*Also note that approximately half the students might be in the required computer science course CPSC 103, which takes place Tuesday & Thursday from 3:30-5pm.

• Is it mostly between hetero couples? 
• What age is most depicted? 
• Is it mostly between humans?
• Is it mostly romantic love or are other types of love represented? Mother and child? Father and child? Friendships? 
• Are there more positive or negative renditions of love? 
• Are there pertinent themes?
• Are they mostly serious or are some funny? 
• Did it bring out anything new that may have been unintentional?
• Are there any depictions that defy conventions?
• Does it remind you of something or have specific references?
• On the whole, does the arrangement of images brought in on love give an adequate and full understanding of such a complex subject? Is the idea of love complicated?  Do the images show this complication or do they reduce it to one or two conventions? Are any images testing conventional representational systems? 
• What might be missing, overlooked, purposely ignored or deleted, taken for granted, or broken down to normalized/general/common conventions? 
• Through how these images represent, is the idea of ‘love’ arranged in the classroom inclusive?
  Feel free to add your own questions, especially in conversation with what the students bring in!  Have students discuss the following prompts as a large group or in smaller groups, record their participation.  From here you might lead to questionable conclusions such as “Is love only for the young?”

Step 6: Methods of Analysis (20 minutes, for example 4 minutes per method)
This class is set to introduce students to different ways of analyzing an image, therefore show them a targeted approach, identify or read images by particular introductory analysis methods.  You can introduce students to 3-5 of the following strategies if you wish, select the ones you are close to and will inform future teaching in the course:

