Visual Arts
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All courses, faculty listings, and curricular and degree requirements described herein are subject to change or deletion without notice. Updates may be found on the Academic Senate website: http://senate.ucsd.edu/catalog-copy/approved-updates/.
Courses
For course descriptions not found in the UC San Diego General Catalog, 2016–17, please contact the department for more information.
Note: The following list of courses represents all visual arts offerings; not all courses offered each year.
Lower Division
VIS 1. Introduction to Art Making: Two-Dimensional Practices (4)
An introduction to the concepts and techniques of art making with specific reference to the artists and issues of the twentieth century. Lectures and studio classes will examine the nature of images in relation to various themes. Drawing, painting, found objects, and texts will be employed. Prerequisites: none. This course is offered only one time each year.
VIS 2. Introduction to Art Making: Motion and Time Based Art (4)
An introduction to the process of art making utilizing the transaction between people, objects, and situations. Includes both critical reflection on relevant aspects of avant-garde art of the last two decades (Duchamp, Cage, Rauschenberg, Gertrude Stein, conceptual art, happenings, etc.) and practical experience in a variety of artistic exercises. Prerequisites: none. This course is offered only one time each year.
VIS 3. Introduction to Art Making: Three-Dimensional Practices (4)
An introduction to art making that uses as its base the idea of the “conceptual.” The lecture exists as a bank of knowledge about various art world and nonart world conceptual plays. The studio section attempts to incorporate these ideas into individual and group projects using any “material.” Prerequisites: none. This course is offered only one time each year.
VIS 20. Introduction to Art History (4)
This course examines history of Western art and architecture through such defining issues as the respective roles of tradition and innovation in the production and appreciation of art; the relation of art to its broader intellectual and historical contexts; and the changing concepts of the monument, the artist, meaning, style, and “art” itself. Representative examples will be selected from different periods, ranging from Antiquity to Modern. Content will vary with the instructor. Prerequisites: none.
VIS 21A. Introduction to the Art of the Americas or Africa and Oceania (4)
Course offers a comparative and thematic approach to the artistic achievements of societies with widely divergent structures and political organizations from the ancient Americas to Africa and the Pacific Islands. Topics vary with the interests and expertise of instructor. Prerequisites: none. Student may not receive credit for VIS 21 and VIS 21A.
VIS 21B. Introduction to Asian Art (4)
Survey of the major artistic trends of India, China, and Japan, taking a topical approach to important developments in artistic style and subject matter to highlight the art of specific cultures and religions. Prerequisites: none. Student may not receive credit for VIS 21 and VIS 21B.
VIS 22. Formations of Modern Art (4)
Wide-ranging survey introducing the key aspects of modern art and criticism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including neoclassicism, romanticism, realism, impressionism, postimpressionism, symbolism, fauvism, cubism, Dadaism and surrealism, abstract expressionism, minimalism, earth art, and conceptual art. Prerequisites: none.
VIS 23. Information Technologies in Art History (4)
This seminar introduces fundamentals of art historical practice such as descriptive and analytical writing, compiling annotated bibliographies with traditional and online resources, defining research topics, and writing project proposals. Prerequisites: none. Art history majors only.
Note: Prerequisite for VIS 112 and highly recommended for all other seminars. Must be taken within a year of declaring major or transferring into the art history program.
VIS 30. Introduction to Speculative Design (4)
Speculative design uses design methods to question and investigate material culture with critical creative purpose. This course provides a historical, theoretical, and methodological introduction to speculative design as a distinct program. Emphasis is tracing the integration of interdisciplinary intellectual and technical problems toward creative, unexpected propositions and prototypes. Prerequisites: none.
VIS 40. Introduction to Computing in the Arts (4)
An introduction to the conceptual uses and historical precedents for the use of computers in art making. Preparation for further study in the computer arts area by providing overview of theoretical issues related to the use of computers by artists. Introduces the students to the program’s computer facilities and teaches them basic computer skills. Prerequisites: none. Materials fee required.
VIS 41. Design Communication (4)
This course provides a strong foundation in contemporary techniques of design communication, including: digital image editing, typography, vector-based illustration and diagramming, document layout, as well as basic digital video editing tools, and web-production formats. Emphasis is on mastery of craft through iteration and presentation of multiple projects. Students may not receive credit for VIS 140 or ICAM 101 and VIS 41. Prerequisites: none.
VIS 60. Introduction to Digital Photography (4)
An in-depth exploration of the camera and image utilizing photographic digital technology. Emphasis is placed on developing fundamental control of the processes and materials through lectures, field, and lab experience. Basic discussion of image making included. Prerequisites: none. Materials fee required.
VIS 70N. Introduction to Media (6)
Operating as both a lecture and production course, this introductory class provides a technical foundation and theoretical context for all subsequent production-oriented film and video studies. In the laboratory, the student will learn the basic skills necessary to initiate video production. Completion of Visual Arts 70N is necessary to obtain a media card. Prerequisites: none. Materials fee required.
VIS 80. Introduction to the Studio Major (4)
A practical introduction to the studio art major and a conceptual introduction to how diverse strategies of art-making are produced, analyzed, and critiqued. Introduces historical and contemporary topics in painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, and performance art and field-based practices. Required for all studio majors and minors including transfer students. Must be taken in residence at UC San Diego. Prerequisites: none.
VIS 84. History of Film (4)
A survey of the history and the art of the cinema. The course will stress the origins of cinema and the contributions of the earliest filmmakers, including those of Europe, Russia, and the United States. Prerequisites: none. Materials fee required. This course is offered only one time each year.
VIS 87. Freshman Seminar (1)
The Freshman Seminar Program is designed to provide new students with the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member in a small seminar setting. Freshman Seminars are offered in all campus departments and undergraduate colleges, and topics vary from quarter to quarter. Enrollment is limited to fifteen to twenty students with preference given to entering freshmen. Prerequisites: none.
Upper Division
VIS 100. Introduction to Public Culture (4)
This course is about the expansion of contemporary visual arts practice into a field of environmental, architectural, and urban sites. It foregrounds public engagement and political inquiry, explores new forms of research and community-based knowledge production, and develops strategies for visualizing the dynamics of contemporary urban life. Prerequisites: upper-division standing.
VIS 100A. Design of Public Culture (4)
This course will explore design strategies that engage today’s shifting public domain structures, situating the problematic of “the public” and the politics of public sphere as sites of investigation, and speculating new interfaces between individuals, collectives, and institutions in coproducing more critical and inclusive forms of public space and culture. Prerequisites: VIS 30, 41, and 100.
VIS 101. Introduction to Urban Ecologies (4)
This course examines expanded meanings of the urban and the ecological into new conceptual zones for artistic practice and research, introducing urbanization as complex and transformative processes of interrelated cultural, socioeconomic, political, and environmental conditions, whose material and informational flows are generative of new interpretations of ecology. Prerequisites: VIS 30 and 41.
VIS 101A. Designing Urban Ecologies (4)
This course will explore design strategies that engage peoples' shifting geopolitical boundaries, bioregional and ecosystems, urban structures and landscapes, and recontextualize the city as a site of investigation by developing new ways of intervening into expanded notions of urban space, including virtual communities and new speculations of urbanity. Prerequisites: VIS 30, VIS 100, and VIS 101.
VIS 102. Cross-Border Urbanizations (4)
Introduction to urban inequality across the Tijuana-San Diego region, and the border flows that make the marginalized neighborhoods within this geography of conflict into sites of socioeconomic and cultural productivity, laboratories to rethink the gap between wealth and poverty. Prerequisites: upper-division standing.
