ARTS 105
Video Essay Spring 2023
Division I
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

This introductory studio course engages the genre of video essay within contemporary art. Situated at the intersection of video art and documentary film practices, video essay explores the interval between politics and aesthetics, fiction and non-fiction, in an attempt to create a personal language with which to describe the tension between social, political, and personal realities. Students gain hands-on video production experience with editing, cinematography, and sound design grounded in the editorial and rhetorical strategies of video essay which articulate a language of relationships: between sound and image, artist and subject, fact and feeling, memory and language. Self-referential and reflexive, video essay operates in a space of inquiry incorporating poetry, philosophy, autobiography, politics, and cultural studies. The course examines how artists working with video essay move across disciplines in pursuit of a renewed relationship to processes of observation, memory, and recognition. Assignments emphasize the creation and presentation of an original body of video work for critique, alongside research, writing, and discussion of theoretical texts and artworks, including the work of Chris Marker, Hito Steyerl, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Harun Farocki, Agnès Varda, Arthur Jafa, Barbara Hammer, Derek Jarman, Renee Green, Moyra Davey, among others.
The Class: Format: studio
Limit: 14
Expected: 14
Class#: 3551
Grading: yes pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: Quality of work produced, depth and quality of investigative process, participation in critique and discussion, class citizenship, attendance
Prerequisites: none
Enrollment Preferences: art majors
Materials/Lab Fee: $250-$350 lab fee charged to term bill. Lab and materials fees for all studio art classes are covered by the Book Grant for all Williams financial aid recipients.
Distributions: Division I

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