Special Topics for Spring 2013
Special Topics
Please note: this page will be updated as information is confirmed. In case of a discrepancy between this page and InsideEC, the information on InsideEC will be deemed correct.
- Additional information on these courses is available at https://inside.ecuad.ca
- Most credit courses have prerequisites that are clearly outlined on the website.
Summer 2013
AHIS 333 SU01 - Interdisciplinary Forums
Tuesdays + Thursdays, 1:00pm – 5:10pm, Summer 2013
Instructor: Phil Smith
Topic: Art Practices and Popular Culture (2013 Mix)
A feast of friends / alive she cried / waiting for me / outside -- The Doors “When the Music’s Over”
By the late 1990s, in the wake of Keith Haring, Jeff Koons, the YBAs et. al., many of the then century long tensions between “serious” art and popular/mass culture (often referred to as the battle between high and low) seemed to have dissipated or been resolved (arguably in favour of the latter). However, these tensions appeared to awake anew in the new millennium, as encapsulated by the 2004 ARTFORUM Panel Discussion “Pop after Pop” (which will be one of the foundational texts for the course).
With this in mind, the course will look at the often uneasy and constantly shifting relationship between art/art practices and popular culture from two symbiotic perspectives: the first, an examination of the evolution of the historical and theoretical concepts and context of high and low over the last century or so; the second, a practice-oriented focus as to where emerging artists and other creative practitioners might position themselves within the contemporary world of popular culture, a positioning that will be considered from both a process and a professional standpoint.
These positions will be explored through the course readings, screenings, and lectures, including a number of guest lecturers from both sides of the high/low aisle. Possible mediums to addressed over the course of the term include visual art, design, media, film, television, animation, comics, and popular music. And we will definitely discuss why Jim Morrison’s image of “a feast of friends” cited above may be the perfect starting point for these explorations.
ANIM 325 SU01 – Special Topics in Animation
Tuesdays + Thursdays, 1:00pm – 4:00pm, Summer 2013
Instructor: Darren Brereton
Topic: Character Animation II
Following Eric Goldberg's "Character Animation Crash Course" as a guide, we go through techniques from the last half of that required textbook. Besides 3 in-class exercises, We focus on body mechanics, subtle acting and 2-person dialogue (all take-home assignments). We also do "weekly walks", 4 take-home assignments of quadrupeds and dance steps animated to student-chosen music tracks. The animation can be done in 2D, CG or any other form.
CCID 200 SU01 + CCID 300 SU01 – Community Projects
Mondays + Wednesdays, 9:00am – 12:30pm, Summer 2013
Instructor: Hannah Jickling + Helen Reed
Topic: Do It Again
The theatre is the only place in the world where a gesture, once made, can never be made the same way twice --Antonin Artaud
In collaboration with the Arts Club Theatre Company, Do It Again investigates the performative in contemporary art, with a special focus on reperformance, restagings, and the ways in which cultural texts change over time. Through activities, assignments, readings & discussions we will explore the embodied gestures of performance work.
In class we will discuss art works such as Tehching Hsieh’s One Year Performances, The Battle of Orgreave by Jeremy Deller, Fluxus instruction works, Seven Easy Pieces by Marina Abramovic, In the Near Future by Sharon Hayes, and Where We Come From by Emily Jacir.
The class will culminate in a group-generated intervention in the Arts Club Theatre Company 50th Anniversary Arts Walk.
Please note: You do not have to be a performer to enroll in this class. This course is for anyone who is interested in integrating experience, intervention, participation & theatrical spaces in their creative practice.
CGIA 334 SU01 – Special Effects II: Natural Phenomena
Tuesdays + Thursdays, 1:00pm – 4:00pm, Summer 2013
Instructor: Ruben Moller
Through presentations, workshops and projects, students apply an advanced understanding of animation principles to explorations with animation techniques, using a variety of techniques, primarily in the 3D computer animation environment, but also traditional animation, under-the-camera methods like collage, cutout, and paint-on-glass, puppets, etc. A particular emphasis is placed on particle systems, reactors, reflection and refraction involving atmospheric elements like wind, water, fire and smoke. If repeated, students will continue to explore atmospheric animation techniques by producing a short animated project, working independently, in regular contact with their peers and instructor, augmented by scheduled lectures and workshops. This course provides support for fourth year graduation projects.
