Course detail

Critical Practice 2

FaVU-4CP-2Acad. year: 2024/2025

The course provides a critical platform for collective discussion, experiments, and sharing of experiences. Students learn how to critically reflect on their art/design work and on the work of others. Students examine art/design practice in relation to their complex histories and their currency in wider social and cultural processes. They engage with what it means to practice as an artist/designer today and how a particular artist`s/designer`s work and ideas are understood in and across different cultural, social, and political contexts. Seminars are facilitated by an experienced tutor who responds to the needs and concerns of the participants and ensures the in-depth critical analysis of examined topics.

Language of instruction

English

Number of ECTS credits

5

Mode of study

Not applicable.

Guarantor

Mgr. Martin Mazanec, Ph.D.

Department

Faculty of Fine Arts (FaVU)

Entry knowledge

Completion of Critical Practice 1.

Rules for evaluation and completion of the course

Credits awarded based on the active participation in seminars. Attendance of more than 70% is required.
Seminars are conducted primarily in the common study room of the program. Attendance of at least 70% is required.

Aims

The aim of the course is to create a responsive and engaging environment for discussion and sharing of experiences and to help students develop the confidence and ability to discuss their own work and the work of others.
Students know how to reflect on their art/design practice critically by subjecting the works of art/design, the processes involved in their making, and the ideas underpinning them to critical scrutiny.

Study aids

Not applicable.

Prerequisites and corequisites

Not applicable.

Basic literature

Not applicable.

Recommended reading

Bradley, Will, and Charles Esche. 2007. Art and Social Change: A Critical Reader. London: Tate Publishing. (EN)
Braidotti, Rosi, and Maria Hlavajova. 2018. Posthuman Glossary. London and New York: Bloomsbury. (EN)
Bürger, Peter. 1984. Theory of the Avant-Garde. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (EN)
Colomina, Beatriz, and Mark Wigley. 2017. Are We Human? Notes on an Archeology of Design. Lars Müller Publishers. (EN)
Davis, Heather M., and Etienne Turpin, eds. 2015. Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Aesthetics, Politics, Environments and Epistemologies. London: Open Humanities Press. (EN)
Demos, T. J. 2017. Against the Anthropocene: Visual Culture and Environment Today. Berlin: Sternberg Press. (EN)
Dunne, Anthony, and Fiona Raby. 2013. Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: The MIT Press. (EN)
Foster, Hal, Rosalind E. Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, B. H. D. Buchloh, and David Joselit. 2004. Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism. New York: Thames & Hudson. (EN)
Heeswijk, Jeanne van, Maria Hlavajova, and Rachael Rakes, eds. 2021. Toward the Not-Yet: Art as Public Practice. Utrecht and BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: BAK, basis Steyerl, Hito. 2017. Duty Free Art: Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War. London and New York: Verso. (EN)
Hlavajova, Maria, and Simon Sheikh. 2016. Former West: Art and the Contemporary After 1989. Utrecht and Cambridge: BAK, basis vor actuele kunst and The MIT Press. (EN)
Hlavajova, Maria, Simon Sheikh, and Jill Winder, eds. 2011. On Horizons: A Critical Reader in Contemporary Art. Utrecht: BAK, basis voor actuele kunst. (EN)

Classification of course in study plans

  • Programme FAAD Master's 1 year of study, summer semester, compulsory

Type of course unit

 

Seminar

39 hod., compulsory

Teacher / Lecturer

Mgr. Martin Mazanec, Ph.D.
Mgr. et MgA. Kristína Jamrichová, Ph.D.

Syllabus

The course curriculum responds to the needs and concerns of the students, as well as to current sociopolitical debates and recent developments in contemporary art/design. Seminars are facilitated by the tutor who ensures effective achievement of the main objectives of the course. The objectives of the course are the following:

1. To contribute to students` understanding of concerns relating to their art/design practice — to develop their ability to critically reflect on the works of art/design, the processes involved in their making, and the ideas underpinning them.
2. To instruct students how to give a meaningful feedback to their peers.
3. To encourage students` participation in group discussions and experiments and to help them understand how to use the combined knowledge and experience of the group as a tool assisting the development of their practice.
4. To help students develop a critical practice that is attentive and responsive to current sociopolitical debates and recent developments in contemporary art/design.