LINKS

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Syllabus

430 Student Writings

NMD 430 Blogspot

LINK TO iTunesU Podcasts

ONLINE LECTURES

Introduction

to the course (active)

1 A look back and forward in time (active)

2 The Politics of Body: A talk with Milan Kothout (active)

Milan Kohout’s work (active video samples)

3 Kenneth Feinstein The Simulacra of Jean Baudrilard and beyond (Link on iTunes U)

5 At Home With John Phillips (Link on iTunes U. This lecture is divided into 3 parts)

6 Narrative Temporality

(Link on iTunes U)

7 Martin Reiter @ Tacheles

(Link on iTunes U)

8 Pjotr @ Tacheles

(Link on iTunes U)

8 Katrina McPherson

Special iPodU Session

(Link on iTunes U)

8 Peter Richardson

Special iPodU Session

(Link on iTunes U)

8 Dan Norton

Special iPodU Session

(Link on iTunes U)

9 Kevin Henderson

Special iPodU Session

(Link on iTunes U)

Deadlines (check for due dates)

A1 TBA

Clip Frame Sequence Poetry

A 2 TBA

Sound and Vision

A 3 TBA

Sound Poem (examples at iTunes)

A 4 TBA

Poetics and time

A 5 TBA

3600 Image Stream Poem.

A 6 TBA

READINGS

R 1 TBA

Readings 287-finish book

R 2 TBA

Readings pages 237-286

R 3 TBA

Readings pages 195-236

R 4 TBA

Readings pages 120- 191

R 5 TBA

Readings pages vi- 118

(all readings require a minimum 250 word response and must be labeled and formated correctly “R1_NMD430S0_JaneDoe.doc)

Links to related sites

1. •MIlan Kohout
   

2. •Diogenes
   

3. •More on Diogenes of Sinope
   

4. •John Phillips website
   

5. •Experimental Television Center
   

6. •Tacheles
   

7. •Martin Reiter
   

8. •Pjotr Riedelspeg
   

9. •Katrina Mcpherson
   

10. •Peter Richardson
    

11. •Dan Norton
    

12. •Kevin Henderson
    

Click here to email me

Back to the main iPodU page

GRADING

45% Final

30% MIDTERM

25% PARTICIPATION

Based on in class attendance and discussion, your posting to the weekly "notes" FirstClass conference and your weekly posting to the class reflections blog.

GRADING: Grades will be given on assignments (not exercises) and at midterm. Your grade is composed of the following separate parts:

Overall demonstration of growth during this course

Comprehension of process as it relates to content of this course

Successful completion of all in class work

Successful completion of all assigned projects

Demonstrated ability to take risks relevant to objectives

Documentation of creative process

Skillful handling of media (technique)

Overall quality of work

Understanding and application of criticism

Participation in class discussions and labs

Attendance and punctuality along with completion of all additional exercises and readings

Final Project

HOMEWORK: You must complete all of the homework for this class by the announced deadline. Late work is not accepted.  All work done in this class will be uploaded to my .iDisk public folder into the NMD 430 folder and the particular assignment folder (see “How to Up Load Files” under the “Technical Instructions” on the main page here is the LINK. When uploading work it must be compressed and submitted as an H.264 QuickTime file format no other file format whatsoever will be acceptable (no Flash, AVI or others). You must keep a copy of the work on file as I will not keep them during the semester. You must also keep a copy as an archive for use in creating your DVD. This file should be in a  DV NTSC QuickTime file format. It is recommended that when you export a final project, from Final Cut Pro, After Effects, iMovie or whatever program you work in, as both formats (use the render Que. of a program to select both) DV NTSC (again for archiving) and H.264 (again for the purpose of uploading only).

DIGITAL DOCUMENT:  You must document your process and keep all work done during the semester. This should include all online writings to every aspect of projects done. Additionally, you must document the process by which you conceive ideas and develop your work. All this “information” must be kept and maintained until the end of the semester at which time you are to compile it into a well designed DVD portfolio of your work. You will be using the DV NTSC files you saved to make this DVD (more on how to do this later for those of you who are unfamiliar with this process.

EXTRA CREDIT: Any work that you do above and beyond what is required will merit you extra credit and will help you to achieve an "A+".  Extra credit does not replace homework or missed classes.

INCOMPLETE: A grade of incomplete may be granted to students who have suffered serious illness during the academic term, resulting in failure to complete all assignments by the end of the quarter. Proper documentation s required and must be attached to the petition for a grade of incomplete. A student who has missed over 25% of the quarter may not be eligible for an incomplete.

