3.00 Credits
[Rubbed out, scraped away, excised, effaced, or deleted] The means by which we commonly make a modification in a text, image or calculation is to remove and replace the edited particular with its substitute. In this editing--through addition, subtraction or both--we engage a renovation that involves a host of intellectual and experiential strategies. These [erasures] create [spaces]. Left blank, the erased article suggests there is no known replacement. If the article is not totally scraped away, the visible remaining under-layer serves as memento of the preceding action (palimpsest). Layers accreted upon one another may bury selected particulars in an archeologic strata. If vigorously removed, the heightened evidence of the erasing action becomes a testament to the significance of the desire to make the subject disappear. Hence, when we examine the emotive range of erasure, we witness the fuller psychological and intellectual dimensional potential of the edit.The scale of erasure stretches this dimension further. A simple edit may reveal a better choice and change the criticality of the outcome minutely or dramatically. Genocide as erasure, however, moves us to quite another plane. History and our interpretation of those events are variously defined by what has been inscribed and what has been de-scribed (Derrida). This tutorial--through studio practice, reading/viewing and critical analysis--will wander through a variety of conditions of erasure and how each might inform individual and collective projects. Weekly responses to a series of seven studio prompts will be wrought in either two-dimensional (digital photography, drawing, collage, painting) or three-dimensional media (sculpture, installation, performance).To assist in stretching the directions of each prompt, students will study: Visual work of, (including but not limited to): Marcel Duchamp, Arakawa and Madeline Gins, Julie Mehrutu, Ghada Amer, Joseph Kosuth, Cy Twombly, Gabriel de la Mora, Cindy Sherman, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns. Texts by, (including but not limited to): Franz Kafka, Ralph Ellison, Susan Stewart, Percival Everett, Akira Mizuta Lippit, de Sade. Films by, (including but not limited to): Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure), Hiroshi Teshigahara (Woman in the Dunes), Shohei Imamura, (Black Rain)
Prerequisite:
At least two ArtS 200-level studio classes in any medium, one of which should be the medium chosen for this tutorial; two-dimensional (digital photography, drawing, collage, painting) or three-dimensional media (sculpture, installation, performance)