Listed in: Art and the History of Art, as ARHA-414 | Film and Media Studies, as FAMS-414
Emily Drummer (Section 01)
(Offered as ARHA 414 and FAMS 414)
In this studio-seminar course, we will investigate the history of video surveillance -- from hand-held 8mm cameras in the 1930s, closed-circuit television in the 40s, life-casting cam girls in the late 90s, to present-day police body cams, eye tracking, and facial recognition technology -- as a means to produce our own research-based artworks. Focused primarily on film and video (but open to those working across media), readings, screenings, and discussion will be interwoven with hands-on workshops in which we will creatively misuse various technologies of surveillance and violence. Screenings will include Rebecca Baron’s How Little We Know of Our Neighbors, Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, Alex Johnson’s Evidence of the Evidence, Meredith Lackey’s Cable Street, Walid Raad’s I Only WishThat I Could Weep, Deborah Stratman’s In Order Not to Be Here, Sharif Waked’s Chic Point: Fashion for Israeli Checkpoints and works by the Forensic Architecture group. Texts will include Jacques Attali’s Noise: The Political Economy of Music, Italo Calvino’s The King Listens, William Davies’ Nervous States, Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, among others.
Two 80 minute classes per week and one screening.
Spring 2023 semester. Visiting Professor Emily J. Drummer
How to handle overenrollment: Sophomores, juniors, and seniors. First-year students with consent of the instructor.
Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: weekly readings and screenings; critically engaged, research-based film and video projects; in-class activities (lectures, close readings of films and other artworks, discussions); regular short writing assignments (reading responses).
Section 01
Tu 10:00 AM - 11:20 AM FAYE 215
Tu 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM KECC 008
Th 10:00 AM - 11:20 AM FAYE 215