March 12-14 “Final Project Critiques”

Outcomes

• Enact a critical outlook as visual readers, recognizing how meaning is cultivated and perpetuated through representation.
• Produce ethical, informed, multi-dimensional, work that is situated in contemporary concerns.
• Activate the process of making, as a way of knowing.

Lecture

March 12  GIF’s Assign GIF project
March 19  Beatriz Santiago Munoz Talk (Still TBD)

Lab

You will have 10 critiques each day over the next two classes/weeks.  Students should have been informed of their critique date weeks ago.

Please record critique participation as the students are graded for their contributions.  Remind them that it is not the quantity of things they say, but the quality or thoughtfulness to their fellow peers’ projects.  Missing a critique day will result in a zero for that day, no exceptions.  (Academic advising is recommended for those with extenuating circumstances)

There are many ways to run critiques.  It is up to you how you wish to do them but there will be a 4 step approach practiced in the lecture (as training for peer review) and is posted in Canvas for them to review.

Some guidance:

• Have them open up their projects as soon as they get into class.
• Take the time to describe your critique methods at the beginning so they know what they are going to be doing.
• You can either have the class move around in groups, (can be crowded but also a community oriented feel) to the computers with the work on them, or you can display them on one monitor or projector and gather as a class, or you can do a combination of both.
• You can critique as an entire class (approx 10 minutes each) and talk about each project
  or
• You can set them up in smaller groups to critique other people’s work for about 5 minutes each. Then gather the class together as a group and have 7-minute critiques each, with the people assigned to the work at the beginning starting the critique for the works they looked at.  The method avoids the 3 minutes of silence that may happen when you just blindly go from work to work!
  or
• I had a past TA who would put pieces of paper next to every computer, and each student had to view each work and write something down about it. This surely helps you record participation marks, but does not really help to engage in a conversation or help guide them in strategies to look at art.  But you can think of this as a way to strategize any problematic classes, or as a supplement to a group critique before or afterwards.
• You can have the artist talk about the work at the start, (which can tend to make the group ‘gullible’ to their voiced intention) or you can have ‘silent artist’ critiques where the artist just listens (and perhaps takes notes of their critique) to the reception, leaving a minute or two at the end for artists to describe things that the class may have missed.
• Try and keep a critical but fair tone, also remember that they are vulnerable and sensitive as this might be the first work they’ve ever had work critiqued!  Remember how difficult those moments were?  Remember this is amoung their first experiences of critiquing, so do be aware of how vulnerable students are at this point, the thick skin is not yet developed!  This is a learning experience, sometimes what can be learned from one work could be an example for everyone, so pick your battles in which larger lessons you feel would be good to bring up for the entire class to learn from.
• Remind students that we grade their work regardless of what their peer’s say in the class critique, as they are learning how to see work, we are professionals and know how to see the nuances of what they wanted to do, where they did it, where they got distracted, etc. A positive peer critique, or negative one, does not reflect a potential grade what-so-ever!  However, a quiet critique is not a good sign for everyone’s critique grade, and overall sense of respect and community the course wants to promote.

Feel free to review the critique prompt and rubric here.

Reminders

• Module 6:  GIF Animations is due March 25, end of day
• Gallery trips next week to Western Front!
• GIF due & Critique April 2-4 labs
• Online Engaged Learning Reflection due April 9, end of day