Prerequisite: Video Production I

Prerequisite: Introduction to Film Making I.

This course is a production workshop designed to explore a variety of computer based applications for the creation of finished art works. With an emphasis on electronic installation, students will conceive individual projects utilizing desktop video, animation and sound programs. These projects in conjunction with lectures, demonstrations and in class exercises will form a matrix for the examination of emerging computer technology as a tool for artistic production.

The course explores the relationship between a certain strain of cinematic achievement, for the most part labeled avant-garde, and the major tenets of modernist art, both visual and literary. Many of the films studied are by artists who worked in other media (such as Léger, Strand, Cornell, and Duchamp) or whose work manifests a direct relationship to various artistic movements such as surrealism, futurism, and constructivism. An attempt is made to relate certain films to parallel achievements in photography, poetry, and music, with some attention paid to relatively little-seen filmmakers such as Lye, Kinugasa, and Jennings. Much of the assigned reading is not film criticism as such, but crucial critical works that help to define modernism in general, including works by Baudelaire, Pound, Ortega y Gasset, Moholy-Nagy, and Brecht. Other films studied are by Vertov, Eisenstein, Buñuel, Dulac, Ruttmann, and Man Ray.

This course is designed to provide an overview and critique of the development of video as an art form, with examples from documentary, abstract, performance-oriented, and narrative work. Video art is placed in context in relation to the other arts and broadcast television. Alternative TV, cable access, and community-based projects are also considered. Time is divided among screenings, discussion, and student presentations.