Intermedia

RTF 344M
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2-5pm
CMB Studio 4B and other locations (TBA)
Fall, 2003

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“Multimedia, by its very nature, is open, democratic, nonhierarchical, fluid, varied, inclusive—a slippery domain…”
--Randall Packer and Ken Jordan, Multimedia (2001)

“Interdisciplinarity is not the calm of an easy security; it begins effectively (as opposed to the mere expression of a pious wish) when the solidarity of the old disciplines breaks down—perhaps even violently, via the jolts of fashion—in the interests of a new object and a new language neither of which has a place in the field of the sciences that were to be brought peacefully together, this unease in classification being precisely the point from which it is possible to diagnose a certain mutation.”
--Roland Barthes, “From Work to Text,” in Image-Music-Text (1977)

“An intermedium (is) an uncharted land that lies between…It is not governed by rules; each work determines its own medium and form according to its needs. The concept itself is better understood by what it is not, rather than what it is…There was and could be no intermedial movement. Intermediality has always been a possibility since the most ancient times…it remains a possibility wherever the desire to fuse two or more existing media exists.”
--Dick Higgins, Horizons: The Poetics and Theory of the Intermedia (1966)

“Artistic man can only fully content himself by uniting every branch of Art into the common Artwork: in every segregation of his artistic faculties he is unfree, not fully that which he has power to be; whereas in the common Artwork he is free, and fully that which he has power to be.”
--Richard Wagner, “Outlines of the Artwork of the Future,” in The Artwork of the Future (1849)

Intermedia is a course designed to help you develop your creative work utilizing multiple mediums and multimodal practices. Moving between analog and digital processes and engaging the character of their exchange will be a significant course component. Of primary importance should be your engagement with your work, your investment in the labor of making it, your dedication to the evolution of your own sensibility, your concern for craft, and your perseverance in completing individual projects while allowing each one to serve as a ground for the next.
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Instructor: Dr. Samantha Krukowski
office: UA9 2.112K / 471.4222
samantha@rasa.net
office hours: by appointment

TA: Scott Nyerges
hutchense@yahoo.com
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Things to buy (or get)

An unlined sketchbook with acid-free paper (hereafter referred to as the black book)
Small ziploc bags
Glue (RC 56 or Neutral Ph Adhesive)
Hot glue gun and hot glue sticks
Collage materials
Xacto knife and blades, self-healing cutting mat
Scissors
Good drawing paper (should have some tooth)
Cheap drawing paper (various options)
Graphite pencils in various weights (4B, 2B, HB, H, 2H, 4H)
Pencil sharpener
Tuff stuff eraser (or another good brand)
Charcoal
Kneaded eraser
Paints, inks, other wet media
Clear 16mm film leader (available for purchase in equipment checkout)
Clear 16mm splicing tape (available for purchase in equipment checkout)
Materials for direct film work
Mini-DV tapes
CD-RWs or, better, a portable firewire HD

Materials will vary for each project. Costs are a function of time and materials. The cost of materials can be altered somewhat by decisions you make (i.e.: resource pooling, bulk ordering, alternative methods). Be ready to spend what is required to effectively execute your work and to coordinate your efforts to lower prices.
Places to buy such stuff: The University Co-op (drag location has best selection), Asel Art, Miller Blueprint, Breed and Company, Hobby Lobby. There are many online resources, and better art supply stores in Houston than in Austin.

Things to know

You should be self-motivated to succeed in this course. Work is cumulative. If you are not used to setting your own goals and keeping a fast pace you may have trouble participating and producing work. We are here to help you as you develop ideas, interests and questions. Be prepared to work hard, collaborate with others, stretch your boundaries, share what you learn. Students with no prior background in analog or digital arts are discouraged from taking the course, though there are always exceptions.

The course has a listserv: intermedia@lists.cc.utexas.edu. Your e-mail address will be added to the listserv after the first week of class. Use this listserv to communicate with us, your fellow students, ask technical questions, contribute ideas, share resources. In addition, you are encouraged to go to the Convergent Media web site and subscribe to the Converge listserv (http://www.cm.aces.utexas.edu/original/resourceslistservs.shtml). This listserv includes many people who are involved with intermedia work; it is an additional resource for you during and after the duration of this course.