ATTENDANCE:  As this an online course you are only required to keep up with assignments as and deadlines as announced. It is your responsibility to check this website at least twice a week for new postings. Generally it will be best to check on Monday and Tuesday mornings.

IMPORTANT: This syllabus is not a contractual obligation between the professor and the student. It is subject to coherent change at the discretion of the professor. Please keep this syllabus with you throughout the semester.

ACADEMIC HONESTY:  Academic honesty is expected.  Plagiarism is unacceptable in this course and will result in a failing grade.  “Although a writer may use other persons’ words and thoughts, they must be acknowledged as such.” Joseph Gibaldi and Walter S. Achtert, MLA Handbook (Modern Language Association) 1977, p. 4.

STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES: If you have a disability for which you may be requesting an accommodation, please contact either me or Ann Smith, Coordinator of Services for Students with Disabilities (Onward Building, 581- 2319), as early as possible in the term.

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS AND METHODS

INCLASS NOTES: Each class I will ask someone to take lecture notes and post them for the day. I encourage all students to take notes and post them to the proper FC folder as well.

REQUIRED READING: There may be a carefully selected set of readings given to you throughout the semester. All readings are chosen to “fit” in with a particular project or topic of discussion. Whenever a reading is distributed (some online other Xeroxed) you are to read it and post a response within twenty-four hours to the appropriate FirstClass folder. Once all postings are up you are to read everyone else’s initial posting. Then you are to respond to either three (minimum) other postings or respond “in thread sequence” to a particular posting (again at least a minimum of three times). On a specified day, after the readings and postings we will hold a discussion of the readings and responses in class.

REQUIRED BOOKS:

Installation Art In The New Millennium, ISBN: 0-500-28451-2 (2006)

Time: Its Origin, Its Enigma, Its History, Alexander Waugh, Publisher: Carroll & Graf,

ISBN-10: 0786708700 (I suggest buying it used from Amazon)

Reading 1: Installation Art In The New Millennium

Readings pages 6-1055 Post a 150 to 250 word response to the reading by to my iDisk public folder NMD 430> R1. Save your file as a Word “.doc” document and properly label the reading folders.

Reading 2: Installation Art In The New Millennium

Readings pages 106-165 Post a minimum 250 word response to the reading to my iDisk public folder NMD 430> R2. Save your file as a Word “.doc” document and properly format and label.

Reading 3: Jean Baudrillard Simulacra and Simulation

Read the PDF attached to the email and post a minimum 500 word response to  my iDisk public folder NMD 430> R3. Save your file as a Word “.doc” document and properly format and label.

Reading 4: Installation Art In The New Millennium

Readings pages 166-192 (end of book) Post a minimum 500 word response to the entire book to my iDisk public folder NMD 430> R4. Save your file as a Word “.doc” document and properly format and label.

Reading 5: Time: Its Origins, Its Enigma

Readings pages 1-142 Post a minimum 250 word response to the first half of the book to my iDisk public folder NMD 430> R5. Save your file as a Word “.doc” document and properly format and label.

Reading 6: Time: Its Origins, Its Enigma

Readings pages 142-280 (end of book) Post a minimum 500 word response to the entire book to my iDisk public folder NMD 430> R6. Save your file as a Word “.doc” document and properly format and label.

ASSIGNMENTS:

The following is a planner of all assignments for the semester. These are subject to change or “re-sequencing” I will inform you of all due dates when each assignment is introduced. Please note that all assignments should be properly labeled with the assignment number, course, semester, year and name as follows: “A1_NMD430S08_JaneDoe.doc” for readings “R1_NMD430S08_JaneDoe.doc.”

Assignment 1: The Cinematic and You.

In this course you will be exploring ideas of montage, superimposition and frame-rate as artistic and expressive elements of a time-based media. I would like you to consider if in some way the introduction of these into our social milieu has broken our overall cultural narrative. Reflect and consider if one or all of the elements has migrated from being only aspects of the media they are used in to impacting us on a direct human level. In specific focus on if they have altered the way in which you perceive and or experience your world? In addressing the question take a stand as to whether or not the impact is beneficial or harmful. Explain in your own opinion how one or more of the three has changed the way in which you engage and respond to your experience of reality. Please limit your response to 250 words saved as a document uploaded to the appropriate folder (NMD 430 A1) on my iDisk.

