You have two opportunities for optional extra credit this week! Each opportunity consists of attending a talk or panel that lasts around 1 hour, and then—before Monday April 16—writing a reflection paper about what you heard and saw (guidelines below).
First, I’ll list the talks, then the conditions for the credit.
Talk 1:
Lauren McCarthy –> April 10th, 4pm, 410 Flagg Hall
Lauren McCarthy is an artist based in Los Angeles and Brooklyn whose work explores social and technological systems for being a person and interacting with other people. She makes software, performances, videos, and other things on the internet. She is also the creator of p5.js, the web-based version of Processing.
Talk 2:
Joana Moll –> April 12th, 6pm, 62 Krannert Art Museum
Joana Moll is a Barcelona / Berlin based artist and researcher. Her work critically explores the way post-capitalist narratives affect the alphabetization of machines, humans and ecosystems. Her main research topics include Internet materiality, surveillance, social profiling and interfaces.
Reflection Paper Requirements:
Write a paper about the talk you attended that does the following…
- …describes the artist’s subject — what do they focus on and *why*?
- …describes the artist’s strategies and tactics — how do they investigate their subject(s)?
- …examines the role of software in their work. Are they thinking about software? Is it an underlying subject or concern? They may or may not address this directly, so your answer might require you to intuit this to some extent. In other words, use the skills we’ve developed in class for looking at the role of software in culture and apply it to the artist’s work and subject.
- …critically reflects on the work. For example, you could talk about your reactions to the work, whether you think it’s accomplishing its objectives, your reads of audience, etc. IOW, what did you think about it? Try to avoid language such as “I liked it” or “I hated it” and instead focus on the what/why (for example, a better start would be “The artist is focused on X, but a thorough examination of X should include Y because…”).
Throughout your paper, use as examples specific artworks the artists mention in their talk. You may refer to their website (if useful) to verify details, but your paper should *not* be based on the website but on their talk!
The paper should be 2-3 pages, double-spaced (12pt font), emailed to Ben as a Word or PDF document, by April 16th at 4pm.
Credit:
An A paper (meaning it comprehensively answers the questions above, does so with clean prose and clear communication, and demonstrates criticality) will raise any single project grade by 15%. So, for example, a B- project (roughly 80%) can be raised to a strong A (roughly 95%). I will spread out the points across projects if it is better for your overall grade.
You can (if able) attend both talks to gain up to 30% in project points.
BONUS!:
Ask a good question after the talk, and I will add another 5%!
Requirement:
I need to see you having attended. Come say hi before or after the talk (I’ll watch for your arrival).