraints, whether with different media, temporal, or physical limitations. Students will be guided through a generative production of drawings, which they can apply to their own studio practice in the later weeks.á Rather than starting with an idea, students will practice finding imagery and creating drawings that build on previous drawings. The course demands energy to engage with physically large drawings, a dedicated and consistent work ethic, and an openness to change and invent. Students are expected to work from both observation and imagination, draw in the studio both independently and collaboratively, attend class lectures, and participate in group discussions. Participants should be ready to experiment and be prepared for their work to go through several surprising transformations.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $200.00
Elective
DRAW 1509-101
DRAWING MARATHON
SECTION DESCRIPTION
For the first two weeks class will be held Wednesday through Sunday, then starting the third week classes will take place Monday through Friday. A rigorous investigation of drawing from the model and/or large set-up sprawling across classroom. Deeper contact to the drawing experience through sustained exposure. Opportunity for re-invention, change. Confront problems of drawing, build on strengths. Emphasis on drawing consolidation, concentration, stamina, persistence. Regular critiques, slide talks, RISD museum trips. The goals of this course are to facilitate and maintain a continuous flow of drawing energy and examination. Students will re-examine the way they make drawings, in a progressive drawing environment. Through sustained contact with their drawing/s, students will make personal advancement.
Please contact the instructor for permission to register.
Elective
DRAW 1534-01
GENERATIVE DRAWING: THE ADJACENT POSSIBLE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The scientific term adjacent possible refers to small evolutionary shifts away from an established position to a new position. Eventually, increments of deviation become stepping stones for the creation of a new species. In the studio context, the adjacent possible affirms the generative power of adjustments, revisions, and redirections, and recognizes the potential of unexpected anomalies.
The versatility of drawing makes it especially suited for opening up your decision-making to innovate and allowing new concerns to radically or subtly shift your work. In this course, broad biweekly open-ended prompts will help you generate new drawings through a responsive, critical, and experimental process. At the beginning of the semester you’ll define and produce initial works to begin the process. After that starting point, you’ll be challenged to find intersectional depth within your interests as you consider what is relevant and important in each new prompt. When you pivot toward producing the next cycle of drawings, you’ll build your confidence and creative elasticity.
Elective
DRAW 1550-101
IN THE SPIRIT OF EXPERIMENTATION: PAPERMAKING
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Handmade papermaking dates back as far as 200 BC, with the traditions and practices of this technique varying among different cultures and locations throughout history. Paper has been used to archive and disseminate integral cultural knowledge, as well as to fabricate utilitarian items from clothing to furniture and beyond. The need for a surface for documentation, writing, and recording events and daily life led to the discovery of paper, and subsequent exploration and experimentation with diverse materials introduced papermaking as an art and craft practice. As the need for paper continues, people
have become more creative and experimental with traditional approaches. The course will help you learn the basics of sheet formation and vat preparation while also allowing you to experiment with unique materials for papermaking. Additionally, the course provides insight into incorporating colors and expanding techniques beyond the traditional 2D sheet making. By the end of the course, you will have a solid understanding of the fundamentals of papermaking and will be able to create beautiful handmade paper using traditional methods.
Elective
DRAW 1551-01
EXPERIMENTAL DRAWING
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course explores the boundaries of traditional approaches in drawing media. This course is designed to ask questions about what drawing is, explore the conventions of drawing, and experiment with unfamiliar/unexpected materials, methods, and presentations in the medium of drawing. This course will also explore the full range of ideas that are currently in use and stretch the known limits of what is considered drawing. Students will engage with visual language and artistic practices ranging from traditional drawing to performance and sculpture. Students develop problem-solving skills by applying them to the fundamental concepts of drawing and compositional organisation. Emphasis is placed on the development of the student’s visual sensitivity, aesthetic judgement and artistic perception.
Elective
DRAW 1552-01
MORE/MANY: A DRAWING SERIES
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course creates a structured yet individualized space for developing a series of drawings. Initially, each student will identify important aesthetic, narrative, and conceptual concerns to launch their visual and material-based research. A broader and prolific generative process at the beginning of the semester will lead to more refined and more specific choices. Students will pursue multiple iterations of the concepts and aesthetics that interest them, culminating in a series of cohesive works. Responsive, directed weekly group and individual discussions will be aimed at invigorating the decision-making process and critiquing the work at each stage of development. This course can be taken for credit as a studio elective or as a Drawing Concentration course. As with any studio elective or Drawing Concentration course, your pursuits can connect to your work in your major or serve as an opportunity to create work distinctive from your work in your major. The class is co-taught by two instructors to give you a wider critical context for understanding and responding to the development of your work.
Elective
FAV 1120-101
FROM THE BODY TO THE SCREEN
SECTION DESCRIPTION
From the Body to the Screen focuses on the body as a narrative resource for film practice. In this course, students practice and explore how body movements enable them to access emotional and expressive qualities that inform and guide their filmmaking process. The course studies the concept of movement in cinematic language exploring movement in camera, sound, light, and space. Throughout the semester, a series of practical visual composition, editing, and sound design provide students with the necessary experience to produce their final films. Students are encouraged to work on group projects. Our direct studies of movement will be augmented by class discussions and critique informed by film screenings focused on experimental and world cinema, readings from philosophy, contemporary literature, and art history.
Elective
FAV 1125-101
MOTION CAPTURE FOR ORATURE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Orature, or oral storytelling, places a strong emphasis on performative techniques that come to life most effectively when conveyed through both spoken and non-verbal means within a live social setting. It is “the creative and imaginative art of composition that relies on verbal art for communication and that culminates in performance”. Consequently, linear media recordings of oral storytelling experiences often fall short of capturing the immersive and interactive essence found in live storytelling sessions.