• Technique and Medium – What material is it made of? How was it made? Were there any specific techniques (time-lapse, microscopic, etc)?  How was it executed?  How is scale tied into medium and/or technique? What was the process to make it?  How does the medium it is made in inform the content?
• Audience Analysis – What was the agency/agenda of why the representation was made? Who is it for, and what purpose does it ultimately serve?  Who does it speak to in particular and for what reason?  Is it to make meaning?  Sell a product and direct desires?  Provoke new understanding? etc…
• Genre/Type Analysis – What community does the work belong to, in that it has a shared communicative goal by a particular discourse, what is the shared discourse? For example, Manga, Advertising, Impressionism, Pop, Still Life, etc… This can also relate to the purpose of the audience’s use or consumption of the image (above).
• Iconographic/Iconography– Icon derives from the greek term meaning ‘likeness’, ‘image’ or ‘picture’, and Graphy means ‘writing’, so iconography is literally “writing about images”. These are motifs that happen in a work, for example, a cowboy hat in a Western- American image. This type of analysis developed during the 19/20^th centuries as a corrective to the formalist art approach, that there is more to images than their formal qualities, a movement from surface appearances to depth understandings. Panofsky identified three levels or kinds of content:  first, primary or natural subject matter (depiction of things and how they are depicted); second, secondary or conventional subject matter (personifications and attributes, can include symbols); third, intrinsic meaning or content (underlying meanings which relay the basic attitudes of a nation, a period/time, a class, a culture, a religious or philosophical persuasion). Therefore, an iconographic reading would bring in knowledge from other fields of inquiry, social, religion, philosophy and politics, in order to treat it as a symptom of the wider culture.  Therefore, reading into iconographic qualities means we must account for everything, including its circulation within a specific time, patronage or economics, intention, societal values, etc..
• Mythological – much like an iconographic reading, a mythological reading decodes from surface to depth, and treats an image as a symptom of society. Understood in a more recent sense by Roland Barthes, argues that myth transformed history into nature, as “depoliticized speech” and it is the duty of critical theorists (readers) to analyze and denounce our reading of certain narratives into unconscious beliefs.  Barthes wants to expose the reactionary messages of mass communications in order to counter dominant ideology.
• Allegorical – A form of fiction that represents immaterial things as images, not as prevalent today as it was in medieval and renaissance, mainly parables, the bible, etc… Allegorical is different than metaphorical because it usually ties into a specific story that ignites meaning.
• Metaphor – Seeing something as…. A thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, especially something abstract. Metaphors can be triggered by a conceptual system towards a new understanding and thus new meaning or idea. Think of the clocks by Felix Gonzalez Torres’ work from lecture, Untitled (Perfect Lovers). However, while the work might have metaphorical elements, there are grander narratives and social/artistic implications behind the work (for example. homosexual image of love in the time of the AIDS epidemic).  So while a metaphorical analysis might happen easily when you read an image, you must go further!
• Semiotic – The word ‘semiotic’ derives from Greek ‘semeion’ meaning ‘sign’. A sign can stand for something in some respect or capacity.  Any process of communication or experience involving signs, this can include text, clothes, comics, diagrams, facial expressions or gestures, photographs, architecture/building, etc…  It can be a real referent (for example a photograph of a living person) or it can exist only in the human mind (an angel), all sign systems can be used to make truthful statements but they can also be used to lie or construct fictional worlds.  To some extent, semiotic studies is more about the logic of culture, and considered more scientific towards decoding.  The main components by Saussure are Sign, Signifier and Signified, but I suggest using Pierce as it is less jargon/confusing for first year students:
  • Main components by Pierce
    Divided signs into index, icon and symbol, very much used for visual culture.
    Index – footprint in the sand, pencil trace on paper, light’s trace on light-sensitive paper or film, therefore direct causal connection between what made the mark and the mark itself
    Icon – have a resemblance or look like what they depict in some respect but not all respect, such as a bronze sculpture of a man, resembles but does not have same characteristics or material, it ‘stands for’
    Symbol – arbitrary or conventional signs in respect of their referents, there is simply an agreement that they connect to their referent, such as a mark, sound, text, or object standing for something else
    These three do not necessarily work in isolation, and can work in combination/overlap, and sometimes the boundaries get crossed and can be arbitrary dependent on the viewer.
    Overall, signs have a signal aspect and a meaning, something implied or brought to mind
• Structural – A structuralist view is very much tied into a semiotic reading, therefore you may want to do this with “semiotics”. Structuralist interpretation treats human culture and social behaviour as if they were articulated like a language, therefore it studies them to reveal hidden structures and social structures.  This is a complex discussion to fully flesh out, (please advise them to take VISA 183 if they are interested in getting in deeper!) but some noted applications of a structuralist reading would be to analyze meaning of a culture based on symmetry or asymmetry of a face, or (Bourdieu) dissect meaning of a peasant’s dwelling in Algeria via binary oppositions, such as; inside/out, male/female, day/night.  Mostly structuralist theory can be applied to advertising campaigns to carefully clarify their myths and symbolism.  Unlike iconography, structuralists may pay less attention to cultural significance, social changes or external influences, etc.. of the moment on the material.  Structuralism believes we cannot get beyond these systems, as we are ultimately controlled by the structure of these systems.
• Deconstruction – This came after structuralism, as a ‘post-structuralist’ approach, and it is not really a method, critique or analysis, not a dismantling of a system but a demonstration of the fact that it has already dismantled itself, that it was impossible to begin with, and unmasks internal contradictions and inconsistencies, gaps, so it is always questioning or critiquing itself in its own properties, and refuses to accept the truth and knowledge claims of an existing philosophical system, and exhibits that they are internally contradictory or illogical. The critical stance of deconstruction identifies the nature of ‘meaning’ as unstable. For example, Pipilotti Rist’s work from lecture which deconstructs the belief systems attributed to concepts of ‘love’, that the myths that exist about love never fully reach their promise.
• Feminist – Informed by feminist theory, this perspective seeks to analyze and describe ways in which an image portrays the narrative of male domination in economic, social, political and psychological forces.  This can also include a look at authorship and agency.
• Marxist – In broad terms, marxist critique can include an assessment of the political or economic tendencies in a work, and if it exists to perpetuate the ruling class ideology, or does it subvert it? It can reveal the way in which society is formed by class-structures, and how it keeps them strong in order to keep certain powers

There are more, but let us get to the next topic!

Give students a 10 minute break

Step 7:  The Work in the World (1/2 hour)
Now that we’ve gone through ways to analyze and interpret, let us continue towards judgement or how the works function in the world, how the images are working to relay meaning and a bigger picture of what this meaning suggests.  You may want to give students “scales” or “bridges”  of binaries to rate the effects of each of the images and discuss why they read that way.  I’ve provided some scale ideas here, but please feel free to add more of your own in class or as a post/comment below.  Everyone will have binaries to share as we all think of things in very different ways, and our students might also inspire new scales in their generalizations or conventions.  Do take some time to talk about the benefits of each side, or how they may limit space for an audience, why this is good or bad for each particular case on each particular end.

