SOCS 300 S040: Studies in the Social Sciences
This course offers the opportunity to study a specific discipline in the social sciences. Through a study of selected issues, which will change from time to time, students will gain a better understanding of contemporary social and cultural theories and the methods of analysis in the fields of anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, sociology, or women's studies, especially as they relate to critical issues in art and/or design.
Topic: Network/Connect/Collaborate: The New Art of Association
Teleconferencing with SOCS 300 S003
Are we Facebook friends or Twitter followers? Do you subscribe to iTunes U or Open U? The Tea Party or Green? Where do you get your news Al Jazeera or Fox? Is it Creative Commons or locked down? Do you depend on Wall Street or Eurozone? Landed Immigrant or mobile citizen? One passport, or two? Are you LinkedIn, hooked up, or embedded? The question of association or affiliation has re-emerged as a defining element of the 21st century culture. Following 9/11 and the disintegration of the so-called global economy, this 18th century pre-occupation has returned and is influencing contemporary art. Building on sociologist Bruno Latour’s notion of Actor Network Theory (ANT), this course looks at the question of association. In other words, it offers different ways of approaching the often invisible connections between actors—people and objects—that come together in contemporary art practice.
Challenging artificial distinctions between form and content, this hybrid course is built around on a model of blended-learning. Using a networked media platform to build realtime dialogue through different Emily Carr communities, online and face-to-face, this course will connect students on Granville Island and Vancouver Island around a cluster of shared interests or concerns. Driven by an ongoing collaboration between media artist M. Simon Levin and academic Glen Lowry (marayaprojects.com), this innovative SPACE course seeks to give students the opportunity to address thematic concerns around networking, collaboration, association and assembly by investigating the potential for new forms of exchange and collaboration that reach beyond the scope of the traditional classroom. This course seeks to think and talk through the positive and negative implications of making creative work in an increasingly networked world.
Completion of second year
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M. Simon Levin creates site-based systems that explore the aesthetics of engagement using a variety of designed forms and tools that address our many publics. These spatial and pedagogical projects, expand the social agency of art making, rethinking notions of space and place, authorship and audience. Working collaboratively and primarily within the public sphere, Levin’s work ranges from billboard projects, alternative tours of cities, land care centres and alternative mapping and telecommunication systems.
Recently commissioned projects include a user-generated ‘sousveillance’ system and a global contributive new media platform, both showcased for Vanvouver’s 2010 Cultural Olympiad. He has been artist in residence for the Vancouver Parks Board, the TechLab at the Surrey Art Gallery, and at the International Art Space, Kelleberrin, Australia. He has exhibited, lectured and published locally, nationally and internationally. He also lectures at University of British Columbia, and has published a curriculum on Contemporary Public Art.
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Lowry has PhD in Literary Studies, and he has published widely on contemporary Canadian Literature and Culture—literature, photography, film, and television. Recent work investigates new forms of cultural expression and social contexts, particularly around questions of globalization and urbanization.
A senior research in Emily Carr's Social and Interactive Media Research Centre (SIM), Lowry focuses on new media platforms that link scholars, artists, and audiences across cultural and geographical distances: for example, the Maraya project, a large-scale artwork connecting urban waterfronts in Vancouver and Dubai. He is also working on findings form a qualitative study of SSHRC's Research/Creations grants.
From 2002-11, Lowry edited the cultural journal West Coast Line. His Pacific Avenue (2009) is a collection of poems looking at image-based memory and geography.
As an experiment in thinking "out loud," Lowry regularly shares ideas, images, lectures, and commentary on his blog: critical creative collaborative
| Date / Time | Days | Room | Building |
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Jan 9-Apr 21 17:30:00-20:20:00 |
M | 205 | D |