Artists as Writers
101W Spring Quarter 2023
Department of Art, University of California, Irvine
This studio assignment draws from an artwork or archive document authored by the artist we are studying. It is required to complete the course. It takes the form of a materials experiment and a self-reflection paper on that studio work.
The student has the chance to revise drafts of the written component during individual appointment times from weeks 4-8, with teacher input, as well as revise or continue the studio work with teacher input on in-progress work, culminating in a critique in the final three class sessions.
Three critique groups will present their work on: May 25: 3:30 pm PST, June 1: 3:30 pm PST, June 8: 3:30 pm PST.
We will have a Google sign-up for each critique day and a Google folder where projects should be submitted on Tuesday (at noon) preceding each critique day.
A 700-word self-reflection paper on the materials experiments is due on June 8th at noon.
Materials Experiments
How do we think through materials as a method of documenting an idea as a work of art?
Compiling different material Self-observation Duration Writing and editing How much is constructed? What is personal and what is impersonal? Conceptualization through process, and then physicalizing, using the body and mind.
The work of Christine Kozlov employed “standard forms of documentation and communication, such as films, audiotapes, photographs, texts, telegrams, and announcement cards” in addition to binders, boxes, and film canisters.
These materials were, more or less, widely accessible and common forms of communication that she deployed to make art.
Today we have a number of technologies to document, communicate, store, and archive vast amounts of information.
How has reading Kozlov's’ art works influenced your perception and use of those forms in your life and work?
Assignment
Create a work using the methods of durational observation and transcription we have observed in the archive of Christine Kozlov, to document an activity, idea, or concept.
Adhering to the same economy of form, the work should be processed using a historical or contemporary conveyance of information where no trace of the artist's hand is perceivable in the final object.
Works should include text, written or printed, and composed in your own layout that becomes the form of the work. It should then be copied or transformed by another technological process to move one step beyond the original.
The use of photographic images in the work is limited to one image unless these are screenshots of text on another platform.
The use of any templates or artworks included in a particular software program should have a conceptual meaning.
Consider the relationship of concept or idea to technological processes of transmission, how the evidence of the idea holds a material interest or formal presence, and how the final work is installed for an exhibition.
All submissions must consist of the physical object as well as a PDF of the work, formatted in a similar manner to the historical works we have viewed from the archive of Christine Kozlov.
Activities to consider
1. An observation of your habits or routines, documented over a period of time to create a conceptual self-portrait.
2. Create a compilation of information on obscure topics that interest you and publish them in a manner that defines the reason they interest you in an oblique way.
3. Create an index of your artwork or writing that describes them as a larger work.
4. Begin keeping a studio journal where reflex, instinctual actions in your regular art making and use of medium are described in brief sentences.