CRAM 304 SU01 – Ceramics: Special Topics
Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays + Thursdays, Summer 2013
Instructor: Evelyn Grant
Topic: Surface Pattern for the Ceramic Medium
The creative journey from concept to final design begins with the process of researching and gathering ideas. Through the presentation of visual mood boards, portfolio work and verbal presentation, the student will create a design concept for the series of surface pattern exercises to follow. Ceramic surface techniques such as stamping, scraffito, underglaze, glaze, inglaze and onglaze will be explored. Decal methods both hand screened and digital will be utilized on sample pieces of bone china whiteware. Simple handbuilding techniques will be demonstrated for sample piece construction.
FVIM 416 SU90 – Special Topics in Integrated Media
Online Course, Summer 2013
Instructor: Fiona Bowie
Students will first propose a project in the form of treatments and/or concept proposal for their work. This proposal will then be developed into the appropriate format (scripts, schematics, technical maps, prototypes, sketches, story boards of visuals depending on the nature of the project). Students in consultation with the instructor will research related thematics or prevalent media to hone a critical understanding and historical perspective for the topic(s), thematic(s) or concepts that are central to their projects.
Students will work independently and meet in online seminar groups for feedback support. These activities will be complemented by draft assessments by the instructor, Skype meetings with the instructor, face to face Skype group critiques and group read-throughs (where appropriate) of the work in progress. A high level of self-directed activity is expected, along with online participation in presentations, critiques and research of your peers. Upon request, senior students will have mentor status thereby being group leaders and helping 2nd and 3rd year students in their group. This will provide excellent experience that may be added to their developing Resume/CV.
FVIM 416 SU01 – Special Topics in Integrated Media
Mondays + Wednesdays, 1:00pm – 4:00pm, Summer 2013
Instructor: Liz Levine
Topic: Creative Producing: From idea to actuality.
This course will focus on creative producing - the act of taking an idea and developing it into something real! This course connects the business of filmmaking to the creative process. It will start with the process of script/content selection and move through the creative development of the film including: story development, financing and packaging a project for the marketplace. Students will develop critical and conceptual skills. Once the students have selected a film to make 'on paper' they will gain practical skills in casting, budgeting, collective agreements with unions and guilds, basic contracts, production management and physical production. The final section of the course will focus on marketing the product including key art design, strategy, convergence, cross platform execution and an understanding of audience.
HUMN 305 SU01 – Studies in the Humanities
Tuesdays + Thursdays, 1:00pm – 4:00pm, Summer 2013
Instructor: Hannah Jickling + Helen Reed
Topic: The Wanderer
The Wanderer is a combination studio/seminar and outdoor education course in which students apply conceptual, visual and tactile skills to projects that engage the environment in and around Vancouver. Much of the class content will focus on outdoor field trips, augmented with readings & lectures. The Wanderer will explore the cultural and artistic traditions of walking & wandering as strategies for respite, reflection and research as valuable components of a contemporary art practice. With recognition that there are diverse forms of art production-- from objects, to ideas, to experiences-- this course will explore both active and reflective work. Methodologies such as slowness, aimlessness and chance encounters will be employed.
HUMN 306 SU01 – Studies in the Humanities: Design
Tuesdays + Thursdays, 9:00am – 12:00pm, Summer 2013
Instructor: J Swartz
Topic: From Design Criticism to Critical Design
This course engages criticism in contemporary design from two complementaryperspectives: while design criticism is about design, critical design emergesthrough design. The course draws on historical and theoretical references from early modernism to the present, while also introducing applied exercises in design criticism and in critical design. Thus students will write about design as well as develop a design project with critical intention.
Criticism about design usually takes the form of written texts in magazines, journals and blogs. As publishing, media and public discourse change, it is also an idea in crisis. Since design is an affirmative component of consumer society, some say critique of design is paradoxical. When Rick Poynor asked “Where are the Design Critics?” in a 2005 Design Observer blog, over 70 commentaries responded to the challenge; this course takes up the question anew. Is design criticism necessary for design to flourish? What tools and conditions do we need to be able to think and write critically about design?
Criticism through design, identified by British duo Dunne & Raby as Critical Design, responds to the idea that design knowledge is acquired in real practice within the project. Even when addressing the demands of the commission, client or final user, it wraps itself in further layers of meaning; some say it is meta-design. Inasmuch as it addresses fellow designers and professionals, it is often provocative: critical design is loaded. Historical examples, such as 1960s radical design, early feminist design or experimental typography, as well as contemporary design featuring conceptual and critical values (Jurgen Bey, Martí Guixé and others), will serve to illuminate and test the idea.
