COURSE 4.396
SPECIAL PROBLEMS IN VISUAL ARTS
Spring 2005
Meeting room: N51-117
Monday evenings, 5 PM to 7 PM
Tuesdays, 10 AM to 1 PM
(check schedule below for occasional changes of place and time)
Professor:
Allan McCollum
Email: allanmcnyc@aol.com
Website: http://home.att.net/~allanmcnyc
TA:
Oliver Lutz
Email: olutz@mit.edu
Contact List: here
COURSE SCHEDULE
(Updated 01/31/05)
Week 1
Monday, January 31, 2005
REGISTRATION DAY
Tuesday, February 1, 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
FIRST DAY OF CLASS.
Learn about Allan McCollum's work, introduce ourselves, ask questions, maybe learn about each other a bit.
I'm hoping to learn about your backgrounds and your thoughts, so I've written up a sheet of questions. Please download the document (it's in Microsoft Word) and fill out your answers to the questions in your computer (in the fields to the RIGHT of the questions), and email it to me as an attachment by Friday morning. Please don't include any pictures!
http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/notices/questions.doc
There are many ways to define an artwork. One way is to define it in the context of similar objects. But similar in what way? We could, for instance, compare one painting to all other paintings; or, alternatively, we could define a painting in the context of other "domestic" objects (chairs, beds, lamps).
For the purposes of this course, I would like us to compare artworks to other "symbolic" objects.
We generally think of artworks as chiefly symbolic -- that is, their "main purpose" is to stand for or represent something else entirely -- usually a philosophical, emotional complex of another order. But there are many other kinds of "symbolic objects" that function similarly, and I believe that if we consider the work of art in relation to them, we will come to a better understanding.
Other examples of objects that exist for the primary purpose of symbolizing something else:
Monuments
Souvenirs
Gravestones
Religious relics
Jewelry
Trophies
etc.
For this exercise, we will define a "symbolic object" as a physical thing, i.e., something we can touch or carry around. We won't define, for instance, a "word" or a "concept" or a "memory" as a symbolic object!
NOTE: Objects often BECOME symbolic through use (i.e., one's automobile) -- but for our purposes, please only list objects that are created or used PRIMARILY for symbolic purposes.
Please think in terms of separate categories -- don't list, for instance, six types of souvenirs -- "Souvenirs" should only count as ONE item in your list.
Do at least 60 categories. If you can't think of 60 in one sitting, set the list aside and go back to it later -- more will come to you.
Please email me your lists in a Microsoft word document, separated by line breaks (as above -- not in a single line, like Monuments, Souvenirs, Gravestones, Religious relics, Jewelry, Trophies ... but a vertical list).
Email the list to me by the end of the day Friday, at: allanmcnyc@aol.com
AND:
Anne Rorimer
From: InterReview, 2004
MICHAEL ASHER: CONTEXT AS CONTENT
Week 2
Monday, February 7, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
• In class: Discuss our "List of Symbolic Objects"
• In class: Take a look at Museum-L thread, "Artifacts vs. Props"
• In class: Write a brief narrative about an object that changes from one category of symbolic object to another category of symbolic object - using our master list of categories (see below.)
We like to describe artworks as objects with rich reservoirs of symbolic meaning, but all objects can have rich meaning. Some very common objects can develop such a complex array of meanings that they might be said to be competitive with the "elevated" status of an artwork. While objects have no symbolism on their own, once they enter into a social realm they can develop complex meanings; these meanings can change or grow as time goes by.
For instance:
1. On a vacation to the beach, a man picks up a sea shell and takes it home: SOUVENIR
2. He gives it to his daughter for her birthday: SOUVENIR/GIFT
3. The daughter puts it on her mantelpiece: SOUVENIR/GIFT/KNICK-KNACK
4. Upon her death, the daughter gives it to her granddaughter: SOUVENIR/GIFT/KNICK-KNACK/HEIRLOOM
5. The granddaughter gives it to HER granddaughter: SOUVENIR/GIFT/KNICK-KNACK/HEIRLOOM/ANTIQUE
6. The granddaughter becomes a famous actress, and sells it to a dealer: SOUVENIR/GIFT/KNICK-KNACK/HEIRLOOM/ANTIQUE/CELEBRITY MEMORABILIA
7. The dealer donates it to a local Chamber of Commerce lottery: SOUVENIR/GIFT/KNICK-KNACK/HEIRLOOM/ANTIQUE/CELEBRITY MEMORABILIA/PRIZE
8. The winner, an amateur naturalist, realizes it is the most perfect example of an long extinct specie of clam that has ever been found: SOUVENIR/GIFT/HEIRLOOM/ANTIQUE/CELEBRITY MEMORABILIA/PRIZE/TYPE-FOSSIL
9. The winner needs money, so he sells it to a collector: SOUVENIR/GIFT/HEIRLOOM/ANTIQUE/CELEBRITY MEMORABILIA/PRIZE/TYPE-FOSSIL/COMMODITY
10. The collector's wife sues him for divorce, and for spite demands the shell as part of the settlement: SOUVENIR/GIFT/HEIRLOOM/ANTIQUE/CELEBRITY MEMORABILIA/PRIZE/TYPE-FOSSIL/COMMODITY/TROPHY
etc., etc.