VIS 105A. Drawing: Representing the Subject (4)
A studio course in beginning drawing covering basic drawing and composition. These concepts will be introduced by the use of models, still life, landscapes, and conceptual projects. Prerequisites: two from VIS 1, 2, 3 and 111.
VIS 105B. Drawing: Practices and Genre (4)
A continuation of VIS 105A. A studio course in which the student will investigate a wider variety of technical and conceptual issues involved in contemporary art practice related to drawing. Prerequisites: VIS 105A.
VIS 105C. Drawing: Portfolio Projects (4)
A studio course in drawing, emphasizing individual creative problems. Class projects, discussions, and critiques will focus on issues related to intention, subject matter, and context. Prerequisites: VIS 105B.
VIS 105D. Art Forms and Chinese Calligraphy (4)
This course treats Chinese calligraphy as a multidimensional point of departure for aesthetic, cultural, and political concerns. This conceptually based course combines fundamental studio exercises with unconventional explorations. Students are exposed to both traditional and experimental forms of this unique art and encouraged to learn basic aesthetic grammars. There are no Chinese language requirements for this course. Prerequisites: VIS 105A.
VIS 105E. Chinese Calligraphy as Installation (4)
This course concerns East–West aesthetic interactions. What are the conceptual possibilities when calligraphy, an ancient form of Chinese art, is combined with installation, a contemporary artistic Western practice? Emphasis is placed on such issues as cultural hybridity, globalization, multiculturalism, and commercialization. Prerequisites: VIS 105D.
VIS 106A. Painting: Image Making (4)
A studio course focusing on problems inherent in painting—transferring information and ideas onto a two-dimensional surface, color, composition, as well as manual and technical procedures. These concepts will be explored through the use of models, still life, and landscapes. Prerequisites: two from VIS 1, 2, 3 and 111.
VIS 106B. Painting: Practices and Genre (4)
A continuation of VIS 106A. A studio course in which the student will investigate a wider variety of technical and conceptual issues involved in contemporary art practice related to painting. Prerequisites: VIS 106A.
VIS 106C. Painting: Portfolio Projects (4)
A studio course in painting emphasizing individual creative problems. Class projects, discussions, and critiques will focus on issues related to intention, subject matter, and context. Prerequisites: VIS 106B.
VIS 107A. Sculpture: Making the Object (4)
A studio course focusing on the problems involved in transferring ideas and information into three-dimensions. Course will explore materials and construction as dictated by the intended object. Specific problems to be investigated will be determined by the individual professor. Prerequisites: two from VIS 1, 2, 3 and 111.
VIS 107B. Sculpture: Practices and Genre (4)
A studio course in which the student will investigate a wider variety of technical and conceptual issues as well as materials involved in contemporary art practice related to sculpture. Prerequisites: VIS 107A.
VIS 107C. Sculpture: Portfolio Projects (4)
A studio course in sculpture emphasizing individual creative problems. Class projects, discussions, and critiques will focus on issues related to intention, subject matter, and context. Students may not receive credit for both VIS 107C and VIS 107CN. Prerequisites: VIS 107B.
VIS 108. Advanced Projects in Art (4)
A studio course for serious art students at the advanced level. Stress will be placed on individual creative problems. Specific orientation of this course will vary with the instructor. Topics may include film, video, photography, painting, performance, etc. May be repeated twice for credit. Prerequisites: consent of instructor, department stamp required.
VIS 109. Advanced Projects in Media (4)
Individual or group projects over one or two quarters. Specific project organized by the student(s) will be realized during this course with instructor acting as a close adviser/critic. Concept papers/scripts must be completed by the instructor prior to enrollment. Prerequisites: VIS 180A and VIS 180B for media majors, or consent of instructor for ICAM majors. Open to media and ICAM majors only. Two production-course limitation.
VIS 110A. Contemporary Issues and Practices (4)
An examination of contemporary studio art practice. The course is divided among research, discussion, and projects. Field trips to galleries and discussions with artists will combine with the students moving their work into a dialogue with the issues raised. Prerequisites: two from VIS 104CN, 105C, 106C, 107CN and 147B.
VIS 110C. Proposals, Plans, Presentations (4)
Explores the use of the maquette, or sketch, in the process of developing, proposing and planning visual works in various media for public projects, site specific works, grants, exhibition proposals, etc. The student will work on synthesizing ideas and representing them in alternate forms that deal with conception, fabrication and presentation. Prerequisites: two from VIS 104CN, 105C, 106C, 107CN and 147B.
VIS 110D. Visual Narrative/Tableau (4)
Examination and use of multimedia in exploring narrative issues in art making. The identification of subject leads to the determination of choice or mix of media and construction of narrative. Traditional studio practice surrounding narrative painting and sculpture, forms such as comic drawing or story boards, and the use of photo, video, and computing. Prerequisites: two from VIS 104CN, 105C, 106C, 107CN, or 147B, or consent of instructor
VIS 110E. Art in Public Space/Site-Specific Art (4)
Course takes painting, sculpture, and related media out of the studio/gallery and into the public sphere by examining the contemporary history of public artworks with traditional and nontraditional site-specific work, focusing on production, critical discussion, and writing. Prerequisites: two from VIS 104CN, 105C, 106C, 107CN, or 147B, or consent of instructor.
VIS 110F. Installation: Cross-Disciplinary Projects (4)
Attempts to expand the idea contained in a singular work, or object, into the use of multiple objects, images, and media that redefines the idea as well as the space for which it is intended. Examination of historic, modern, and contemporary works would be brought into discussion of project development and execution. Prerequisites: two from VIS 104CN, 105C, 106C, 107CN and 147B.
VIS 110G. The Natural and Altered Environment (4)
Explores the natural and altered environment as a basis for subject as well as placement of work pertaining to the environment. Prerequisites: two from VIS 104CN, 105C, 106C, 107CN and 147B.
VIS 110J. Ritual Performance (4)
The course will explore forms of art making that use dream and myth, body art, dance, social drama, happenings, story telling, and enactments of contemporary and traditional forms of performance art that involve a crossing of the lines between different arts and genres. Prerequisites: two from VIS 104CN, 105C, 106C, 107CN and 147B.
VIS 110M. Studio Honors I (4)
An advanced studio course intended for the productive, motivated, and self-disciplined student with a clear and unified body of work. The intent is to help refine and expand the student’s work and ideas towards an exhibition and verbal written position. Prerequisites: consent of the instructor, department stamp required. Note: The Studio Honors I and the attached Studio Honors II count as one course toward the fulfillment of a Group IV requirement.
VIS 110N. Studio Honors II (4)
The second advanced studio course in the Honors Program in Studio, the successful completion of which will lead towards an honors degree in the studio major. The course builds on the critical and technical issues raised in Studio Honors I. Prerequisites: VIS 110M.
VIS 111. The Structure of Art (4)
This course examines the significant topics in art practice, theory, and history that are shaping contemporary art thinking. A wide range of media, ranging across studio art practice, digital media, performative practices, and public culture will be considered as interrelated components. This course is required for visual arts transfer students. This course is offered during winter quarter only. Prerequisites: upper-division standing.
VIS 112. Art Historical Methods (4)
A critical review of the principal strategies of investigation in past and present art-historical practice, a scrutiny of their contexts and underlying assumptions, and a look at alternative possibilities. The various traditions for formal and iconographic analysis as well as the categories of historical description will be studied. Required for all art history and criticism majors. Prerequisites: VIS 23 and one upper-division art history course; two recommended.