Design criticism and critical design invite us to consider recent studies on the political and social status of design, such as Tony Fry, Design as Politics (2010) and Carl DiSalvo, Adversarial Design (2012).
This theoretical and practical course is open to students of all design disciplines.
HUMN 311 SU01 – Visual Art Seminar
Tuesdays + Thursdays, 1:00pm – 4:00pm, Summer 2013
Instructor: Devon Knowles
Topic: Outside Art
This class invites students who are interested in investigating the intersections and divergences between land art, monuments and public art. Each play a specific role in the public sphere and they will be discussed considering the historical terms they arrived in and their contemporary contexts. This course will trace how art and its production changes alongside socio-cultural issues, materiality, political agendas and relationships to their site. Beyond ideas of similarity and difference, it will explore these divergences and oppositions as a productive and speculative space. It is in this space where the role of contemporary public art can be discussed, how its role is positioned in relation to studio based practices, how it negotiates site and its relation to varied publics. Students will be introduced to readings, participate in seminar discussion, practice writing, concept development, planning and proposals in ways which negotiate both historic and contemporary art production outside. There will be a number of site visits required for this course.
ILUS 305 SU90 – Illustration Genres
Online Course, Summer 2013
Instructor: Guin Thompson
New York City remains the hot spot for all forms of illustration. Students will meet professionals, create potential career contacts and gain insights to their own work through a combination of portfolio reviews, candid talks and formal presentations. Students will be exposed to the diverse job markets in the illustration field by visiting editorial publications, book publishers, art departments and other illustration producing studios. This trip will encompass shop talks with working professionals in their studios and offices, a visit to the Society of Illustrators, and trips to illustration museums.
Past publishers have included: Penguin Books, DC Comics, Archaia Entertainment, Harper’s Magazine, Tor Books, 3x3 Magazine and the New York Times.
Past speakers have included: Murray Tinkelman, Nancy Stahl, Yuko Shimizu, Marcos Chin, Walt Simonson, Greg Manchess, Donato Giancola, Sam Wolfe Connelly and Aya Kakeda.
NOTE: To participate in this class, students must pay program fees ($350) and travel costs (flight and hotel not to exceed $1500) in addition to tuition fees. Students are registered on a first-come, first-served basis by contacting Guin Thompson directly. The experience is open to second year students and above interested in Illustration. April 1 is the deadline for program fees. By April 8th, you will be automatically registered for this class. On April 26th, tuition must be paid. On May 15th, all travel expenses will be due.
You must contact Guin Thompson to secure a spot on the trip or for more information at gthompson@ecuad.ca
PHOT 306 SU01 - Special Topics in Photography
Tuesdays + Thursdays, 9:00am – 12:00pm, Summer 2013
Instructor: Felicia Gail
Topic: The Poetics of Space
Through the lens of photography, we will discursively consider how we, as visual artists, interpret meaning from poetic interpretations of space as image. As a pivot point for what will be an intersubjective course, we will contemplate topophilia (From Greek topos, "place" and -philia, "love of"). Gaston Bachelard’s influential text, “The Poetics of Space,” will assist us in philosophically framing these photographic investigations of space.
PNTG 310 SU01 – Painting: Advanced
Tuesdays + Thursdays, 9:00am – 12:00pm, Summer 2013
Instructor: Skai Fowler
Topic: Scene Painting
This course is an introduction to the materials, media and techniques used in scenic art. It is primarily geared towards students with an interest in pursuing a career in the film and theatre industry; but it is suitable for those with little or no experience in scene painting. The course will introduce various scene painting techniques such as faux finishing, tromp l'oeil amount others.
SCIE 300 SU90 – Studies in the Sciences
Online Course, Summer 2013
Instructor: Jane Slemon
Slemon's course explores topics related to health and the things that affect it. Looking closely at what’s occurring within aspects of the human biological system, the course invites students to explore health, illness and imbalance as well as approaches to health care treatment as these relate to our other work in art and design. Delving into medical material and shaping thoughtful questions for science, students will control the direction of their research and notice how our ways of thinking about the body connect to what we know--our maps, our imaging, our analogies. We look at the many ways the body learns in health and in ill health: the conditions and drugs that affect how nerves function; conditions of the brain; the effects of procrastination, play and practice; the ways cancer can manifest in tissues; what science has learned about sexual function and dysfunction; how we manage cancer research and bring attention to it in art works; the anatomy and physiology of the heart's systems of muscle, conduction and circulation; how viruses (like AIDS or H1N1) cause the immune system to act against the human host. These special topics invite interest in these and other avenues of research for the student.