Tuesday, February 8, 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
• Discuss Michael Asher text
• Share our assignments from last night
• Read in class:
From: Hans Toch and Clay Smith, eds.
by Marshall H. Segall, Donald T. Campbell
and Melville J. Herskovits
Social Perception
CHAPTER 14: THE INFLUENCE OF CULTURE
ON VISUAL PERCEPTION
and
From: Hans Toch and Clay Smith, eds.
by Warren J. Wittreich And Keith B. Radcliffe
Social Perception
CHAPTER 17: DIFFERENCES IN THE PERCEPTION
OF AN AUTHORITY FIGURE AND A NONAUTHORITY
FIGURE BY NAVY RECRUITS
Download and read this excerpt from:Jean Baudrillard
The System of Objects
B. THE NON-FUNCTIONAL SYSTEM,
OR SUBJECTIVE DISCOURSE:
II. A MARGINAL SYSTEM: COLLECTING
Think of a type of object that you have collected. Use some of Jean Baudrillard's thinking and write (at least) 500 words to analyze what you get out of this collecting. If you think you never have collected anything, think again.
OR, if in New York City:
* * * Saturday, February 12, 2:00 PM * * *
Recommended:
Artist Talk by Pavel Braila at the List Visual Art CenterSee: http://web.mit.edu/lvac/www/exhibitions/upcoming.html
* * * Saturday, February 12, 11:00 AM—7:00 PM * * *
Recommended:
Harrell Fletcher presents Come Together (NYC)
an all day event with 25+ special guest speakersSee: http://www.apexart.org/exhibitions/maurizio/cometogether.htm
Week 3
Monday, February 14, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
• Read in class:"Wedding Ring" text• Share our assignments from last week, reading aloud
"Necco"texts (1) and (2)
"World Trade Center Jewelry" texts
Download and read:From: D. W. Winnicott
Playing & Reality
TRANSITIONAL OBJECTS AND TRANSITIONAL PHENOMENA http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/winnicott1.pdf
WE WILL DISCUSS THIS AND THE BAUDRILLARD TEXT IN TOMORROW'S CLASS
ALL TEXTS FOR CLASS WRITTEN SO FAR MUST BE EMAILED TO ME BY FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18th:The "60 Symbolic Objects" categories list
The "transformations" story we did in class
The "transformations" story from personal experience
(the one read in class today)
The 500-word "collection" story
(which we will discuss in class tomorrow)
Tuesday, February 15, 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
• Discuss Baudrillard text
• Discuss Winnicott text
• Discuss Collecting in general
• Read the 500-word "collection" stories to each other
• Visit Harrell Fletcher's Headlands Project Space webpage at:
• Read in class:http://www.headlands.org/ProjectSpace/HarrellFletcher
By Rick Polito:• Read in class:
"HARRELL FLETCHER: THE DETRITUS OF A LIFETIME"
Northwestern University article:
"SCALE ERRORS"
Download and read:Marcel Mauss
THE GIFT: Forms and Functions
of Exchange in Archaic Societies
INTRODUCTORY
and CHAPTER ONE:
GIFTS AND THE OBLIGATION TO RETURN GIFTS
Week 4 - HOLIDAY
Monday, February 21, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Tuesday, February 22, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
MONDAY SCHEDULE OF CLASSES TO BE HELDNOTICE: TUESDAY CLASS CANCELLED
Here are four short texts to read, to make up for the cancelled class Tuesday. We will discuss these when we meet next. They will all be easily be read in much less than three hours!
While three of these four artists (or three artists + one collaborative) have become known relatively recently, each rather specifically follows the other chronologically; and while each of these artists undoubtedly was influenced by many different other artists from the past, it's interesting to speculate on how each was likely influenced by the one previous.
All of the artists explore different ways of distributing objects and new ways of using museums.