This Wintersession course invites students to explore motion capture through the lens of traditional oral storytelling practices from indigenous communities. Students will actively identify the unique and distinguishing features of orature, and leverage their own cultural backgrounds, personal perspectives, and idiosyncrasies to create motion capture data that can be used in crafting an interactive digital retelling of a folktale. Using software and equipment in the Movement Lab students will plan segments for oral storytelling, record verbal story content in their own voice, prepare a character based on their 3D scans, set up mocap equipment, record their movement, clean-up and apply the movement data to a character, and finally compile the individual segments into a digital retelling that refracts one tale through diverse facets of embodied expression. Through in-class practical activities, daily assignments, demonstrations, screenings and suggested reading, students will acquire new appreciation for orature as well as experimentation with motion capture tools that can support new retellings of works of orature in digital media.
Elective
FAV 1130-101
VIDEO THROUGH
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course is entitled "video through" because it aims to question how video allows us to think through time and through space simultaneously. In this course we will consider video as space, material, and matter. In an approach that prioritizes experimentation in space, we will work in a non-linear fashion: fabricating video in space and fabricating space with video - a constant back and forth. From those experiments, we will learn how to use the properties of video editing, video-making, shooting, and projecting/screening as interconnected tools that deny a singular trajectory of making.
The classroom will become a site. We are going to reject the notion of the studio as solely a place “to record” content. Rather, we will bring content into the space so that the studio can become a displaced site. This displacement is generative because it allows us to complicate the notions of subjects, bodies, agents. The bodies - our bodies - who are going to be in this new “site” are going to become agents of a semi-tangible space. Troubling this question of the space in which recording, and projecting can happen at once will allow us to explore the conceptual possibilities that video offers. It will also allow us to explore questions of memory, time, recording, projection, imaging, re-memory, erasure, subject, voice, performer/performance and more. Through a series of experiments, we will explore the reciprocal interrelationships between the technicalities and the poetics of video installation.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $15.00
Elective
FAV 1955-101
PUPPETRY
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course will explore ways of creating original live puppet performance, drawing from a variety of performance traditions; including object performance, shadow play, and Bunraku-style puppetry. Students will work independently and in groups to develop new works in short exercises, while gaining the fundamentals in puppet construction and performance techniques. This course culminates in a final live performance project, and in-class showing, to demonstrate new skills and utilize students' pre-existing artistic practices.
Elective
FAV 2150-01 / SCULP 2150-01
REORIENTATIONS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
In live action film and video, the act of moving the camera in space and time can result in a cinema which functions beyond the notion of plot. In this course students will learn from alternative ways of creating camera movement developed in the field of independent cinema, experimental film and video art. Students will gain technical skills in cinematography and learn ways to design and generate advanced camera movement. We will create wearable systems where movements are generated by our bodies as well as remotely controlled, motorized rigging systems.
The expansive field of sculpture can reimagine how movement and gesture are perceived and embodied through site specificity, intervention, and performativity. Students will learn strategies and practical skills for constructing large scale installations, lightweight structures, DIY forms and ready made sculptures. We will construct sets, engage with time and memory and examine how film processes such as editing, focus, and framing can be applied to a sculptural practice.
Within the framework of the course, students may choose to work with narrative, non-narrative and non-fiction film projects, video installation and video art, scenic design and/or sculptural practices involved with time-based media and performance. Cross-disciplinary and collaborative approaches are encouraged.
Offered as SCULP-2150 and FAV-2150.
Open to Junior, Senior or Graduate Students.
Elective
FAV 2239-01
ADVANCED SOUND DESIGN & PRODUCTION
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Building on concepts from Sound for the Screen, students in Advanced Sound Design and Production explore advanced topics, aesthetic considerations, and stylistic conventions of modern audio and music production for picture. Through a series of screenings, discussions, and concept-driven design projects, students develop a deep understanding of the function of sound in time-based media. Students work hands-on with DAW software, synthesizers, and professional recording equipment to gain the capability to successfully translate their artistic intent to sound production.
Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.
Elective
FAV 2360-01
RADICAL SOUND
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Radical Sound offers students alternative ways to create project-specific sound, radically reducing the use of advanced technology. This course takes an interdisciplinary approach and welcomes students who wish to produce sound for films, animation projects, musical pieces, art pieces, performances, or (sound) installations. Following the meaning of radical, as in ‘relating to the origin’, this course will build on naturally occurring sounds in our environments through three key phases:
1) Finding and understanding sound structures through listening
2) conceptualizing sound for project purposes
3) Experimentally creating sound structures
Students will learn to utilize phenomenological practices such as writing, drawing, photography, and more to create scores for their sound projects. While conventional sound productions use recorded sounds that are heavily manipulated through sound effects, this course reduces post-production to a minimum. Instead, students are encouraged to engage with experimental and playful ways to manipulate sound and sound-capturing devices in the moment of recording. Everyday objects such as plastic containers, paper, metal plates, or small speakers filled with sand can become powerful tools to create unusual and organic sounds that stand out from the norm of digital sound production.
Building on the work of artists like Rie Nakajima and Rolf Julius, students will be pushed to work creatively toward the goal of realizing their own sonic structures.
Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register; registration is not available in Workday.
Elective
FAV 2454-01
VISUAL MUSIC
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course is designed for students with any level of musical experience to explore music composition and the creation of experimental films based on music. During the course, students will experiment with various approaches including sampling, field recording, sound synthesis, ensembles and altered instruments. This will be complimented by strategies for creating animation, experimental film, and video based on music composition. Along with weekly experimental and workshops, students will create a short experimental film based on music they create.
Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register; registration is not available in Workday.
Elective