VIS 113AN. History of Criticism I: Early Modern (4)
Using a wide range of nineteenth-century texts, this course will offer close discussions of romantic criticism and aesthetic philosophy (ideas of originality, genius, and nature); the conditions of "modern life"; realism and naturalism; science and photography; and questions of form, expression, symbolism, and history. This is a seminar course. Recommended preparation: two upper-division art history courses. Prerequisites: VIS 112.
VIS 113BN. History of Criticism II: Early Twentieth Century (1900–1950) (4)
The principal theories of art and criticism from symbolism until 1945: formalism and modernism, abstraction, surrealism, Marxism, and social art histories, phenomenology, existentialism. Prerequisites: none; VIS 112 or two upper-division courses in art history strongly recommended.
VIS 113CN. History of Criticism III: Contemporary (1950–Present) (4)
Recent approaches to the image in art history and visual culture: structuralism, semiotics, psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, postmodernism, feminism, postcolonialism, cultural studies. Prerequisites: none; VIS 112 or two upper-division courses in art history strongly recommended.
VIS 114A. Landscape and Memory (4)
This seminar treats landscape as site, image, symbol, and ideal through a historical examination of the major themes and issues in the forms and functions of landscape and its representation in the European and, to a certain extent, the American tradition from antiquity to the present day. These historical discussions will also form a framework for observations on and analyses of contemporary landscape, both as experienced and as an idea. This course presumes no prior knowledge of the field. This course fulfills the theory requirement and seminar requirement in the art history program. Recommended preparation: VIS 20. Prerequisites: upper-division standing.
VIS 114B. The Fragment: Uses and Theories (4)
This seminar focuses on the dynamic and at times contentious relationship between antiquity and the Middle Ages as it played out in various environments—physical, social, cultural, and intellectual—from Rome to Constantinople to Venice, Pisa, and Florence. After considering classic and contemporary formulations of the problem, it turns to in-depth examination of the architecture, images, objects, and techniques at sites in the history of art, where fragments were deployed and displayed. This course fulfills the theory requirement and seminar requirement in the art history program. Recommended preparation: VIS 20 or VIS 112. Prerequisites: upper-division standing.
VIS 114GS. Arts and Visual Culture in China (4)
This course studies important developments in the arts of China in the context of contemporary cultural phenomena. The factors behind the making of art will be brought to bear on selected objects or monuments from China's great artistic eras. Prerequisites: upper-division standing or consent of instructor and departmental approval.
VIS 117E. Problems in Ethnoaesthetics (4)
This seminar will address and critique various approaches to studying the art of non-Western societies with respect to their own aesthetic and cultural systems. Students are encouraged to explore comparative philosophies of art and test paradigms of Western aesthetic scholarship. Prerequisites: upper-division standing; VIS 21A or 21B or 112 or two upper-division courses in art history strongly recommended.
VIS 117F. Theorizing the Americas (4)
Examines the philosophical debates that locate the Americas in relation to the modern world. Prerequisites: upper-division standing.
VIS 117I. Western and Non-Western Rituals and Ceremonies (4)
This course will examine the process of image-making within specific ceremonies and/or rituals. Selected ceremonies from West Africa, Melanesia, Nepal, and the United States, including both Christian and non-Christian imagery, will be considered. Performance art and masquerade will be analyzed within a non-Western framework. Prerequisites: upper-division standing. VIS 21A recommended. Student may not receive credit for VIS 126F and VIS 117I.
VIS 120A. Greek Art (4)
Greek classical civilization was a turning point in the history of humanity. Within a new kind of society, the idea of the individual as free and responsible was forged, and with it the invention of history, philosophy, tragedy, and science. The arts that expressed this cultural explosion were no less revolutionary. The achievements of Greek art in architecture, sculpture, and painting will be examined from their beginnings in the archaic period, to their epoch-making fulfillment in the classical decades of the fifth century BC, to their diffusion over the entire ancient world in the age of Alexander and his successors. Prerequisites: none; VIS 20 recommended.
VIS 120B. Roman Art (4)
Roman art was the “modern art” of antiquity. Out of their Italic tradition and the great inheritance of Greek classic and Hellenistic art, the Romans forged a new language of form to meet the needs of a vast empire, a complex and tumultuous society, and a sophisticated, intellectually diverse culture. An unprecedented architecture of shaped space used new materials and revolutionary engineering techniques in boldly functional ways for purposes of psychological control and symbolic assertion. Sculpture in the round and in relief was pictorialized to gain spatial effects and immediacy of presence, and an extraordinary art of portraiture investigated the psychology while asserting the status claims of the individual. Extreme shifts of style, from the classicism of the age of Augustus to the expressionism of the third century AD, are characteristic of this period. The new modes of architecture, sculpture, and painting, whether in the service of the rhetoric of state power or of the individual quest for meaning, were passed on to the medieval and ultimately to the modern West. Prerequisites: none; VIS 20 recommended.
VIS 120C. Late Antique Art (4)
During the later centuries of the Roman Empire, the ancient world underwent a profound crisis. Beset by barbarian invasions, torn by internal conflict and drastic social change, inflamed with religious passion that was to lead to a transformed vision of the individual, the world, and the divine, this momentous age saw the conversion of the Roman world to Christianity, the transfer of power from Rome to Constantinople, and the creation of a new society and culture. Out of this ferment, during the centuries from Constantine to Justinian, there emerged new art forms fit to represent the new vision of an otherworldly reality: a vaulted architecture of diaphanous space, a new art of mosaic, which dissolved surfaces in light, a figural language both abstractly symbolic and urgently expressive. The great creative epoch transformed the heritage of classical Greco-Roman art and laid the foundations of the art of the Christian West and Muslim East for the next thousand years. Prerequisites: none; VIS 20 or 120B recommended.
VIS 121AN. Art and Experience in the Middle Ages (4)
This survey course follows the parallel tracks of the sacred and secular in art and architecture from Constantine to the Crusades. Highlights include the emergence of Christian art, visual culture of the courts, development of monasteries, fall and rise of towns and cities, and arts of ritual. The thematic juxtaposition of different media and medieval people speaking in their own voices yields a multidimensional image of society in which the medieval experience is made as concrete as possible. Recommended preparation: VIS 20. Prerequisites: upper-division standing.
VIS 121B. Church and Mosque: Medieval Art and Architecture between Christianity and Islam (4)
This course surveys the changes in art and architecture caused by the rise of new religions after the ancient world demise, a period of upheaval and contention often known as the “Clash of Gods.” How did Christianity come to dominate Europe with its churches and monasteries and then Islam with its mosques in the Middle East and North Africa? Studying the role of religion in the formation of artistic styles will show a dynamic interaction between the visual cultures of Christianity and Islam. Recommended preparation: VIS 20. Prerequisites: upper-division standing.
VIS 122AN. Renaissance Art (4)
Italian artists and critics of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries were convinced that they were participating in a revival of the arts unparalleled since antiquity. Focusing primarily on Italy, this course traces the emergence in painting, sculpture and architecture, of an art based on natural philosophy, optical principles, and humanist values, which embodied the highest intellectual achievement and deepest spiritual beliefs of the age. Artists treated include Giotto, Donatello, Masaccio, Brunelleschi, Jan van Eyck, Mantegna, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Bramante, Durer, and Titian. Prerequisites: none; VIS 20 recommended.
VIS 122CN. Leonardo da Vinci in Context (4)
An in depth look at the art of Leonardo da Vinci with special emphasis on his training in Florence, interactions with Bramante, and the response to his work by Raphael. Prerequisites: upper-division standing.