Download and read:AFFORDING THE ULTIMATE CREATIVE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE: THE BOUTIQUE OF THE 1984 MISS GENERAL IDEA PAVILLIONand
By Lilian ToneFELIX GONZALEZ-TORRESand
ETRE UN ESPION
Interview by Robert Storr
ArtPress, 1995RIRKRIT TIRAVANIJAand:
Catalog text from the exhibition
Perfomance Anxiety, April 19-July 6, 1997
Museum of Contemporary Art
Chicago, IllinoisLEE MINGWEI
The Shrine Project
By Chang Ju-ping
STAFF REPORTER
TAPEI TIMES
Sunday, Sep 03, 2000
Week 5
Monday, February 28, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
• Discuss Marcel Mauss text
• Read in class:
From: W. J. T. Mitchell• Discuss General Idea, Felix Gonzalez-torres, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Lee Mingwei
The Last Dinosaur Book
CHAPTERS TWENTY-FOUR and TWENTY-FIVE:
POTLATCH AND PURITY
and DIPLODOCUS CARNEGII
Download and read:From: The Society of Control:
The Academy and the Corporate Public
SYMBOLIC CAPITAL MANAGEMENT
OR WHAT TO DO WITH THE GOOD,
THE TRUE, AND THE BEAUTIFUL
By Hans Haacke
I'm asking each of you to design a project that involves quantity production of a SYMBOLIC OBJECT and it's wide distribution. The proposals will be formally presented starting in two weeks, on Monday, March 7, and should include diagrams, a production plan, a distribution plan, and a public relations plan. The caveat: the objects have to make sense to you also ON DISPLAY IN AN ART MUSEUM.
Your proposal will need to describe what "community" (or communities) you are addressing with your proposed project, and consider how your project fulfills needs of the community (or communities) that receive it. The proposal should also consider how community support might be engaged in order to facilitate the project, and how you might raise the funds needed for all of its aspects.
Today we must discuss and decide the order in which the presentations will be made, i.e., who goes first, second, and so on.
Tuesday, March 1, 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
• Take tour of Visual Arts Program workshops
• Visit Media Lab
• Visit a the List Center & the MIT Museum
Week 6
Monday, March 7, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
• Handout: CRACKS IN THE PAVEMENT: gifts in the urban landscape
• Begin Individual Presentations
Download and read:KARIN SANDER, some works;
and
AN INTERVIEW
By Harald Welzer
and
TOWARDS A TENDER SOCIETY OF
THOUGHTFUL QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
By Harrell Fletcher
and
An interview with Harrell Fletcher:
MERGING ART, FUNCTIONALITY, AND EDUCATION
Interview by Nic Paget-Clarke
Tuesday, March 8, 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
• ATTEND TALK BY VISITING CURATOR CHRISSIE ILES
10 am, Carpenter Center B-04 (in the basement)
Admission is free
CHRISSIE ILES, Curator of film/video at The Whitney Museum of American Art, and co-curator of The 2006 Whitney Biennial, will lecture on historical and contemporary video installation practice. She is well known for her "Into the Light: The Projected Image in American Art 1964 - 1977" exhibition and book of the same title at the Whitney, which reproduced many seminal video and film installations. Iles was also co-curator of the 2002 and 2004 Whitney Biennial, as well as The American Century: Art & Culture Part ll, 1950-2000: The Cool World and the Ana Mendieta retrospective.
• VISIT THE HARVARD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
See: The Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants
• VISIT FOGG MUSEUM?
Download and read:From:
Jacques T. Godbout
The World of the Gift
INTRODUCTION: DOES THE GIFT STILL EXIST?
and
PART ONE, CHAPTER 4: THE SITES OF THE GIFT: THE GIFT BETWEEN STRANGERS [EXCERPT]: A MODERN GIFT and PART ONE, CHAPTER 5: THE GIFT AND MERCHANDISE
Week 7
Monday, March 14, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
• Discuss Karin Sander and Harrell Fletcher
• Visit Harrell Fletcher website
• Discuss Godbout texts
• Read in class:
From: Dia Art Foundation
JOSEPH BEUYS: 7000 OAKS
By Lynne Cooke
and
RUBENS MANO ON LIGHT AND POWER
By Lilian Tone
Download and read:Miwon Kwon
One Place After Another:
Site Specificity and Locational Identity
CHAPTER THREE: SITINGS OF PUBLIC ART:
INTEGRATION VERSUS INTERVENTION
Tuesday, March 15, 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
• Topic: what is a community?
Today we divide the class into two working groups, "A" and "B" — the constitution of the groups is as follows:
Group "A"
Brenda Galvez
Carrie Bodle
Group "B"
Pablo Wenceslao
Jesse Green
Each group is to design a project that involves quantity production of a SYMBOLIC OBJECT and it's distribution to (or through) an institution or community outside of our class. The project should be designed to be practically produced within our budget of $150 for each group. The projects are for final review at the end of the semester. Again, the important caveat: the project has to make sense as a presentation in an ART MUSEUM. To complete the project, a narrative report must be made describing the story of the project: how it was done, how it went, how others responded, what it all meant. AND, finally, each particpant must make a final report on the personal meaning he or she found in doing the project, and how it related to your own work (art, architecture, etc.)
