Virtual Reality from Courbet to Playstation

Transcription

1 ARTHI 5877 Virtual Reality from Courbet to Playstation Professor David Getsy Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism School of the Art Institute of Chicago Spring 2007 Graduate Seminar Wednesdays 1-4pm / MC dgetsy@saic.edu office: MC 710 / office hours: Thursdays 1-3pm COURSE DESCRIPTION This seminar will investigate the persistent and at times obsessive pursuit of 'realism' in visual representation. In particular, we will examine how the themes of realism, virtuality, immersion, and corporeal engagement have been central conceptual issues for both 19thcentury realisms (beginning with the Realist movement in France) and 21st-century paradigms of the virtual. Focusing on methodologies that stress the immersive or corporeally-engaged experience, the seminar will provide an introduction to conceptual issues for the study of nineteenth-century art and to their parallels in discussions of new media. In both, emphasis will be placed on the ways in which the bodies of artists and viewers are implicated in realist tactics. In short, we will ask why the accurate, detailed, and truthful rendering of the world has been a recurring fascination and, ultimately, an impossibility for both of these moments. COURSE STRUCTURE This is a reading-intensive, discussion-based seminar. Each three-hour session will focus on presentations and discussions of assigned texts. Students will be evaluated on the basis of their preparation, attendance, critical engagement with course themes, and research projects. There is one required textbook for the course: Michael Fried, Courbet s Realism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). All other readings will be posted on the course homepage on the Portal (go.artic.edu) or on the Docutek electronic reserve system (docutek.artic.edu/eres). For images, students should consult online image databases available through the Flaxman library, such as MDID (mdid.artic.edu) and ARTstor (

2 2 EVALUATION 1. ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION All students are expected to attend class meetings prepared to discuss the required readings. This is a discussion-based class, and all students should regularly and productively contribute to class discussions. Attendance at all class meetings is essential. More than two missed classes may be grounds for a no credit. 2. READING PRESENTATIONS Students will form groups A-D, and three times during the semester each group will be responsible for leading course discussion on a text or group of texts. This is a research assignment. In addition to reading the assigned texts, the student should also research the author, present the context, prepare an image presentation to accompany their introduction and discussion, develop questions for course discussion, and bring to class comparative examples from contemporary art. For each presentation, students will be required to prepare: 1. An outline according to which they will lead discussion, submitted to the professor by the Monday afternoon before the seminar. 2. Handouts for the class, including: a. The revised outline of the overall discussion b. Any supplemental or accompanying texts c. Lists of terms and definitions d. List of images (including illustrations from the articles as well as new comparative materials drawn from contemporary art) 3. Images, videos, websites, etc., prepared as a Powerpoint/Keynote document. Your image presentation must be fully-prepared and ready to go. Do not expect to just grab things off of Google Image at the last minute or in class. 4. From each member of the group: A summary and critical analysis of the text(s) (total 2-3 pages) to be submitted to the professor at the end of class that day. This is a graded assignment. NOTE: Students should plan to start research and preparation of their session at least two weeks in advance of the seminar. 3. READING QUESTIONS For each text assigned, all students should bring to class three typed questions for further discussion. Questions should be about the ideas or implications of the readings rather than merely factual. These are submitted at the end of class, and questions for each session must be submitted by the end of the semester in order to receive credit for the course. 4. RESEARCH PROJECT All students will engage in independent, original research on a topic relevant to the course themes. Projects should be distinct from research or work done for other classes. Topics can be drawn from any geographic location or historical period. [continued]

3 3 All topics must be approved by 28 March. Papers are due two Fridays after the presentation (9 days after), except for those students who are presenting on 9 May. Their papers are due 11 May at 4pm. Papers can be turned in at MC 606. The final research paper should be between 5000 and 6000 words (approx standard double-spaced typed pages), exclusive of a full bibliography, image captions, and endnotes. Bibliographies must contain at least 15 items from accepted sources. Websites and any form of encyclopedia entry are not acceptable sources. Books, journal articles, and online full-text articles from library indices and databases are acceptable sources. Graduate students from other departments may request that their research project take a form other than a conventional essay, but all projects must demonstrate and document original research and articulate a coherent and well-considered topic. DIFFERENTLY-ABLED STUDENTS Any students with exceptional needs or concerns (including 'invisible' difficulties such as chronic diseases, learning disabilities, or psychiatric complications) are encouraged to make an appointment with the professor to discuss these issues by the end of the second week of the term so that appropriate accommodations can be arranged. Any student in need of academic adjustments or accommodations because of a disability should first contact SAIC's Disability and Learning Resource Center (DLRC), formerly Services for Students with Disabilities. The Disability and Learning Resource Center can be reached by phone at or by sending an to Sara Baum at sbaum@saic.edu. DLRC will review the student's disability documentation and will work with the student to determine reasonable accommodations. DLRC will then provide the student with a letter outlining approved accommodations. This letter must be presented to the instructor before any accommodations will be implemented. Students should contact DLRC as early in the semester as possible. PLAGIARISM The School of the Art Institute of Chicago prohibits dishonesty such as cheating, plagiarism, or knowingly furnishing false information to the School. See Students Rights and Responsibilities, Student Handbook: One plagiarizes when one presents another s work as one s own. It is a form of intellectual theft. Plagiarism need not always be intentional. One can plagiarize even if one does not intend to. The penalty for plagiarizing ranges from a failing grade on the plagiarized assignment to not earning credit for the course. This may also result in some loss of some types of financial aid (for example, a No Credit in a course can lead to a loss of the Presidential Scholarship), and in cases of regular offenses can lead to expulsion from the School. The Faculty Senate Student Life Subcommittee has prepared a 28-page handbook entitled Plagiarism: How to Recognize It and Avoid It. The document is available online on at See also the concise guide at