Trite or Cliché  —— Authentic/Particular
Scared ————————————– Brave
Subjective —————————- Objective
Representational ————–—– Abstract
Didactic ———————-—— Ambiguous
Personal ————————-—- Universal
Cynical ———————————–Idealistic
Break Down (Deconstruct) — Build Up (Construct)
Apolitical ——————————- Political
Culture ———————–———— Nature
Violent ———————————– Passive
Autobiographical ——————-Detached
Poetry ————————————-Thought
Topical/Timely ———————– Timeless
Retinal ————————-——— Cerebral
Conventional ————— Creative/Unique
Generous ———– Mean or Ungenerous
Ugly ——————————— Pleasurable
Transcend —————————-Actualize
Action —————————— Knowledge
Abstract ———————Representational
Spiritual ———————————Scientific

• Discuss if there were images that led to different ways of reading the images function in the world and why, and might want to talk about the place of the viewer in reading images, and what they bring, perhaps something about their background, gender, age, culture, etc… might have different references that see the images in a different way.  For ones that always led to the same interpretation, why did you think it worked out that way and what did that mean for the reception and codes of the image?  Where does that leave the viewer? (passive vs. active)
• You should probably lead on to ideas of how images create meaning through messages that lead to powerful ideas, we absorb the ideas and internalize them as images speak to a very innate part of us. Perhaps this is manipulative, to direct our desires to purchase produces or to believe certain things? Images can create codes that we then believe to be true, how does the creation of representations influence certain ideas as the norm, and others as not the norm?  As well, does “beautiful” actually mean it is a better depiction of love or just an easier contrived one?  Doesn’t love hurt sometimes?  Doesn’t it sometimes cause pain?  Have your students practice being very critical, even about an idea like love!

Step 8: Reflection (10-15 minutes in class)
As a final component to this activity, have students sit down and write out answers to the following questions using handouts provided by Christine. This component must be done in class, therefore do not accept random completed handouts that weren’t done in class, it requires the in-class experience to fully comprehend the reflection.

1. Today we learned different ways to analyze and image, after the experience, what became your preferred method(s), and why do you value this method?
2. How would you interpret the role of “judgement” of an image and how it leads to representation? Why do you think this is an important part of the act of looking at image?  What are the criteria you feel are important to making and circulating images? What personal values does this represent? Feel free to refer to other images from the class to explain your point.
3. Now that you have finished a major exercise in ‘looking’ revisit the image you brought in, what did you learn about how the image was received? Would you change your image if you were to do it again?  What would that change be? If you wouldn’t change anything, please explain why not.

This part of the grade accounts for an overall evaluation of your participation in lab-related work, including classroom climate exercise, workshop exchanges, general discussions and generative feedback sessions including individual meetings with TA’s and group work with peers.  Artistic Growth evaluates artistic challenges taken and overcome throughout the duration of the course, towards artistic growth.  As art-making has elements of ‘risk’ that when starting out to make art, can go awry, this part of your grade accounts for the fact that you went beyond your comfort level, and engaged in complicated discussions to evolve understanding.  Overall, this class tries to get you beyond the predictable, conventional, boring, general or even shallow ways in which we represent, into exciting new territories we’ve never been before.  While this is accounted for in most of the rubrics for the course, this component of the breakdown is to further emphasize that this course is about doing something different, pushing limits, and thoughtful engagement.

This grade is administered ‘holistically’ at the end of the term for up to 10% of the final grade.  Guidance of expectations for students is available on Canvas and reads:

(76% and up) An above average and proficient student demonstrates:

• Arrives fully prepared with notes and opinions, and extended questions to pose to group from concepts in lecture or personal research
• Actively and respectfully listens to peers and teacher contributions at all times
• Comments are relevant, and reflect a distinguished understanding of remarks, material, and overall insight of content towards course goals
• Actively participates at appropriate times
• Engages with unique challenges of the course and artistic practices, overcomes self-imposed challenges with enthusiasm (with either successful or not so successful results, it is still a level proficient growth!)
• Takes risks in challenging personal pre-conceived ideas and conventions of artistic practice, going beyond personal comfort zones and into new exciting territories
• Critical and creative problem solving through self-imposed critical questioning shown in own work and in discussions of peer work and course ideas