VIS 122D. Michelangelo (4)
This course offers new approaches to understanding Michelangelo’s greatest creations. By considering how each work relates to the setting for which it was intended, by regarding critical literature and artistic borrowings as evidence about the works, and by studying the thought of the spiritual reformers who counseled Michelangelo, new interpretations emerge which show the artist to be a deeply religious man who invested his works with both public and private meanings. Prerequisites: upper-division standing; or one of the following courses: VIS 20, 21, 22 or 23; or any upper-division course in art history and criticism or in European history.
VIS 122F. Leonardo’s La Gioconda (4)
A critical, art historical look at the world’s most famous painting and its interpretations. Prerequisites: VIS 23. One upper-division course in art history (113AN–129F) is recommended.
VIS 122GS. The City in Italy (4)
(Cross-listed with HIEU 124GS.) Language and culture study in Italy. Course considers the social, political, economic, and religious aspects of civic life that gave rise to the unique civic art, the architecture of public buildings, and the design of the urban environment of such cities as Florence, Venice, or Rome. Course materials fee may be required. Students may not receive credit for both VIS 122E and VIS 122GS or both HIEU 124 and HIEU 124GS. Prerequisites: upper-division standing or consent of instructor and departmental approval.
VIS 124BN. Art and the Enlightenment (4)
Eighteenth century artists and critics were convinced that art could be a force to improve society. This course places Roccoco and neoclassical artists such as Watteau, Fragonard, Tiepolo, Hogarth, Reynolds, Vigee Lebrun, Blake, and David, within the context of art academies, colonialism, the Grand Tour, Enlightenment conceptualizations of history and nature, and the American and French Revolutions. Prerequisites: none; VIS 20 or 22 recommended.
VIS 124CN. Nineteenth-Century Art (4)
A critical survey discussing the crisis of the Enlightenment, romanticism, realism and naturalism, academic art and history painting, representations of the New World, the Pre-Raphaelites, impressionism, international symbolism, postimpressionism, and the beginnings of modernism. Prerequisites: none; VIS 20 or 22 recommended.
VIS 125A. Twentieth-Century Art (4)
A critical survey outlining the major avant-gardes after 1900: fauvism, cubism, metaphysical painting, futurism, Dadaism, surrealism, neoplasticism, purism, the Soviet avant-garde, socialist realism, and American art before abstract expressionism. Prerequisites: none; VIS 20 or 22 recommended.
VIS 125BN. Contemporary Art (4)
Art after abstract expressionism: happenings, postpainterly abstraction, minimalism, performance, earth art, conceptual art, neoexpressionism, postconceptualism and development in the 1990s, including non-Western contexts. We also explore the relation of these tendencies to postmodernism, feminism, and ideas of postcoloniality. Prerequisites: none; VIS 20 or 22 recommended.
VIS 125DN. Marcel Duchamp (4)
A critical examination of the work of one of the most radical twentieth-century artists. In Duchamp’s four dimensional perspective, the ideas of art-object, artist, and art itself are deconstructed. The Large Glass and Etant Donnees are the twin foci of an oeuvre without boundaries in which many twentieth-century avant-garde devices such as chance techniques, conceptual art, and the fashioning of fictive identities, are invented. Prerequisites: none.
VIS 126AN. Pre-Columbian Art of Ancient Mexico and Central America (4)
An introduction to the cities and monuments of the ancient civilizations that flourished in Mexico and Central America before the Spanish Conquest. This course will cover the major cultures of Mesoamerica, including the Olmec, Aztec, and neighboring groups. Prerequisites: none; VIS 21 recommended.
VIS 126BN. The Art and Civilization of the Ancient Maya (4)
This course offers a history of Maya society from its formative stages to the eve of the Spanish Conquest through an investigation of its art and archeology. Special attention is given to its unique calendar and writing systems. Prerequisites: none; VIS 21 recommended.
VIS 126C. Problems in Mesoamerican Art History (4)
Topics of this seminar will address special problems or areas of research related to the major civilizations of ancient Mexico and Central America. Course offerings will vary to focus upon particular themes, subjects, or interpretive problems. Prerequisites: upper-division standing. VIS 21A recommended. Student may not receive credit for VIS 126B and VIS 126C.
VIS 126D. Problems in Ancient Maya Iconography and Inscriptions (4)
This seminar focuses upon the art, architecture, and inscriptions of the ancient Maya. Topics will vary within a range of problems that concern hieroglyphic writing, architecture, and visual symbols the Maya elite used to mediate their social, political, and spiritual words. Prerequisites: upper-division standing. VIS 21A recommended.
VIS 126HN. Pacific Coast American Indian Art (4)
Explores the art and expressive culture of American Indians of far western United States, including California and Pacific Northwest. Social and cultural contexts of artistic traditions and their relations to the lifeways, ceremonialism, beliefs, and creative visions of their makers. Prerequisites: upper-division standing. VIS 21A recommended. Student may not receive credit for VIS 126CN and VIS 126HN.
VIS 126I. Southwest American Indian Art (4)
Examines the history, art, and architecture of Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, and other Native American communities of New Mexico and Arizona; the origins of their civilization; and how their arts survived, adapted, and changed in response to Euro-American influences. Prerequisites: upper-division standing. VIS 21A recommended. Student may not receive credit for VIS 126D and VIS 126I.
VIS 126K. Oceanic Art (4)
An examination of the relation of art to ritual life, mythology, and social organization in the native Polynesian and Melanesian cultures of Hawaii, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Australia. Prerequisites: upper-division standing. VIS 21A recommended. Student may not receive credit for VIS 126E and VIS 126K.
VIS 126P. Latin American Art: Modern to Postmodern, 1890–1950 (4)
A survey of major figures and movements in Latin American art from the late-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Prerequisites: upper-division standing.
VIS 126Q. Latin American Art: Modern to Postmodern, 1950–Present (4)
A survey of major figures and movements in Latin American art from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Prerequisites: upper-division standing.
VIS 127A. Contemporary Arts in South Korea (4)
The course will examine the theories and practices of contemporary art in South Korea, and its systems of cultural productions and disseminations. Highlighting the work of representative artists, institutions, and events, focuses will be on the predominance of governmental and corporate sponsorships, and how its cultural system is positioned for national and global presence, as well as the emergence alternative art spaces that promote the decentralization of cultural programs. Course is part of Korean studies minor program. Prerequisites: upper-division standing.
VIS 127B. Arts of China (4)
Course will survey major trends in the arts of China from a thematic point of view, explore factors behind the making of works of art, including political and religious meanings, and examine contexts for art in contemporary cultural phenomena. Prerequisites: upper-division standing. VIS 21B recommended.
VIS 127C. Arts of Modern China (4)
Course will explore Chinese art of the twentieth century. By examining artworks in different media, we will investigate the most compelling of the multiple realities that Chinese artists have constructed for themselves. Prerequisites: upper-division standing. VIS 21B recommended.
VIS 127GS. Issues in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art (4)
This course investigates the multiple realities of art and visual culture in twentieth-century China, and explores the ways in which Chinese artists have defined modernity and their tradition against the complex background of China’s history. Prerequisites: upper-division standing or consent of instructor and departmental approval.
VIS 127N. Twentieth-Century Art in China and Japan (4)
Surveys the key works and developments in the modern art and visual culture of Japan from Edo and Meiji to the present and of China from the early twentieth century to contemporary video, performance, and installation art. Prerequisites: upper-division standing. VIS 21B recommended.
VIS 127P. Arts of Japan (4)
Course is a survey of the visual arts of Japan, considering how the arts developed in the context of Japan’s history and discussing how art and architecture were used for philosophical, religious, and material ends. Prerequisites: upper-division standing. VIS 21B recommended.