Assignment 2: Edit on 12 Frames DUE: FRIDAY FEB 1 by 5 p.m.

All visual art or design forms have a set of basic elements that are used in the creation of that form. For instance, in drawing you have such things as point, line, plane, texture, color and so forth. In a time-based medium you have several such elements as well. For the moment we will consider the following as key elements: frame-rate, montage and superimposition (there is also mise en scène which we will talk about later but it is mostly directly related to more traditional filmmaking). Of these frame-rate will be the first thing we work with in a project.

The frame-rate of a visual time-based work accounts for duration and other temporal qualities. It can be sped up slow down set in forward or reverse motion. How you edit a work really determines the absolute structure of the work. You can edit in continuity and keep the narrative structure intact in a linear fashion. Or you can choose to disrupt that structure.

In this assignment you are to make a linear narrative piece. The only restriction you will have is that no cut can be over 12 frames working at an overall frame rate of 24 frames per second (fps). It is important that your narrative be one that has action (active movement elements) as that is what best will show a 12 frame edit. In editing in 12 frame intervals no cut can be over 12 frames but you can have a cut that is any length under 12 frames (1 frame, 2 frames etc up to 12).

How you approach this problem is up to you. You can choose to think and shoot as if you are going to edit in 12 frames. My suggestion is to shoot and edit a three minute piece that has at least five scenes and a good variety of shots. Then edit this down at 12 frames per cut. This way you have an initial structure to work with and it will be easier to think through to the end.

In the film De Fem benspænd, (2003 “The Five Obstuctions”) by Jørgen Leth, filmmaker Jørgen challenges another filmmaker, Lars von Trier, to try remaking a film several times each time with a different set of obstructions one of which is to limit edits to 12 frames, read:

"The Five Obstructions", a 100 min. theatre documentary directed by Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth. An investigative journey into the phenomenon of "documentary", based on manifestos written by each director. About a filmmaker not only revisiting, but also recreating (not in a conventional sense) one of his first films, The Perfect Human / Det perfekte menneske (1967), a document on life in Denmark, containing the familiar Leth idiosyncrasies  (from IMDB.com LINK)

I am posting an excerpt of this for your viewing at:

LINK (not yet active)

And a few examples from last semesters student projects

EXAMPLE 1 12 Frames Cuba from 5 Obstacles

EXAMPLE 2 Student example

REQUIREMENTS:

1. •To limit edits in a time-base work to 12 frames only
   

2. •To create a final work that is 45 seconds to a minute and a half in length.
   

3. •Establish a simple narrative that has a basic story arch or a conceptual point to it. Make sure that your work contains action, movement is something that is dynamic visually.
   

4. •Build your project using After Effects or a similar program.
   

5. •You can use sound but you do not have to. It is recommended that you make the sound using ambient or found sound clips. If you choose to use music then use only instrumental no lyrics. Avoid making something that feels like a music video.
   

FORMAT:

1. •The final work should be no less then one minute at 3600 images at 60 frames per second and no more then 2 minutes and thirty seconds.
   

2. •Save your work in two formats as DVNTSC (720 x 480) for archiving and H.264 (640 x 480) to upload to the iDisk proper folder for the assignment. remember to label your file properly.
   

3. •Leave 3 seconds of black at the front and end of your work
   

4. •Include a title with your name, title- Edit on 12 Frames and a date
   

5. •Include i your credits any sources you use for copyrighted material.
   

Assignment 3: Simulacra: Reality of Context: Context as Reality DUE: Monday March 17th 11 p.m.

Montage, allows us to create complex levels of meaning and it also allows for time to be shown in a non-linear way, i.e., running back and forth, skipping from present to past and future. Two contemporary examples of the use of montage to create alternate narrative structures are the movies “Time Code,” and “Memento.” A creative use of montage can present the viewer with types of experiences that exist out of time, such as dream states, empowering the creator of the work with an incredible temporal malleability.

The Soviet of concept of montage shaped the way in which modern time-based works are conceived. Filmmakers such as Lev Kuleshov, Dziga Vertov and Vsevolod Pudovkin developed early theories on the montage effect. Among the Russian filmmaking pioneers was Sergei Eisenstein, who believed that montage could convey powerful ideas and concepts; unlike the French idea of montage as simply cutting clips or sequences together into a scene, he proposed a more powerful effect from a unique use of montage. He saw that when two individual shots or clips, each with a discrete meaning, collided (were cut together, i.e., montage), from this collision of independent (Eisenstein, 1969) a third meaning, separate from the two can be inferred. The idea is similar to concepts in semiotics and the formation of meaning in language (Reddy, 1993) through the relationship of signs, symbols, icons and indexes (Minor V.H. & Abrams, H., 1994).