(60-75%) Average expectations and competent students demonstrate:

• Arrives with lecture notes and/or understanding and evidence of preparation
• Actively and respectfully listens to peers and teachers most of the time
• Most comments relevant and reflect understanding of content, as well as students remarks and insights about material
• Participates often at mostly appropriate times, but may also demonstrate a lack of attention to timing or appropriateness of participation
• Shows acceptable engagement and investment in personal artistic growth as demonstrated in class discussions, peer conversations, and in personal artistic work
• Competent investment in course challenges resulting in proven attempts of creative and critical problem solving

(59% and below) A below average or novice student demonstrates:

• Novice, or superficial preparations as cover-up, or noticeably unprepared
• Sometimes or frequently displays lack of interest and/or respect of what others might offer their learning
• In class comments sometimes irrelevant, and give evidence of lack of preparation, or indicate lack of attention to previous remarks or remarks of others
• Lack of attention to course content resulting in distracting contributions
• Sometimes participates but is distracted other times
• A failing mark would indicate that the student rarely participates, and is often or almost always distracted and doing other tasks
• Initial stages of artistic growth attempted later in the course
• A student would not receive course credit on artistic growth if there is a lack of personal initiation and engagement in academic contemporary artistic practices, involving critical and creative thinking
• Minimal engagement with course concepts and challenges as through their work and class discussions

For this exercise you will be divided into groups of 3-4 group members arranged by common identified topic areas and artistic interests during the January 16 & 21 lab times. You will be put into groups and discuss your interests which will result in personally tailored recommendations of artists you can chose from via your TAs suggestions in class.  If needed, consultations can continue with Christine or TAs during office hours, or in some cases via email in the week following.

The visual artist recommended and chosen by each group must be contemporary, and practicing within the last 50 years (therefore 1970’s and on) that way it is relevant to our contemporary understanding -the more recent the better!  Your artist can use any medium to make their work, they do not have to be lens based. It is more about the research topic and content than media they use, however they must be a visual artist.

As a group, please pick one artist from the suggestions of the TA or Christine, or you can ask for permission to choose an artist of your choice. Each group member will choose a single work of art by that artist, and create a poster about that specific work.  This means there will be multiple posters about the same artist, but each poster will feature a different work. The digital “poster” will be created in Photoshop, featuring images of work by that artist that your topic areas had a connection to. You must have your chosen artist officially approved by Christine and/or your TA via email or in person by January 22. The art work you chose will become the basis of the poster.

In order to choose an artist and find a work you will focus on, research your artist using books in the library, or credible sources online. For example, large institutions and galleries like the Tate Gallery in London will have more reliable information than a fan page or random blog on the internet.  As mentioned before, find work where there is overlap with your interests, or that you are intrigued by their approach to a common subject, (even if you don’t like it) -use it to understand how the artist approaches certain topics.

For your poster, scan in or download images of the artwork and other supporting images, and create a thoughtfully composed poster of the work, communicating information about the work.  Make sure you only feature relevant information and that your poster is legible, sophisticated, and visually communicates ideas in design decisions.

 Poster Specifics:

• Dimension of the poster should be 18 x 12 inches, either landscape or poster, (your choice) at 100 dpi.
• The poster should comprise of various layers in one single Photoshop document. There should be several and different types of layers, such as text layers, image layers, and adjustment layers, relating to the specific requirements outlined below.

1. 1. Please place the artists name as the title, spelt correctly, as well as a sub-heading detailing where the artist is from geographically. (1-2 text layers)
   2. Please indicate the title of the work in a smaller heading, including date of production, dimensions or duration and media of the work. (at least 1 text layer, but can be 2 layers if you wish to put the information in different areas)
   3. There should be at least 2 images, one must be of the art work you are focusing on, the other two images are your choice but some options might be to display an image of the artist, gallery installations, close up, other perspectives or video stills, or  other images relevant to the content.  Images should be arranged well into a considered composition and the scale/size adjusted in proportion. (2 image layers)
   4. The poster must contain one text area that features a description of the work in your own words, use the topic of interest to approach as a specific way to focus on the artwork, this should not be over 100 words and relate to your own interests. (1 text layer)
   5. Feel free to include any other relevant information, but be sure to also keep it clear and think of how the design will visually communicate the content (using lines, colour, shapes, borders and fonts) (couple of extra layers might happen).