Fall 2013
AHIS 333 F001 – Interdisciplinary Forums
Thursdays, 3:50pm – 8:00pm, Fall 2013
Instructors: Randy Lee Cutler + Justin Langlois
Topic: Audience + Affect
“Art makes us perform.”
In his book, Art Scenes: The Social Scripts of the Art World, artist and educator, Pablo Helguera, argued that we all invent, interpret, and perform a variety of roles in our everyday lives as they intersect with art and creative practice. Whether in classrooms, studios, galleries, cinemas, online or on the street, we can see that artists cultivate audiences through their affective actions, gestures, and works, and create opportunities for complex and dynamic inquiry. Is it politics, society, or science that allows us to draw emotional resonance from a composition of simple lines and colours? How might an artist strategize to create works that knowingly resonate for a viewer, and to what end? What are the implications of mobile and ubiquitous technology as we attempt to develop new art audiences? Exploring the intersections, collisions, and feedback loops of audience and affect provide us with opportunity to understand how art can do what it does, and what it might do next. With an eye on the development of critical dialogue and a highly usable praxis toolkit, this course will introduce and unfold the concerns and constructions of affect and audience in contemporary practices, offering an exciting public lecture series that looks at the various ways in which audience and affect inform our practices and our daily lives.
CRAM 304 F040 – Ceramics: Special Topics
North Island College Campus
Tuesdays, 1:00pm -4:00pm, Fall 2013
Instructor: Julie York
Topic: Conflation of Objects and Images: Ceramic Surface Design
The relationship between surface and form is a central concept of ceramics. This class will explore the relationship between bi-dimensionality and three-dimensional space. The focus will be to develop relationships between form and surface through a variety of objects found within a utilitarian context.
Studio activities will include working within a context of inquiry in which students challenge the relationship between idea, material, process, application, and meaning. A range of surface treatments and a variety of materials will be explored including traditional techniques found in ceramics to twenty first century digital tools and technologies.
The class will be comprised of three major projects; testing, experimentation and research are critical in the development of your projects. Lectures and demonstrations of materials, techniques and equipment will be given throughout the semester to aid in the understanding of this area.
The class will involve hands-on studio work and will meet for six hours every two weeks (Tuesday from 9:00- 4pm). Students are expected to keep an open mind with regard to problem solving and to challenge themselves in all areas of research, skill building, and experimentation. The class will encourage self-directed growth in technique and knowledge of surface as it pertains to form.
PRNT 305 F001N – Print Media: Special Topics
Tuesdays, 8:30am – 3:20pm Fall 2013
Instructor: Beth Howe
Topic: The Illustrated Book
In this course, students will use the medium of letterpress printing to produce book projects that address contemporary concerns. What are the visual, contextual, and structural possibilities and implications of the handmade book? How does the form reach back through the history of printed matter and where is it sited now? How can the physicality of lead type, for example, inform the use of text and language in a book or broadside form? Students will learn to combine printmaking and bookbinding techniques with hand-drawn and/or digital illustration and typography. The class will work on group and individual projects, work with assigned literary texts, and produce printed and bound matter by hand in the Print Media studios.
SOCS 300 F002 – Studies in the Social Sciences
Thursdays, 3:50pm – 6:40pm, Fall 2013
Instructor: Alex Phillips
Topic: Go For the Brain! Zombies in Film and Popular Culture
Through surveying diverse materials from popular culture this course will examine why zombie films have gone from being an obscure horror genre to a widespread cultural phenomena. How has George Romero’s low budget film Night of the Living Dead inspired hundreds of imitators, a television series, and an avalanche of undead cultural artifacts such as books, T shirts, video games, and music?
Taking an anthropological approach to the zombie craze, this course will treat zombie films as cultural documents, looking at their historical roots in ideas about primitivism, cannibalism, and the Haitian voudou religion. It will identify critiques of mainstream society, consumerism, and race and class difference contained in zombie films, while examining why the refusal of the dead to stay that way speaks to longstanding fears about the restlessness of those who have gone before. The course will draw on a variety of sources such as Val Lewton’s 1940’s film: I Walked with a Zombie, Wade Davis’s The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harvard Scientist’s Astonishing Journey Into the Secret World of Haitian Voodoo, Zombies, and Magic, Max Brooks’s Zombie Survival Guide, and numerous films from Romero classics such as Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, to Britain’s 28 Days Later, comedies such as Shaun of the Dead, genre mixes such as Dead Snow and Dead Girl, and made for TV series such as The Walking Dead.