Questions you have and develop may be resolved by practice or by other types of inquiry--theoretical, philosophical, scientific, poetic, etc. There should be times during the semester that you get stuck. You should develop the tools to unstick yourself. If you don’t know what to make, go look at what other people have made. If you don’t know what to say, go read something or watch something or listen to someone interesting. If you are still stuck, in all probability you are not making enough stuff to get yourself moving toward a question you can answer through practice or thought. A motto for the course: Make, make, make. If you show up for help, you will be asked what you are making and for evidence of your efforts and research in the direction of your inquiries.

Your black book should be your best friend. Carry it with you everywhere and use it to write and think; dream and play; sketch and draw; collect, insert and paste; sculpt and decorate. Do not use this book as a personal diary; it should be a record of your involvement with the course and the projects you make throughout the semester. Get in the habit of using this book during reviews and class conversations. It is important to record what you learn during critiques of your work and that of your classmates. While your work is being reviewed, it may be valuable for you to ask someone else to record the conversation in your book for you.

Your technical ability will increase in proportion to your effort. Hack and be resourceful. There are many, many online tutorials and resources for various programs. Lab facilities are limited which necessitates cooperative scheduling. You may need to use resources in several locations, and finding the right equipment at the right time will probably require initiative on your part.

Readings

There is a reserve list for this course at the Fine Arts Library. Some of the books on reserve include required readings, some do not but extend the field for our discussions and production. You may wish to purchase some of the books since many are wonderful. Take advantage of this catered-to-you mini library.

To see the reserve list for this course online, go to: http://reserves.lib.utexas.edu/courseindex.asp or to my website: http://www.cm.aces.utexas.edu/faculty/skrukowski/professorial/curentcourses.html and click on “reserve list” for Intermedia

Grading

Projects 1-3 70%
Documentation and Presentation (including black book and website) 30%

A high grade will be assigned to those students who work hard, participate extensively and continuously, demonstrate a clear understanding of the readings and course concepts, and produce work that shows evolution in terms of sensibility, process, craft, scope and final composition / work.

A failing grade will be assigned to any student who does not complete all of the projects, misses more than three class sessions, and / or who misses any part of any review.

Documentation and presentation are both large parts of your participation in the course—invest in them.

As in any creative class, grading criteria are necessarily subjective. You may not agree with our personal evaluation, but decisions are final and no post-grading negotiation will be permitted. I discourage incompletes.

Projects

# 1 You will be given a xerox copy of a painting. Study the image carefully. Make a list of the characteristics in it that most interest you (some easy examples: color, contrast, line, form, space, movement, imagery, structure.) Make ten copies of the copy and separate them into five pairs. Place each pair, stacked image-on-image, in a horizontal line in front of you. Name each pair with one characteristic from your list. Then, using forethought and a sharp xacto knife, take each pair and cut out the parts of the image that you feel are related to the characteristic you chose for it. Be careful to cut through both sheets simultaneously so that you make duplicate forms. Separate out the forms for each pair into two piles, but make sure you keep them separate from the forms you derive from other pairs. By the end of this exercise, you should have ten piles of forms separated into five groups and within each of the five groups, two piles that contain exactly the same stuff.

Part 1
Make five 8x10 collages on board (use the same board type for all of them; cut the board to size carefully, and replace your blades often.) For each collage, use the forms from one pile of the five groups you made. The characteristic that guided your cutting method for this pile should guide the method of your collage work. You must use all the forms from the pile but you may not add any additional information from other media or other sources. Don’t forget to name each collage with its characteristic (write it on the back.) Put each of the five remaining piles in a ziploc bag and write the characteristic affiliated with each one on each bag. Don’t lose these.

Part 2
Make five 8x10 collages, again on board, using your five prior collages as reference points and objects of study. You may construct these collages using any material you like, but they should move towards 3D. Each collage be governed by your attention to two things: 1) the collage that inspired it, and 2) the characteristic with which you named that first collage.

