Lecture Series Seminar

Lecture Series Seminar ways of holding DM 7104 Fall 2009

Professor Daniel Peltz Tues. from 7-10pm [some exceptions as per the lecture schedule] DM Seminar Room course blog dmlectures.posterous,com [send an email to [email protected]] office hours walking or sitting / silent or talking Tues. 4-7pm or by appointment [email [email protected] to schedule a time]

COURSE OVERVIEW This seminar offers a means of deeper engagement with and reflection on the Digital+Media lecture series. The series consists of a set of lectures by prominent artists and curators who are exploring digital media and related concepts as a creative, expressive tool. This semester there will be seven lectures in the series and five meetings in which we will build off these presentations. THOUGHTS on HOLDING The seminar is subtexted “ways of holding,” this subtext offers a perspective on how to understand the lectures you will encounter and a framework for our exploration of them. Any presentation of an artist’s work can be understood as a way of “holding” the work. This notion of holding, as opposed to the perhaps more common language of framing, is important to me for several reasons. First, because holds are inherently temporary, they require muscular strain and even the slightest of muscular strains inevitably leads to release. Thus, holding, of art works or otherwise, is a fundamentally unsustainable gesture. This notion of holding is also being deployed with reference to Winnicott's construct of the “holding space,” which he used to refer to the psychic space between the mother and infant that allows for a transition from undifferentiated self to autonomous self. Winnicott felt this space was important to the development of a healthy self and saw the goal of therapy as the creation of a "holding environment" in which the true self of the patient could emerge. Let us witness a series of holds, and attempt a series of our own, in a holding environment of our own creation.

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WEEKLY SCHEDULE Week 1 Group introductions and course overview, exercise in holding someone else’s ______________________________________________ Week 2 Lecture Kelly Dobson – 7pm Metcalf Aud Potluck 8:30pm DM lounge ______________________________________________ Week 3 Reholding Dobson micro lecture Christopher Robbins ______________________________________________ Week 4 Lecture Ed Osborn – 7pm Metcalf Aud Potluck 8:30pm DM lounge ______________________________________________ Week 5 Lecture Krzysztof Wodiczko – 7pm RISD Aud Potluck 8:30pm DM lounge ______________________________________________ Week 6 Reholding Osborn micro lecture Nathaniel Katz ______________________________________________ Week 7 Reholding Wodiczko micro lecture Jeanne Jo ______________________________________________ Week 8 TUES Lecture Natalie Bookchin – 7pm Metcalf Aud Potluck 8:30pm DM lounge WEDS Lecture Jonah Brucker-Cohen – Time and Place TBA ______________________________________________ Week 9 Reholding Bookchin and Brucker-Cohen ______________________________________________ Week 10 Lecture Betsey Biggs – 7pm Metcalf Aud Potluck 8:30pm DM lounge ______________________________________________ Week 11 MONDAY Lecture Maria Lind – 7pm RISD Aud Potluck 8:30pm DM lounge TUESDAY Reholding Biggs and Lind ______________________________________________ Week 12 Holding our own in context – TBD by group

COURSE COMPONENTS Lectures & Mini-Lectures

There will be seven lectures forming the backbone of the course. Your attendance at each of them is critical. Plan to take notes for your blog reflections during each of the lectures and come having read the reading that accompanies the lecture. At several points in the semester, we’ll also be joined by DM alums [via skype] who will deliver mini-lectures on their thesis work and post-thesis process. Post-lecture Gatherings In pairs or threes, you will each take responsibility [working in conjunction with our TA] for hosting one post-lecture gathering this term. These gatherings immediately follow the lectures and serve as an informal space for conversation with our invited guests. Reholdings Each of you will be asked to perform a “reholding” of one of the lectures. This will involve a critical examination of how the lecturer “held” their work, both through their presentation and the reading they provided to accompany it. You will then represent their work to us, in class the following week, with a new reading, a set of slides and a new presentation delivered by you of their work. These reholdings should result in a series of questions to the audience about the work and the issues it raised for you. Reading Responses In order to assist you in reflecting on and keeping up with the readings, you will each post a response to our posterous blog prior to each lecture and reholding.

POLICIES Policies Presence Your presence is vital at every scheduled meeting. Missing meetings or arriving late will negatively impact your progress and your grade. Presence, however, is about more than just getting your body to the meeting at the required hour. Please take of yourself and come prepared to focus on your work and our work together. Participation Active participation in discussions and critiques is expected. If your form of active participation is a quiet one, make sure to let the group know that you are engaging them and the material at hand in some way. Exceptions Late assignments or incompletes will only be granted in case of family or medical emergency. Grading Assignments: reholding 60% / reading responses 25% / participation in group discussions: 15%

Reholding Guidelines You will each make a 20-minute re-presentation/reholding of one of the lectures. This reholding should include: - documentation of the artist’s work, you can simply recycle and recontextualize the slides used by the artist or use additional slides of their work and/or other works that you wish to relate to their work - a handout summarizing the key points of your presentation to be distributed to each member of the group, including a set of questions to begin our discussion of the lecturer’s hold and your subsequent reholding - a reading, selected by you, posted to the blog by 10pm the evening after the lecture [this gives us a week to read in preparation for your reholding]