VIS 128A–E. Topics in Art History and Theory (4)
These lecture courses are on topics of special interest to visiting and permanent faculty. Topics vary from term to term and with instructor and many will not be repeated. These courses fulfill upper-division distribution requirements. As the courses under this heading will be offered less frequently than those of the regular curriculum, students are urged to check with the visual arts department academic advising office for availability and descriptions of these supplementary courses. Like the courses listed under VIS 129, below, the letters following the course number designate the general area in which the courses fall. Students may take courses with the same number but of different content, for a total of three times for credit. Prerequisites: none; courses in art history recommended.
VIS 128A. Topics in Premodern Art History (4)
A lecture course on a topic of special interest in ancient or medieval art. Prerequisites: upper-division standing; courses in art history (VIS 113AN–129F) are recommended.
VIS 128C. Topics in Modern Art History (4)
A lecture course on a topic of special interest on modern or contemporary art. May be taken three times for credit. Prerequisites: upper-division standing; courses in art history (VIS 113AN–129F) are recommended.
VIS 128D. Topics in Art History of the Americas (4)
A lecture course on the topic of special interest in the art of Latin America, the Ancient Americas, or Africa and the Pacific Islands. Students may not receive credit for VIS 128D and VIS 128DN. Recommended preparation: courses in art history (VIS 113AN–129F). May be taken for credit three times. Prerequisites: upper-division standing.
VIS 128E. Topics in Art History of Asia (4)
A lecture course on the topic of special interest in India, China, and Japan. Prerequisites: upper-division standing. Courses in art history (VIS 113AN–129F) are recommended.
VIS 129A–F. Seminar in Art Criticism and Theory (4)
These seminar courses provide the opportunity for in-depth study of a particular work, artist, subject, period, or issue. Courses offered under this heading may reflect the current research interests of the instructor or treat a controversial theme in the field of art history and criticism. Active student research and classroom participation are expected. Enrollment is limited and preference will be given to majors. The letters following 129 in the course number designate the particular area of art history or theory concerned. Students may take courses with the same number but of different content more than once for credit, with consent of the instructor and/or the program adviser. May be taken three times for credit. Prerequisites: VIS 112 or two upper-division courses in art history.
VIS 129A. Seminar in Premodern Art History (4)
A seminar on an advanced topic of special interest in ancient or medieval art. Prerequisites: VIS 112 or two upper-division courses in art history (VIS 113AN–129F).
VIS 129C. Seminar in Modern Art History (4)
A seminar on an advanced topic of special interest in modern or contemporary art. Prerequisites: VIS 112 or two upper-division courses in art history (VIS 113AN–129F).
VIS 129D. Seminar in Art History of the Americas (4)
A seminar on an advanced topic of special interest in the Ancient Americas to Africa and the Pacific Islands. Prerequisites: VIS 112 or two upper-division courses in art history (VIS 113AN–129F).
VIS 129E. Seminar in Art History of Asia (4)
A seminar on an advanced topic of special interest in India, China, and Japan. Prerequisites: VIS 112 or two upper-division courses in art history (VIS 113AN–129F).
VIS 129F. Seminar in Art Theory and Criticism (4)
A seminar on an advanced topic of special interest in art theory, art criticism, or the history of literature on art. Prerequisites: VIS 112 or two upper-division courses in art history (VIS 113AN–129F).
VIS 129G. Art History Honors Seminar (4)
This research seminar, centered on a series of critical, thematic, theoretical, and/or historical issues that cut across subdisciplinary specializations, provides outstanding advanced students with the opportunity to undertake graduate-level research. The first part of a two-part sequence completed by Art History Honors Directed Group Study (VIS 129H). Prerequisites: consent of instructor or art history faculty adviser, department stamp required. Note: The Art History Honors Seminar and the attached Art History Honors Directed Group Study counts as one course toward the fulfillment of the Group III requirement.
VIS 129H. Art History Honors Directed Group Study (4)
The second part of the honors program sequence, this course provides a forum for students engaged in research and writing to develop their ideas with the help of a faculty adviser and in conjunction with similarly engaged students. Prerequisites: consent of instructor or art history faculty adviser, department stamp required.
VIS 130. Special Projects in Visual Arts (4)
Specific content will vary each quarter. Areas will cover expertise of visiting faculty. May be repeated twice for credit. Prerequisites: two from (VIS 104CN, 105C, 106C, 107CN, and 147B) or one from (VIS 180A, 180B, 183A, and 183B) or consent of instructor/department stamp required. Visual arts/media, studio, ICAM majors only.
VIS 131. Special Projects in Media (4)
Specific content will vary each quarter. Areas will cover expertise of visiting faculty. May be repeated twice for credit. Prerequisites: two from (VIS 104CN, 105C, 106C, 107CN, or 147B) or one from (VIS 180A, 180B, 183A, and 183B) or consent of instructor. Open to studio, visual arts/media, and ICAM majors only.
VIS 132. Installation Production and Studio (4)
Through discussions and readings, the class will examine the issues and aesthetics of installation art making. Using media familiar to them, students will produce several projects. May be repeated once for credit. Studio and visual arts/media majors only. Prerequisites: two from (VIS 104CN, 105C, 106C, 107CN, or 147B) or one from (VIS 180A, 180B, 183A, and 183B) or consent of instructor. Open to studio, media majors only.
VIS 140. Digital Imaging: Image and Interactivity (4)
Introduction to digital image involving images, texts, and interactive display and operates both within computer-mediated space (i.e., website) and in physical space (i.e., artist book). Interactive narrative and computer programming are explored. Materials fee required. Prerequisites: VIS 40 or ICAM 40. Open to media, ICAM, and studio majors; computing and ICAM minors only. Two production-course limitation.
VIS 141A. Computer Programming for the Arts I (4)
Introduces external API’s currently of interest in the arts (example: OpenGL, J2ME, Servlet/JSP, Java3D) extending a common programming language such as C++ or Java. Students gain API fluency through planning and coding software or software mediated art projects. Materials fee required. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 40 or ICAM 40 and CSE 11 or CSE 8B. Open to ICAM majors and minors only.
VIS 141B. Computer Programming for the Arts II (4)
Students extend their programming capabilities to include the creation of reusable software libraries, packages, database API’s, tools, utilities, and applications intended to be publishable and useful to other practicing artists, or as preparatory work for the student’s senior thesis sequence. Materials fee required. Prerequisites: VIS 141A. Open to ICAM majors and minors only. Two production-course limitation.
VIS 145A. Time- and Process-Based Digital Media I (4)
Introduces time- and process-based digital media art making. Contemporary and historical works across time- and process-based media will be studied and projects produced. Topics may include software art, software and hardware interfacing, interaction, and installation in an art context. Recommended preparation: CSE 5A or equivalent programming experience. Materials fee required. May not receive credit for VIS 145A and ICAM 102. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 40 or ICAM 40. Open to media and ICAM majors and ICAM minors only.
VIS 145B.Time- and Process-Based Digital Media II (4)
Students will implement time- and process-based projects under direction of faculty. Projects such as software and hardware interfacing, computer mediated performance, software art, installation, interactive environments, data visualization and sonification will be produced as advanced study and portfolio project. Materials fee required. Prerequisites: VIS 145A or ICAM 102. Open to media and ICAM majors; ICAM minors only. Two production-course limitation.
VIS 147A. Electronic Technologies for Art I (4)
Develop artworks and installations that utilize digital electronics. Techniques in digital electronic construction and computer interfacing for interactive control of sound, lighting, and electromechanics. Construction of devices that responsively adapt artworks to conditions involving viewer participation, space activation, machine intelligence. Program or material fee may apply. Purchase of components kit required. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 40 or ICAM 40. Open to media, studio, and ICAM majors; ICAM minors only.