American filmmaker Maya Deren pushed the creative use of montage further in her highly stylized and alternative form of cinematic storytelling. She used montage to juxtapose different narrative story-lines and edit together dramatically different scenes to create extraordinary shifts in time and place. Her experiments with temporal shifts and spatial jumps influenced future styles in editing, adding to the cinematic language that formed in the later part of last century.

Montage is not only powerful in its ability to create levels of meaning through visual semiotics but it can be used to create or simulate context; in essence it can distort the “reality” of our physical world through juxtaposition of the edits. Through well considered shooting and precise editing, any given context or reality can be created, suggested or “generated” in a time-based medium. it is not necessary to rely on superimposition or other special effects to create simulations or the hyperreal. In fact, good editing can create a sense of “the real” that can often seem to be more real then (at this technical time in the medium) what can be done through special effects. The time-based artists ability to “generate reality” through the edit is a core tool and element of this medium.

OBJECTIVE: Re-contextualize yourself or a friend (ideally yourself) into a narrative you create out of parts of pre-existing time-based work(s), placing yourself in an fictional event, you generate from one that is is either historical (already documented through film or video), commercial-fictional (placed in the scene of any commercial film) or through any combination of the afore mentioned a into the new narrative or fiction of your own. This is to be accomplished through editing only, no use of any special effects whatsoever.

REQUIREMENTS:

1. •Develop a short, maximum one minute and forty-five second, fictional narrative you would like to create based on any part or combination of cuts from other filmed works.
   

2. •Your narrative is to be delivered through a visual sequence alone, no spoken or written words or dialogue is allowed. If you use music it cannot have lyrics nor can it be used to guide the visual narrative as you must rely on editing, visual contextualization and sequence.
   

3. •Apart from not being allowed to use word (spoken or written) and the limitations on music you must use sounds to impart the sense of reality to your fiction.
   

• Research what parts of any films, videos, newscasts etc., that you can use to create the “reality of you fiction.”

1. •Gather a set of clips assembled from parts of historical events documented through film or video (no matter what they should be digitized) and/or a scenes from a commercial films that you think you can use to create the “reality” for you narrative.
   

2. •Determine what shots are needed to insert yourself (ideally) or your “character” (friend) into the structure of the  narrative that you have developed.
   

3. •Assemble the clips you gathered and the original shots you created into a cohesive whole through deft and precise editing.
   

4. •You are allowed to use any amount of  color correction you wish to create an overall visual continuity for you final work, such as desaturation.
   

CONSIDER:

• It is extremely important that you take time to examine the clips you are gathering to work with you should try to find things that work in some kind of context with one another and/or have some apparent continuity.

• You may find it is best to take one particular filmed event or movie and cut out the scenes that you wish to use to generate your fiction.

• Make sure that you have gathered enough clips from scenes of other works to create a strong series of visual sequences necessary to deliver your narrative.

• Really consider how you shoot your own original clips carefully determining camera angle, distance from subject, i.e., wide medium or tight shots and so forth.

• Analyze the lighting in the collected shots so that when you shoot your own clips you can match it as best as possible.

1. •Pay attention to the timing of your shots and the clips you have gathered, remember well the lesson you learned in the “Edit on 12 Frames” assignment, that indeed 12 frames is a long time.
   

2. •Quick cuts, to a degree, are going to be best as it will be easier to make the viewers eye convince their “brain’ of the reality you are creating.
   

3. •Sequence is the most important par of this work, it all about the visual sequence. In essence you are creating something like a motion storyboard or an animatic; a narrative delivered through a series of quick, terse tightly controlled edits.
   

4. •Consider resolution as another method aside form color correction, that can equalize the entire work.
   

EXAMPLE:

A good friend of mine sent me this link to someone he knows who is a artist and film student in Croatia at the University of Zagreb in the Experimental Film Program. It is an excellent example of how you can use “found” footage along with your original shots to generate a new reality or simulacra.

Luka Hrgovic LINK http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN0MORW9Nzg

Assignment 4: TBA

Assignment 5: TBA

Assignment 6: TBA

Assignment 7: TBA

Assignment 8: FINAL TBA