Part 3
Gather your ziploc bags. The stuff in the bags is now your video content field. Using a digital camera and Frame Thief, make a frame-by-frame animation of the forms in the ziploc bags. Animate the forms in each bag progressively, and remember the order in which you animate them so the characteristics they represent are ordered before you begin any editing processes. Try to animate them in such a way that they correspond to their named characteristics. You may choose to build an apparatus from which to animate the forms during this exercise. Your collages may inform, but should not be included in it. You should end up with a silent quicktime movie when you are finished. Aim for two minutes in length.

# 2 Project your animation and watch it a number of times. Capture the gestures and movements in your animation, using wet media on paper, in two ways:

1) Make five drawings by watching the animation from a distance and drawing to it. In this exercise your eyes should not leave the animation to watch or guide your hands. Composition is not important—focus on the process and experience of looking and drawing in response, without watching yourself draw. Each drawing should be based on one viewing of the animation. All five drawings should be the same size. Consider carefully how the size of the paper you choose will affect the content and style of the drawings you eventually make.

2) Make five drawings by placing paper in the projection path of the animation and drawing as much as you can of what falls on the paper. In this exercise you will be following the animation with your eyes and with your hands simultaneously, and you will be faced with the problem of tracing kinetic imagery (making moving images into still ones) while paying attention to composition. Again, each drawing should be based on one viewing of the animation. Again, the five drawings should be the same size, but you should choose their scale carefully. Consider especially how the size of the paper relates to the size of the projection, the distance between your paper and the projector, and the way in which your body and hands can move based on the field you allow for them.

For both parts of this exercise, you may want to make more than five drawings and choose the best of those you have made. Color may or may not be a component of this exercise; if you choose to employ color, choose your palette with conviction.

# 3 Write an image narrative onto one-half roll of clear 16mm film leader that is inspired by all of the forms you have developed in the previous projects. Use whatever materials and processes seem appropriate. When you have finished, transfer the film to mini-DV, and then dump it to Final Cut Pro. Import into the same project scans of the collages, your quicktime animation, and scans of your gesture/movement drawings. Using all of this material, create a final video with sound that is carefully conceived and edited. The length of this video should be determined by its content and character.

Documentation and Presentation

Black Book
Collected and graded at semester’s end, at which point it should be full, well used, worn.

Website and CD-ROM
Throughout the semester you will develop a website that documents your work in the course. This site should be designed in such a way that it evokes the character of the work you pursue and complete. You will be given a personal directory on the Convergent Media server where you can store your files. Post-dates for online project representation are the same as project due dates. At the end of the semester this website and its dependent files should be duplicated on a CD-ROM for archival purposes and turned in with your black book.

Mini-DV tape, Project #3
Make a copy of your mini-DV tape for Project #3 and turn it in at the end of the semester.
Semester presentations

You will be asked often to discuss readings, ideas and the progress of your work with the class and /or visitors. Be prepared for these discussions, and participate in them fully. Your attendance is mandatory at the Final review scheduled on December 6 from 12-6pm. Failure to participate will result in an F for the course. Plan your schedule accordingly.

Faculty Information

To find out more about Samantha Krukowski see: http://www.rasa.net

University Speak

Regarding Scholastic Dishonesty: The University defines academic dishonesty as cheating, plagiarism, unauthorized collaboration, falsifying academic records, and any act designed to avoid participating honestly in the learning process. Scholastic dishonesty also includes, but is not limited to, providing false or misleading information to receive a postponement or an extension on a test, quiz, or other assignment, and submission of essentially the same written assignment for two courses without the prior permission of the instructor. By accepting this syllabus, you have agreed to these guidelines and must adhere to them. Scholastic dishonest damages both the student's learning experience and readiness for the future demands of a work-career. Students who violate University rules on scholastic dishonesty are subject to disciplinary penalties, including the possibility of failure in the course and/or dismissal from the University. For more information on scholastic dishonesty, please visit the Student Judicial services Web site at http://www.utexas.edu/depts/dos/sjs/.

About services for students with disabilities: The University of Texas at Austin provides upon request appropriate academic accommodations for qualified students with disabilities. For more information, contact the Office of the Dean of Students at 471-6259, 471-4641 TTY.

About the Undergraduate Writing Center: The Undergraduate Writing Center, located in the FAC 211, phone 471-6222, offers individualized assistance to students who want to improve their writing skills. There is no charge, and students may come in on a drop-in or appointment basis.