• Please be sure that all images are density and colour adjusted. Density adjust and/or colour balance using adjustment layers “Levels” on at least one of the images on a layer, and isolate/attach that adjustment layer to the specific layer it is working with.  This means you might have a few adjustment layers connected to image layers, which is a good thing, practice makes perfect and adjustment layers are an important skill to learn in Photoshop! (1-3 layers)
• The goal of your poster is to showcase a work of a contemporary artist, in particular how your interests relate, and what you learned about how they -a professional artist- approached the same topics you are interested in.  Overall, we want you to uncover a work of contemporary art and communicate it to your colleagues in the class.

Note:  The “Basic Design” and “Layout” video modules are not required, but could be a great help to you in creating this poster in a tactful and visually clear and communicative way.  Be careful of how you relay information, and show a sense of maturity in your design selections including your font, background, etc…  Everything in the poster should relate to the larger purpose of the poster, and there will be deductions for unconsidered distractions to the relevant information.  In design terms -white space is not your enemy!

Why are you doing this exercise?
This is a low-stakes exercise, with much to learn from.  Creation of this poster will utilize the lessons from the technical demonstration and help you to get started using and experimenting with Photoshop.  You should have the Introductory Photoshop modules complete before you start this to give you the best advantage.  This project will allow you to practice creating a specific size document, adding in many layers into one document image, transforming size, scale and placement of different objects in one document, adding text of different sizes, adjustment layers to correct colour and density of images, and other extras of shapes, brushes, lines, effects, etc…

If this is your first-time using Photoshop, you might feel overwhelmed, this happens your first time and is completely normal!  Getting a bit lost in Photoshop is part of the process of learning it. This exercise is designed to help you practice with Photoshop, so please jump in to the program and persevere, I promise you will learn something even though it feels like you’ve opened up a portal to the unknown, learning a new program is usually just a matter of pressure rather than anxiety.  This exercise also helps to continue your work with your research questions as you discover how your artist works while creating a poster!

Due:  For display January 23 & 28 during lab time, please upload the poster as an UNFLATTENED (photoshop document) PSD in this assignment portal before your lab session.  Please note that the poster is due at the start of your specific lab time, this varies between labs.

In-Class:  Disciplinary Approach Poster Presentation

Either in groups of 4-5 (try and put them into groups where they might have similar approaches) or in 2 groups of 10, have students visit each other while their poster is up on the computer.  For example, if students are in 2 groups, have 10 students present their posters while the other 10 students visit them.  You can either time them (5 minute “speed dates”) or have them leisurely wander if you can trust that they will engage in conversation.  Once 20 minutes (10 minutes for groups of 4) has passed, have the other 10 students put their posters up and the first 10 students who showed first will now become the visitors.

Rubric: 

Art making is a way of ‘researching’ into a topic, just like any other class.  This class teaches you how to engage in practice-based research, but there is a little soul searching involved to figure out exactly what it is that you wish to research.  This two-part exercise will give you a chance to discover what it is you are interested in, critical views you have about the world, topics you’d like to uncover, you are passionate about and are important enough to want to make art about.  This self-discovery will reveal topics that will inform recommendations from your TA for your Artist Poster project.  Please bring the identified topics into Week 2 lab time.

Some Tips:

• Please brainstorm (in any way you like) by Identifying personal interests and provocations, and keep pushing points about them that are specific and critical. You may want to think about why you are interested in personal interests, your major discipline, future focus, etc.  For example, if you are a psychology major and interested in human interaction in relationships, then specify this and push on ideas of why.  If you are a computer science major, perhaps you are interested in how the computer can self-learn and negotiate the external world.  If you are interested in visual arts, please specify a particular part or concept of visual arts and representational systems. You do not have to submit your brainstorm materials but I strongly suggest doing it before creating your questions
• From here, please derive 5 topics or thematics (in order of preference) for which you are provoked or motivated by, and have a great investment (care) in towards how one/yourself can understand the world. They should also represent your generational, contemporary understanding, so must be relevant to the times we are living in and who you are!
• If you are interested in any specific contemporary artists, please bring their names into class.