Live!: A History of Art for Artists, Animators and Gamers

This course approaches the questions of “art” and “history” from the perspective of contemporary makers of art (sculpture, painting, photography, performance, installation and more), animators (whether character/story-based or experimental) and gamers, asking how artists actively make a history for their own practices by thinking about the creative process as a “conversation” with a wide range of art from the past. Why are ground-breaking artists so often historically-minded (and yet tend to break all the rules of conventional history-telling)? How do animators themselves “write” the largely unwritten history of their art through quotation, transposition and mash-ups? Why should contemporary gamers look at classical painting anyway? 

This course will combine short video lectures/interviews and interactive quizzes with independent, peer-reviewed sketchbook and field work (suggested visits to local museums, film viewings, etc.) It is intended to give the student a background in a wide range of visual practices and a greater familiarity with techniques of historical analysis. It will help to build skills in visual analysis, and will also provide insight into the creative culture of CalArts, where a certain portion of these art histories have been made in the first place.

Week 1: Introduction
Week 2: Story
Week 3: Character
Week 4: World-Making
Week 5: Time & Motion
Week 6: Reality Distortion
Week 7: Novelty
Week 8: Mash-Ups
Week 9: Conclusions