Graduate/Upper Division Courses
Intermedia Workshop
This workshop is a critique seminar where students of different disciplines can evolve conceptually and aesthetically. In particular, students gain critical skills in analyzing established visual languages and are encouraged to utilize such languages. Students learn to merge scholarly practices with workshop practices, thus challenging the barriers between academic and creative areas. Coursework involves readings, viewing and critiquing artwork, and hands-on experience in the production of video art, performance, and installation, as well as the creation of objects.
Syllabi (pdf): Fall 2008, Fall 2009
Art and Ecology
Structured as a collaborative, creative research group, Art & Ecology explores artistic responses to the environment and related social issues. Emphasis will be placed on critical approaches rooted in the humanities. In the first half of the semester, the course will examine student‐chosen key themes in environmental discourse, paying particular attention to how artists have engaged them. In the second half of the semester, students will develop individual or collaborative projects that may take the form of video, installation, performance, writing, sound, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, and/or electronic media. In-class activities will be supplemented with field trips, screenings, and guest presentations, and special effort will be made to connect students to university and community resources.
Syllabus (pdf): Spring 2009
Time-Based Media I
This upper division/graduate level introductory seminar explores time-based media-including video, sound, installation, performance, locative media and Web-based production–and its expanding critical role in contemporary art and society. The course is designed to provide a laboratory/workshop opportunity for students to develop their time-based creative practice, focusing on individual production, group projects and critical discussion. In creative projects and short reading and writing assignments, students will look at the impact of time-based media in culture. Time-based media art history screenings and discussion are a routine part of the class. Informal and formal critiques of work are central to the seminar and a high level of personal engagement and initiative is expected. Technical workshops will be offered routinely during the semester. One-on-one tutorial help will be arranged as needed.
Syllabus (pdf): Fall 2008
Time-Based Media II
This upper‐division course is intended for students pursuing advanced study in time‐based art forms such as single channel film/video, live performance, internet art, sound art, film/video installation, and event‐based projects. Course content will be tailored to the practices of students in the class while supporting the exploration of new thematic and formal areas. Activities may include inclass creative assignments, readings, screenings, field trips, student and guest presentations, professional development exercises, critiques, and the production of original works of time‐based art.
Syllabus (pdf): Spring 2009
Graduate Studio and Critique
MFA Studio and MFA Critique (MCMA 557 and 558) form the core of the MFA program in Interdisciplinary Media Arts at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. MFA Studio is a two-semester sequence designed to introduce first year graduate students to a range of approaches, media, and strategies in contemporary practice. MFA Critique is a two-semester course for first and second year students to show studio projects to faculty and one another and to engage in an ongoing critical dialogue in the "oral tradition" of the MFA degree.
MCMA 557 Syllabus (pdf): Spring 2008, Fall 2007
MCMA 558 Syllabus (pdf): Spring 2008, Fall 2007
Spring 2008 course website
Intermedia/Transmedia Art
The terms “intermedia” and “transmedia” refer to the ways contemporary art blurs the lines between and among traditional and new media, process and product, and art and life. In this course, you will get an integrated introduction into the possibilities for contemporary artistic production and be encouraged to develop mobility among a range of media in order to make imaginative, innovative, and socially relevant artwork. The course will emphasize both making and meaning in contemporary artwork and provide a foundation in contemporary art practice and theory. Meaningful content and concept is as important as technical mastery and sophisticated finish. Accordingly, this is not a technical class, and as upper-division students you should come with competency in at least one of the following areas: video, digital photography, web design, or sound editing. However, collaborative work will be possible, software tutorials will be offered regularly, and experimentation with non-software-based projects and performance will be encouraged.
Fall 2006 course website
Spring 2006 course website
Multimedia as an Artform: On and Off the Map
Over twenty years ago, Frederick Jameson advocated for a process of cognitive, political, and historical mapping to enable people to understand and traverse the complex and disorienting physical and conceptual landscapes of postmodernity. Since then, the process of mapping and the visual language of maps have emerged as strong elements in a good deal of contemporary media art. Cultural geographers, who for a generation have interrogated the ways that acts of mapping and the maps they produce are embedded and productive of power relations, have begun recently to take notice of the unconventional mapping projects produced by artists working with emerging cartographic tools, using locative media technologies, and remixing the images produced by global surveillance. This course will focus on developing an understanding of and practical experience with new media and artistic mapping practices with special attention given to context and meaning.
Graduate Colloquium
CoLab is a seminar and online exchange designed to support graduate students in SIU's Media Arts Practice program in to articulate, challenge, and refine their practices. CoLab can be thought of as a "collaborative laboratory," or a cooperatively created space for research, experimentation, and analysis.
After introductory reading and discussion, course content will be determined by the participants. Each week, two students will be responsible for assigning readings and leading the class in an exploration and critique of their current work. Remaining class sessions will be spent in discussion with visiting artists, viewing and discussing works of art, and/or reviewing drafts of your final paper.