Focused on the practices of varied practitioners — film directors, artists, musicians, composers, architects, designers — whose writings relay a process of thinking and feeling integral to their forms of material production. Testing various ways aesthetic forms and their shifts — historic and contemporary — have relations to still emerging contemporary subjectivities (felt emotion in a human body), the class studies productions created by participants and case studies of varied producers, and generates new work individually and/or collaboratively via diverse media explorations. Includes reading, writing, drawing, and publishing, as well as photographic, cinematic, spatial, and audio operations and productions. Activities include screenings, listening assignments, and guest visits, in addition to readings, discussions, and presentations.

4.359 Syllabus (MIT Certificate protected)

2/8/23: Note room change to E15-283A

Introduces advanced strategies of image and sound manipulation, both technical and conceptual. Covers pre-production planning (storyboards and scripting), refinement of digital editing techniques, visual effects such as chroma-keying, post-production, as well as audio and sonic components. Context provided by regular viewings of contemporary video artworks and other audio-visual formats. Students work individually and in groups to develop skills in media literacy and communication.

Additional work required of students taking the graduate version. 

4.352/4.353 Syllabus (MIT Certificate protected)

4.341 U / 4.342 G

1/24/23: Note schedule change from MW 9:30-12:30 to MW 2-5.

Introduces history and contemporary practices in artistic photography through projects, lectures, artist visits, group discussions, readings, and field trips. Fosters visual literacy and aesthetic appreciation of photography/digital imaging, as well as critical awareness of how images in our culture are produced and constructed. Provides instruction in the fundamentals of different camera formats, film exposure and development, lighting, black and white darkroom printing, and digital imaging. Assignments allow for incorporation of a range of traditional and experimental techniques, development of technical skills, and personal exploration. Throughout the term, present and discuss projects in a critical forum. 

Additional work required of students taking the graduate version. 

4.341/4.242 Syllabus (MIT Certificate protected)

2/8/23 note: room changed to E15-207

Incommensurability is defined as the inability to express or comprehend one conceptual scheme in terms of another. That is, in other words, a lack of a common measure between models of observations, value systems, or ideologies. Environmental observational methods present incommensurability when scale becomes a variable. This lack of a common measure presents itself as well in the general inability to comprehend magnitudes of planetary phenomena related to climate change and the effects it has on humans and more than humans. The answer, as Thomas Kuhn or Paul Feyerabend would state, is not to push for a common, universalized system of measure, but to exist and experiment on incommensurable alternatives. The role of experimentation is crucial for imagining these incommensurable alternatives as it is the foundation for the translations which can potentially be actualized, demonstrating that scientific change– as well as economical and societal– are not cumulative or progress driven (conceptual conservatism), but rather never-ending spirals full of ambiguity and constant change. The incommensurability of scale and its different translations, instruments, affects, and misinterpretations will be the main exploration topic for this course.

4.301- Scale, Signal, Spectrum offers an introduction to artistic experimentation through the lens of incommensurability. By focusing on observation, measurement, and translation of the environment, this course employs artistic methodologies in order to understand conceptual and political implications of scaling mechanisms by way of time and space through biological, geological, astronomical, urban, and mechanical devices and lenses. Students will produce their own time-based instruments of environmental observation, learning from a variety of contemporary and historical technologies such as astrolabes, pantographs, and geological sections to scanning devices, radio antennas or electromagnetic signals. Strong interest is vested not just in the prototyping, conception, design, and implementation of such experiments but on their deployment and observation in public space.

Through a series of lectures, presentations, walks, and trainings, students will be introduced to a wide variety of research based artistic practices that deal with the matters of scale and its possible translations. Students will develop three studio-based exercises using different scales as media where we will explore site interventions and strategies for artistic engagement in the public realm. The production of time-based media/ instruments of environmental observation include: printmaking, molding and casting, scaling mechanisms, sonic translations, visual representations, and time-based recording devices.

4.301 Syllabus (MIT Certificate protected)

Introduces foundational texts in contemporary theory and criticism at the intersection of art, culture, and technology. Through presentations and discussions, students explore the necessary methodological perspectives required of an interdisciplinary approach to artistic practices. Subject spans fall and IAP terms.