There will be three steps to be presented in class, as follows:
Each group is to design a project that involves quantity production of a SYMBOLIC OBJECT and it's distribution to (or through) an institution or community outside of our class. Your proposal will need to describe what "community" (or communities) you are addressing with your proposed project, and consider how your project fulfills needs of the community (or communities) that receive it. The proposal should also consider how community support might be engaged in order to facilitate the project, and how you might raise any extra funds needed for all of its aspects.The project should be designed to be practically produced within our budget of $150 for each group. The projects are for final review at the end of the semester. The important caveat: the project has to make sense as a presentation in an ART MUSEUM.
Proposals need to include:
• A description of the object to be producedPresent Project Status Report (Due April 5th): Both groups will present Project Status Reports on Tuesday, April 5th during class. These written status reports should outline initial thinking behind the project including initial ideas you are considering, any research produced, task allocation (within your team), and what problems you've run into so far. Team-members are expected to work together to produce their report. The presentations are an opportunity to get feedback from the rest of the class.
• Diagrams of how the object might look
• Diagrams of how and where a report on the final project might be presented and demonstrated visually in a public "display"
• A description of the production methods to be used to produce the object
• A description of how the budget will be spent
• A description of what "community" (or communities) you are addressing with your proposed project
• A description of how your project benefits or fulfills needs of the community (or communities) that receive it (i.e., "meaning")
• A description of how community support might be engaged in order to facilitate the project
• A list of possible institutions or groups to approach for involvement
• A description of a public relations plan (i.e., how to make the project known)
• A description of how the group plans to delegate the tasks amongst itself
Present Project Proposals (Due April 12th):Both groups will present their Project Proposals on Tuesday, April 12th during class.
Submit Finalized Proposal: A finalized project proposal must be submitted to Allan. This version should include changes resulting from class feedback and any additional research conducted.
Conduct additional research and produce the symbolic object as outlined in the assignment description and defined by your project proposal. If special arrangements need to be made for the eventual display of your work (within a particular community or at an off-campus location) then these should be done simultaneous to production.
Once the final projects are completed, we will install two displays to present them to the public, to be completed during Final Exam Period.
Final Presentations: Each group will make final presentations to the other, on the final site of the display; if passers-by join in, all-the-better.
Written Project Report: These reports should outline the scope of the project, the successes and failures, tell stories about the interactions that took place, discuss the destiny of the project, answer questions, etc. This report should then be given to me in written form for a "permanent record." I would like to post the final project descriptions online, in the form of a website; digital photos would be great.
Written Personal Statements: Everything we do in some way recapitulates personal drama. Write a one page (at least) PERSONAL STATEMENT testifying on how the group project you participated in traversed areas and issues in your own life history, i.e., what meanings do you find in the project? We can discuss these after the "public" presentation.
Week 8 - SPRING VACATION
Monday, March 21, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Tuesday, March 22 - 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Week 9
Monday, March 28, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Tuesday, March 29, 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Week 10
Monday, April 4, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Tuesday, April 5, 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Week 11
Monday, April 11, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Tuesday, April 12, 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
BEGIN PHASE 2: PRODUCTION
Week 12 - NO CLASSES
Monday, April 18, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Tuesday, April 19, 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Week 13
Monday, April 25, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Once the final projects are completed, we will install two displays to present them to the public, to be completed during Final Exam Period,
Final Presentations: Each group will make final presentations to the other, on the final site of the display; if passers-by join in, all-the-better.
Written Project Report: These reports should outline the scope of the project, the successes and failures, tell stories about the interactions that took place, discuss the destiny of the project, answer questions, etc. This report should then be given to me in written form for a "permanent record." I would like to post the final project descriptions online, in the form of a website; digital photos would be great.
Written Personal Statements: Everything we do in some way recapitulates personal drama. Write a one page (at least) PERSONAL STATEMENT testifying on how the group project you participated in traversed areas and issues in your own life history, i.e., what meanings do you find in the project? We can discuss these after the "public" presentation.
Tuesday, April 26, 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Week 14
Monday, May 2, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Tuesday, May 3, 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Week 15
Monday, May 9, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Tuesday, May 10, 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Week 16
MAY 16-20 - FINAL EXAM PERIOD
Monday, May 16, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Tuesday, May 17, 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
SUMMER VACATION