VIS 147B. Electronic Technologies for Art II (4)
Continuation of the electronics curriculum. Design of programmable microcontroller systems for creating artworks that are able to respond to complex sets of input conditions, perform algorithmic and procedural processing, and generate real time output. Purchase of components kit required. Prerequisites: VIS 147A. Open to media, studio, and ICAM majors; computing and ICAM minors only. Two production-course limitation.
VIS 149. Seminar in Contemporary Computer Topics (4)
Topics relevant to computer-based art- and music-making, such as computer methods for making art/music, design of interactive systems, spatialization of visual/musical elements, critical studies. Topics will vary. May be taken for credit three times. Recommended preparation: VIS 145A or ICAM 102 and MUS 170 or ICAM 103. Materials fee required. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 140 or ICAM 101. Open to media and ICAM majors; ICAM minors only.
VIS 151. History of the Experimental Film (4)
An inquiry into a specialized alternative history of film, consisting of experimental works made outside the conventions of the movie industry and, which in their style and nature, are closer to modernist painting, poetry, etc., than to the mainstream theatrical cinema. Works by such film artists as Man Ray, Salvador Dali, Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, and Michael Snow will be examined in depth. Materials fee required. Prerequisites: VIS 84 or consent of instructor.
VIS 152. Film in Social Context (4)
This collection of courses gathers, under one cover, films that are strongly marked by period, geography, and the culture within which they received their dominating local quality. These courses pay particular attention to the stamp of place—climate, dress, habitation, language, music, politics—as well as the filmic moves that helped color such works as environmental. The series takes in the following subjects: Third World films, the Munich films (the new wave of Germans who made their first features in Munich following 1967), Japanese movies, films of the American thirties and their relationship to current thought, American Westerns, ethnographic film, Brazil’s Cinema Novo, etc. Specific topics to be covered will vary with the instructor. May be repeated twice for credit. Materials fee required. Prerequisites: VIS 84 or consent of instructor.
VIS 152D. Identity through Transnational Cinemas (4)
Transnational Cinemas examine how US identities and film cultures have been forged through stories of exile, diaspora, and racial and sexual discrimination as well as cultural conflicts that have resonated here and abroad in the global film and media culture of the last century. Program or material fee may apply. Prerequisites: upper-division standing.
VIS 154. Hard Look at the Movies (4)
Examines a choice of films, selected along different lines of analysis, coherent within the particular premise of the course. Films are selected from different periods and genres among Hollywood, European, and Third World films. May be repeated once for credit. Materials fee required. Prerequisites: VIS 84 or consent of instructor.
VIS 155. The Director Series (4)
A course that describes the experiences, looks, and structure of director-dominated films. A different director will be studied each quarter. The student will be required to attend the lecture in the course and to meet with the instructor at least once each week. May be repeated three times for credit. Materials fee required. Prerequisites: VIS 84 or consent of instructor.
VIS 156. Latino American Cinema (4)
This course introduces students to the developing history of cinema in the Latin American region. It explores the multiple authors and film movements that engage cinema as an art form in relation to issues of modernization, development, and political and social crisis. It will regard the history of cinema in the subcontinent as a force generating important cultural transformations within the complex, conflictual processes of modernization. Students may not receive credit for both COGS 156 and VIS 125F. Prerequisites: none.
VIS 158. Histories of Photography (4)
Photography is so ubiquitous a part of our culture that it seems to defy any simple historical definition. Accordingly, this course presents a doubled account of the medium; it explores both the historical and cultural specificity of a singular photography as well as some of the multitude of photographies that inhabit our world. Will examine a number of the most important photographic themes from the past two hundred years. Prerequisites: none.
VIS 159. History of Art and Technology (4)
Aims to provide historical context for computer arts by examining the interaction between the arts, media technologies, and sciences in different historical periods. Topics vary (e.g., Renaissance perspective, futurism and technology, and computer art of the 1950s and 1960s). Material fee required. Prerequisites: upper-division standing.
VIS 161. Systems and Networks at Scale (4)
This course introduces students to the study and design of complex systems and networks at diverse scales, from the nanometric to the planetary (and perhaps beyond). Systems and networks are understood as both physical and conceptual organizations of tangible and intangible actors. These include: architectural and urban systems, information and interactive systems, diagrammatic and performative systems, and political and geopolitical systems. Prerequisites: VIS 30, VIS 41, and VIS 100.
VIS 162. Speculative Science and Design Invention (4)
The course seeks to bring the scientific laboratory into the artist and designers' studio, and vice versa. It explores intersections of advanced research in art/ design and science/technology. The course will focus on a specific laboratory innovation or a longer-term enduring challenge, and will conceive and prototype possible applications, scenarios, structures, and interventions. Course will be conducted in direct collaborations with other campus laboratories and research units. Prerequisites: VIS 161.
VIS 164. Photographic Strategies: Art or Evidence (4)
An intermediate course that expands the possibility of photography as an art practice. The students will learn to use and think of photography as a means of expression. Using the languages of contemporary art and photography the student will develop a body of work to be presented and critiqued. The construction of sequences, series, and the art of editing will be an important part of this critique-based course, Program or material fee may apply. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 60. Open to media and studio majors and photography minors only.
VIS 165. Camera Techniques: Analog Futures (4)
Course explores both material and conceptual analog photography practices. Course will introduce the students to the history of chemical and ocular processes since the nineteenth century and their impact on image making. Students will learn basic black-and-white darkroom techniques, processing film, proofing, and printing. Course will conclude with a primer in the new photographic hybridity, bringing analog into the digital terrain. Students will be required to create a small portfolio of work. Program or material fee may apply. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 60. Open to media and studio majors and photography minors only.
VIS 167. Social Engagement and Photography (4)
The photograph is an empirical object. This course will explore the use of photography as a tool to both understand and represent the world. Students will learn the history of the use of photography as evidence and as a tool of empirical knowledge. In a world where subjectivity is performed the students will be required to make a medium-sized work that engages the social in a creative way. Program or material fee may apply. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 60 and one from VIS 164 or VIS 165.
VIS 168. Pictorialism and Constructed Reality (4)
This course will explore photography as art and its long and complicated relationship with painting. Students will learn and be encouraged to experiment with the medium formally and conceptually. From studio and lighting techniques to collage, montage, constructed realities, installations, and projections. Program or material fee may apply. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 60 and one from VIS 164 or VIS 165.
VIS 171. Digital Cinema—Theory and Production (4)
A digital image is not a film image, and this reality and its technological and conceptual implications are what this course will attempt to map out, exploring its possibilities and the massive overhaul of media aesthetics it implies. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 174. Open to media majors only.
VIS 174. Media Sketchbook (4)
Video medium used both as production technology and as device to explore the fundamental character of filmmaking and time-based computer art practices. Students perform all aspects of production with attention to developing ideas and building analytical/critical skills. Prerequisites: VIS 70N. Open to media and ICAM majors only. Two production-course limitation.
VIS 175. Editing—Theory and Production (4)
The evolving aims and grammars of editing practice in film and digital media will be examined. These histories will create a context for exploring contemporary editing strategies. The production projects will be centered on digital editing practice. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 174. Open to media majors only.
VIS 176. 16mm Filmmaking (4)
A technical foundation and creative theoretical context for film production will be provided. Students will produce a short film with post-synchronized sounds and final mixed-track. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 174. Open to media majors only.
