Course detail

Media Archive Presentation

FaVU-1PMA-ZAcad. year: 2024/2025

Media Archive Presentation is a series of lectures focused on the archving of ephemeral art. Art and artist databases, institutional resources, community run archival projects and inicitatives are also showcased within the sessions. Conceptual texts and deliberations are included as part of the curriculum. The aim of the course is to examine contemporary approaches to documenting and archiving within artistic practice and as a means of preserving conceptual, audiovisual and digital born content. 

Language of instruction

English

Number of ECTS credits

3

Mode of study

Not applicable.

Offered to foreign students

Of all faculties

Entry knowledge

User IT skills. Basic orientation in the history of 20th century culture.

Rules for evaluation and completion of the course

Final evaluation will be based on attendence (75%), active participation in class, the presentation of a project or theme of the student's choice accompanied by a theoretical text (comparative study, curatorial project, personal manifesto (approx. 1000 words) based on the given theme of the semester. Semester projects will be assesed based on relevance of theme and quality of research and delivery (presentation, text).
Projections are optional, but students who are absent must produce a paper corresponding with the presented document on the given session.

Aims

Documents of Presence and Experience is a series of lectures accompanied by audiovisual projections. Art films, videos, and documentaries and excerpts from lectures by international artists and collectives from the early 20th century to the present are shown throughout the course, illustrating theoretical deliberations on the theme of Process and Structure within artistic practice. Art and artist databases, institutional resources, alternative communities, and artist residencies are also showcased within the sessions. Conceptual texts and deliberations are included as part of the curriculum. The course's primary objective is to familarize students with a social history of performative artistic practice through the lens of experiential interpretation. Through ritual and mythmaking as points of departure, the course aims to move through underlying principles that have been adapted and incorporated into contemporary art production.
Upon succcessful completion of the course students will be able to: - identify and summarize the guiding concepts ritual and myth and its contemporary application - recognize references to ritual and performative process within contemporary art practice - write a theoretical text detailing or adopting the mechanisms of the myth, ritual , or cultural performance - analyse the socio-politcal context which gave/gives rise to shifts in aesthetic paradigms Students should be able to identify and describe the socio-politcal contexts which gave rise to avant-garde cultural movements, discuss key works, and understand the mechanisms of participatory practice.

Study aids

Not applicable.

Prerequisites and corequisites

Not applicable.

Basic literature

Dewey, John, Art as Experience, The Berkeley Publishing Group (EN)
Gadamer, Hans-Georg, Truth and Method, Bloomsbury Academic (EN)
Kotz,Liz (2010), “Words to Be Looked At: Langugae in 1960s Art.” MIT Press (EN)
Jones, Amelia (1997), “Presence’ in Absentia: Experiencing Performance as Documentation.” IN Art Journal 56, 4, 1997 (EN)
Ricoeur, Paul (1978), “Archives, Documents, Traces.” In Charles Merewether, The Archive, Documents of Contemporary Art, Whitechapel / The MIT Press, London/Massachusetts: 2006 (EN)
Schechner, Richard, Performance Studies: An Introduction, Routledge (EN)
Stiles, Kristine, & Selz, Peter, Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings, Universtiy of California Press (EN)

Recommended reading

Not applicable.

Classification of course in study plans

  • Programme VUM_B Bachelor's 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
    4 year of study, winter semester, elective
  • Programme FAAD Master's 2 year of study, winter semester, elective
    1 year of study, winter semester, compulsory-optional
  • Programme VUM_B Bachelor's 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
    4 year of study, winter semester, elective
    3 year of study, winter semester, elective
    4 year of study, winter semester, elective
    3 year of study, winter semester, elective
    4 year of study, winter semester, elective
    3 year of study, winter semester, elective
    4 year of study, winter semester, elective
    3 year of study, winter semester, elective
    4 year of study, winter semester, elective
    3 year of study, winter semester, elective
    4 year of study, winter semester, elective
    3 year of study, winter semester, elective
    4 year of study, winter semester, elective
    3 year of study, winter semester, elective
    4 year of study, winter semester, elective
    3 year of study, winter semester, elective
    4 year of study, winter semester, elective
    3 year of study, winter semester, elective
    4 year of study, winter semester, elective
    3 year of study, winter semester, elective
    4 year of study, winter semester, elective
  • Programme ZST-BX Bachelor's 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
  • Programme ZST-NX Master's 1 year of study, winter semester, elective
  • Programme VUM_B Bachelor's 3 year of study, winter semester, elective
    4 year of study, winter semester, elective

Type of course unit

 

Seminar

26 hod., compulsory

Teacher / Lecturer

Syllabus

Key Themes: Documentation, Archiving, Preservation, Ephemeral Art, Performance Art, Grass Roots Initiatives

Class sessions take the form of weekly presentations of various platforms and practices focused on preservation of alternative artistic practice as well as examples of institutional incitatives. Meetings are based on student's active participation and discussions primarily around considerations of questions such as: Why do we as artists engage in documenting, archiving, and preserving? What is the purpose of these methods for preserving art and cultural heritage? What is the significance of documenting transient and ephemeral events?