4 4 COURSE CALENDAR All assigned readings must be completed before coming to the class for which they are assigned, and all students should prepare their three reading questions for the beginning of each class. Readings listed as further reference are optional and not included in the on-line reserves for the course. 31 January Introduction: Why Realism (Again)? 7 February Virtual reality and its recurring appeal: Historical trajectories of VR Required reading Richard Norton, What is Virtuality? Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 30.4 (Summer 1972): Oliver Grau, Into the Belly of the Image: Historical Aspects of Virtual Reality, Leonardo 32.5 (1999), Lev Manovich, The Illusions, in The Language of New Media(Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001), Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Photorealist Graphics and Virtual Reality in Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999), , February NO CLASS Prepare for your presentations on Courbet s Realism. 21 February Courbet s Realism Required reading Presentations Group A: Chapter 1 Group B: Chapter 2 Group C: Chapter 3 Group D: Chapter 4 Michael Fried, Courbet s Realism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). Chapters February Courbet s Realism II Required reading Presentations Group A: Chapter 5 Group B: Chapter 6 Group C: Chapter 7 Michael Fried, Courbet s Realism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). Chapters 5-7

5 5 Further reference Linda Nochlin, Courbet s Real Allegory: Rereading The Painter s Studio, Representing Women (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1999), Mary Roberts, Difference and Deferral: The Sexual Economy of Courbet s Femininity in J. Beaulieu, M. Roberts, and T. Ross, eds., Refracting Vision: Essays on the Writings of Michael Fried(Sydney: Power Publications, 2000) 7 March Conventions of realism after Courbet: Manet and the Impressionists Required reading Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life [excerpts], in C. Harrison, P. Wood, and J. Gaiger, eds., Art in Theory, (London: Blackwell, 1998), Jules Laforgue, Impressionism [1883], in L. Nochlin, ed., Impressionism : Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966), Anne Wagner, Why Monet Gave Up Figure Painting, Art Bulletin 76.4 (December 1994): Paul Smith, Pissarro s Political Vision, in Impressionism: Beneath the Surface (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995), Presentation Group D: Wagner 14 March Realism in Three Dimensions Required reading David Getsy, Hard Realism : The Thanatic Corporeality of Edward Onslow Ford s Shelley Memorial, in Body Doubles: Sculpture in Britain, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004), David Getsy, Privileging the Object of Sculpture: Actuality and Harry Bates s Pandora of 1890, Art History28.1 (February 2005): Naomi Schor, Duane Hanson: Truth in Sculpture, in Reading in Detail: Aesthetics and the Feminine (New York and London: Methuen, 1987), March Cézanne and Embodied Perception Required reading Maurice Denis, Cézanne [1907/1910], in C. Harrison and P. Wood, eds., Art in Theory: (London: Blackwell, 1992), Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Cézanne s Doubt, in G. Johnson, ed., The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader: Philosophy and Painting (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1993), Brendan Prenderville, Merleau-Ponty, Realism and Painting: Psychophysical Space and the Space of Exchange, Art History 22.3 (September 1999):

6 6 28 March The Reality of the Virtual in New Media and Popular Culture Required reading Jon McKenzie, Virtual Reality: Performance, Immersion, and the Thaw, The Drama Review 38.4 (Winter 1994): Petra Gemeinboeck, Virtual Reality: Space of Negotiation, Visual Studies 19.1 (2004): Brian Massumi, The Bleed: Where Body Meets Image and On the Superiority of the Analog, in Parables of the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002), 46-67, Lev Manovich, From DV Realism to a Universal Recording Machine, in M. Sondergaard, Get Real: Real Time + Art + Theory + Practice + History (New York: George Braziller, Inc., 2005), Presentations Further reference Group A: McKenzie+Gemeinboeck Group B: Massumi Craig D. Murray and Judith Sixsmith, The Corporeal Body in Virtual Reality, Ethos 27.3 (September 1999): [JSTOR] 4 April Video Games and Immersion Required reading Alison McMahan, Immersion, Engagement, and Presence: A Method for Analyzing 3-D Video Games, in M. J. P. Wolf and B. Perron, eds., The Video Game Theory Reader (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), Lev Manovich, The Screen and the User, in The Language of New Media (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001), Martti Lanti, As We Become Machines: Corporealized Pleasures in Video Games, in M. J. P. Wolf and B. Perron, eds., The Video Game Theory Reader (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), Jan-Willem Huisman and Hanne Marckmann, I am what I play: Participation and Reality as Content, in J. Raessens and J. Goldstein, eds., Handbook of Computer Game Studies (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005), Edward Castronova, Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier, in K. Salen and E. Zimmerman, eds., The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006), Presentations Group C: McMahan+Manovich+Lanti Group D: Hiusman/Marckmann+Castronova

7 7 11 April Virtual Reality and Artistic Practice Guest lectures by: JON CATES, Assistant Professor, Department of Film, Video, and New Media, School of the Art Institute of Chicago BEN CHANG, Assistant Professor, Department of Art and Technology Studies, School of the Art Institute of Chicago Required reading TBA 18 April PRESENTATIONS NOTE: For those students presenting today, your final research papers are due on 27 April. 25 April PRESENTATIONS NOTE: For those students presenting today, your final research papers are due on 4 May. 2 May CRITIQUE WEEK: NO CLASS 9 May PRESENTATIONS NOTE: For those students presenting today, your final research papers are due on 11 May.