VIS 177. Scripting Strategies (4)
Script writing, reading, and analysis of traditional and experimental media productions. The emphasis will be on the structural character of the scripting process and its language. Students will write several short scripts along with analytical papers. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 174. Open to media majors only.
VIS 178. Sound—Theory and Production (4)
Sound design plays an increasing role in media production and has opened up new structural possibilities for narrative strategies. A critical and historical review of sound design and a production methodology component. Critical papers and soundtracks for short film projects will be required. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 174. Open to media majors only.
VIS 180A. Documentary Evidence and the Construction of Authenticity in Current Media Practices (4)
Exploration of concepts in representational artworks by critically examining “found” vs. “made” recorded material. Advanced film/video, photography, computing work. Issues of narrative and structure; attention to formal aspects of media work emphasized. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 174 and two from VIS 140, 145A, 147A, 164, 165, 171, 175, 176, 177, 178. Open to media majors only.
VIS 180B. Fiction and Allegory in Current Media Practices (4)
Exploration of choices in invention, emphasizing “made” over “found.” Advanced film/video, photography, and computing. Issues of narrative and structure, and formal aspects of media work emphasized. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 174 and two from VIS 140, 145A, 147A, 164, 165, 171, 175, 176, 177, 178. Open to media majors only.
VIS 181. Sound and Lighting (4)
Advanced course to gain sophisticated control of lighting and sound recording techniques with understanding of theoretical implications and interrelation between production values and subject matter. Interactions between sound and image in various works in film, video, or installation. Recommended preparation: VIS 171 Digital Cinema strongly recommended. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 174, and two from VIS 140, 145A, 147A, 164, 165, 171, 175, 176, 177, 178. Open to media majors only.
VIS 182. Advanced Editing (4)
Film/video editing and problems of editing from theoretical and practical points-of-view. Films and tapes analyzed on a frame-by-frame, shot-by-shot basis. Edit stock material and generate own materials for editing final project. Aesthetic and technical similarities/differences of film/video. Recommended preparation: VIS 175 Editing-Theory and Production strongly recommended. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 174 and two from VIS 140, 145A, 147A, 164, 165, 171, 175, 176, 177, 178. Open to media majors only.
VIS 183A. Strategies of Self (4)
Looks at the way that self-identity is reflected and produced through various media practices. Focus is on rhetorical strategies of biography and autobiography in media, comparing and contrasting these strategies with those drawn from related cultural forms. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 174 and two from VIS 140, 145A, 147A, 164, 165, 171, 175, 176, 177, 178. Open to media majors only.
VIS 183B. Strategies of Alterity (4)
Looks at difference as it is reflected and constructed in various media practices. Course will examine a wide range of forms and genres such as ethnography, science fiction, crime narratives, documentary film, political drama, and animated shorts. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 174 and two from VIS 140, 145A, 147A, 164, 165, 171, 175, 176, 177, 178. Open to media majors only.
VIS 184. Advanced Scripting (4)
Film/video production will be framed through the script writing process, focusing on the problems of longer duration, density, and adaptation from other media. Students will both read and analyze both historical and contemporary scripts and produce a thirty- to sixty-minute script. Recommended preparation: VIS 177 Scripting Strategies. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: VIS 174 and two from VIS 140, 145A, 147A, 164, 165, 171, 175, 176, 177, 178. Open to media majors only.
VIS 185. Senior Media Projects (4)
Through instruction and discussion, the class will focus on guiding students through advanced production on a senior project. Students will be expected to initiate and complete production on at least one portfolio-level project. May be taken for credit two times. Two production-course limitation. Prerequisites: two from VIS 171, 175, 177, 178 and one from VIS 180A, 180B, 181, 182, 183A, 183B, 184. Open to media majors only with senior standing.
VIS 194S. Fantasy in Film (4)
This course will explore the path of the deliberately “unreal” in movies. Fantasy in film will be considered both in terms of its psychological manifestations and also in terms of imaginary worlds created in such willfully antirealistic genres as science fiction, horror, and musical films. Materials fee required. Prerequisites: upper-division standing. Offered in Summer Session only.
VIS 197. Media Honors Thesis (4)
This advanced-level sequence coordinates three consecutive independent research courses to culminate in a completed thesis project in the third quarter of study. After the project’s public presentation, the faculty involved in the project will determine whether the student will graduate with departmental honors. Prerequisites: consent of instructor. Note: Requires a written proposal, 3.5 GPA in the major, prior consent from all involved, and approvals by the department chair and provost.
VIS 198. Directed Group Study (2–4)
Directed group study on a topic or in a group field not included in regular department curriculum, by special arrangement with a faculty member. Prerequisites: consent of instructor. Note: Open only to upper-division students. Requires instructor’s, department chair’s, and provost’s approval. Pass/Not Pass grades only.
VIS 199. Special Studies in the Visual Arts (4)
Independent reading, research, or creative work under direction of a faculty member. Prerequisites: consent of instructor. Note: Open only to upper-division students. Requires instructor’s, department chair’s, and provost’s approval. Pass/Not Pass grades only.
ICAM 103. Musical Acoustics (4)
(Cross-listed with MUS 170.) An introduction to the acoustics of music with particular emphasis on contemporary digital techniques for understanding and manipulating sound. Prerequisites: MUS 1A, 2A, or 4.
ICAM 110. Computing in the Arts: Current Practice (4)
Designed around the presentations by visiting artists, critics, and scientists involved with contemporary issues related to computer arts. Lectures by the instructor and contextual readings provide background material for the visitor presentations. Prerequisites: none. Note: Materials fee required.
ICAM 120. Virtual Environments (4)
Students create virtual reality artworks. Projects may be done individually or in groups. Exploration of theoretical issues involved will underlie acquisition of techniques utilized in the construction of virtual realities. Materials fee required. Prerequisites: VIS 145A or ICAM 102; CSE 11 recommended. Open to ICAM majors and minors only. Two production-course limitation.
ICAM 160A. Senior Project in Computer Arts I (4)
Students pursue projects of their own design over two quarters with support from faculty in a seminar environment. Project proposals are developed, informed by project development guidelines from real-world examples. Collaborations are possible. Portfolio required for admission. Prerequisites: VIS 141B or VIS 145B or VIS 147B or MUS 172. Open to ICAM majors only. Department stamp required.
ICAM 160B. Senior Project in Computer Arts II (4)
Continuation of ICAM 160A. Completion and presentation of independent projects along with documentation. Prerequisites: ICAM 160A. Open to ICAM majors only. Department stamp required.
Graduate
Core Seminars
VIS 201. Contemporary Critical Issues (4)
An exploration of a range of issues important on the contemporary critical scene through readings and writing assignments. Topics will vary from year to year. (Required, MFA)
VIS 202. Art Practice (4)
A workshop/seminar devoted to a particular materials practice (e.g., media, painting, digital media, etc.) that engages with critical questions arising within that discipline. Content will vary from quarter to quarter. May be repeated once for credit. (Required, MFA)
VIS 203. Working Critique (4)
Workshop in which students engage in an extensive evaluation of each others’ ongoing work in preparation for either the First Year Review or MFA Review. Offered every winter. May be repeated once for credit. (Required, MFA)
VIS 204. Rethinking Art History (4)
Critical evaluation of the methods, practices, and disciplinary commitments of art history, encompassing both revisionist interventions of the late twentieth century and earlier paradigms, in order to envision new discipline-specific and interdisciplinary directions for the future of art history and visual culture. (Required, PhD)
VIS 205. Introduction to Graduate Studies in Art Practice (4)
This seminar introduces art practice students to the graduate program in a workshop environment. Emphasis is on the production of new work and on situating that work in relation to a larger art context. (Required, MFA) Offered every fall and required of all first-year MFA students.
VIS 206. Seminar in Art Practice Research (4)
Seminar examines the interrelationship between theory and practice and the nature of artistic production as a form of research. Prerequisites: none. (Required for PhD in art practice concentration.)
VIS 207. Working Practice for Art Practice PhDs (4)
Workshop for PhD in Art Practice concentration students cotaught by PhD and MFA faculty offering extensive evaluation and critique of work. Intended to explore issues associated with artistic practice as a form of research in a university setting. Course is only applicable to VA76 and VA77 PhD programs. PhD students with a concentration in Art Practice my take VIS 207 each year until they qualify for candidacy.
Art Practice/Theory
VIS 211. Fact and Fiction (4)
This seminar addresses the space between narrative work generated from a factual base and that generated from a fictional one. Special attention will be given to discussing work that confounds the assumed gap between the two.
VIS 212. History and Memory (4)
This seminar will engage the space between personal and larger histories. How is one’s own past both intertwined with and determined by larger social histories?
VIS 213. Public Space (4)
An exploration of what public space is and how it operates, with a view toward an expanded context for considering how public artwork can operate within it. Included are areas such as mass media, activism, community action, computer networks, ecology, and alternative forums.
VIS 215. Human Interface (4)
Examines human interface as it informs or transforms how we read and participate in culture at large. Concepts such as subject/author/object relationships, abstraction, metaphor, analogy, visualization, and complexity are discussed to establish context.
VIS 216. The Object (4)
An investigation of the world of artifacts (“works of art” and others) and how they function as agents of communication and modifiers of consciousness. Contemporary perspectives drawn from the fields of art theory, anthropology, contemporary art, and semiotics will be utilized.
VIS 217. Communities and Subcultures (4)
A critical examination of the practices of self-defined communities (e.g., Bauhaus, Shaker, surrealists), which have attempted to change the social and spiritual quality of life by aesthetic means and of communities and subcultures defined by other means.
VIS 219. Special Topics in Art Practice/Theory (4)
Examines a topic of special interest to permanent and visiting faculty that is not addressed in the regular curriculum. As in other Art Practice/Theory seminars, students will both produce work and read and write critically about the topic. Topics will vary.
History/Theory/Criticism
Categories/Constructs
VIS 234N. Frames of View (4)
Critical and historical analysis of the institutions, social networks, and communicative media through which art is presented to its audiences. May also address theories of vision and visuality, spectatorship, public space, originality and reproduction, and public space.
Theories/New Visions
VIS 242. Theories of Media and New Media (4)
Critical study of the ways in which media (film, video, photography) and new media have been theorized. May be taught from a historical or comparative perspective or focus on a single topic or theorist.
VIS 243. Aesthetic Theory (4)
Study of the philosophical concepts of the function of art and visual culture and the criteria for its evaluation in diverse epochs and cultures. May be taught as an historical overview or comparative study or focus a single topic or theorist.
VIS 244. Studies in the Relationship of Theory and Practice (4)
Investigations of one or more artist-theorists or movements, contemporary or historical, that put in issue the interface between theory and practice. May also focus on a topic such as perspective, color, or narrative, or genre such as film or new media.
Times/Terrains
VIS 251. Seminar in Medieval Art (4)
European art from late antiquity through the fourteenth century and the historical processes by which "medieval" art has been constructed as a category. Topics may include devotional vision and the sacred image; medieval comic genres; neomedievalism, fifteenth century to today. May be taken for credit three times. Prerequisites: graduate standing or consent of instructor.
VIS 252. Seminar in Renaissance Art (4)
Concentrates on the art of the Renaissance in Italy and the North through a changing series of topics, e.g., Vision and Composition in Perspective; The Sistine Chapel; Envisioning Jan Van Eyck; Renaissance Print Making; Leonardo da Vinci’s La Gioconda. May be taken three times for credit. Prerequisites: graduate standing or consent of instructor.
VIS 254. Seminar in Modern Art (4)
European and American Art, ca. 1850 to 1960. Questions in Impressionism and Postimpressionism; The Cubist Revolution: Marcel Duchamp and the Anti-Formalist Tradition; American Modernism; Reckoning with Abstract Art; Issues of Dada and Surrealism; Soviet Avant-Gardes. May be taken three times for credit. Prerequisites: graduate standing or consent of instructor.
VIS 255. Seminar in Contemporary Art (4)
Thematic and critical discussions of recent US and international art, 1960s to the present. Art/Text; Mixed Media Practices; Conceptual Art; Art After Appropriation; Global Art at the Millennium; New Genres of Public Art; Mike Kelly and the Conceptual Vernacular: Art and Activism. May be taken three times for credit. Prerequisites: graduate standing or consent of instructor.
VIS 256. Seminar in Media and New Media (4)
Topics in media (photography, film, video) and new media, contemporary or historical. Coverage may be broad or addressed to a particular topic such as Film Remakes; Silent Cinema; Photography and Social Movements; The Language of New Media. Prerequisites: graduate standing or consent of instructor.
VIS 257. Seminar in Meso-American Art (4)
Topics relating to the art and civilizations of Pre-Columbian Mexico and Central America, either specifically art historical (such as iconographic, formal, and stylistic analysis) or encompassing a spectrum of interdisciplinary and cultural/historical problems. May be taken three times for credit. Prerequisites: graduate standing or consent of instructor.
VIS 258. Seminar in Chinese Art (4)
Advanced studies in the secular and religious art traditions of China. From year to year, the seminar may focus on early China (neolithic to the end of the T’ang dynasty), on later dynasties (Sung, Yuan, Ming) or on art of the People’s Republic. May be taken three times for credit. Prerequisites: graduate standing or consent of instructor.
VIS 259. Seminar in Latin American Art (4)
Historical and theoretical problems in the art of Mexico, Central, and South America art from the colonial period to today, as well as from the Hispanic traditions of the American Southwest. May be taken three times for credit. Prerequisites: graduate standing or consent of instructor.
VIS 260. Seminar in North American Indian Art (4)
Topics for this seminar concern Native American art history from ancient to contemporary times. Seminars may focus on archaeological and art historical approaches, philosophy and aesthetics, archaeoastronomy, and cultural contexts. Issues of globalization and transculturation may be examined as well.
Other
VIS 280. Workshop in Critical Writing (4)
Practice in writing about art (both one’s own and others) accompanied by analysis of selected contemporary critical writings.
VIS 281. Curatorial Practice (4)
Methodological investigation of and training in the practices of art museums, galleries, film and digital environments, public arts organizations, and the like. Instruction by museum and gallery curators and opportunities for participation in ongoing programs at local art institutions.
VIS 295. Individual Studies for Graduate Students (1–12)
Individual research with the student’s individual faculty adviser in preparation for their comprehensive exhibitions for the MFA degree or qualifying exam for the PhD. These units are intended to be with the chair of the student’s review committee. For the MFA degree, these units can only be taken after completing the First Year Review. (Required, MFA, PhD)
VIS 298. Directed Group Study (1–12)
Directed group study on specific topics not covered at present in the normal curriculum. Used as an experimental testing of courses that may be given regular course numbers if proved successful. Special arrangement with faculty member. Prerequisites: consent of department.
VIS 299. Graduate Research (1–4)
Graduate-level research under the direct guidance of a faculty member. Prerequisites: consent of instructor.
VIS 500. Apprentice Teaching (1–4)
Apprentice teaching in undergraduate courses given by the Department of Visual Arts. Graduate students are required to teach a minimum of one quarter (four units) within the department to fulfill degree requirements.