Alex Karenina Kostiw

Stories are a fundamental way that we share and understand information to make meaning. Storytelling, then, is in part an investigation of ?truths??of various realities that shape how we see the world. The intersection of content, internal narrative structure, and physical form, storytelling can illuminate ?truths? in ways that cause us to more deeply examine our perceptions, ideas, and beliefs. This course focuses on notions of truth in expression: how a fictional approach can express emotional truths; how multiple and contradictory views of a situation can reveal a truth; and how perceptions and beliefs can be called into question through story construction.

A selection of readings and works, as well as visits to the Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection, will provide examples of traditional vs. nontraditional, linear vs. nonlinear, and fiction vs. nonfiction narratives. Together with exercises in paper-based forms, they are starting points for exploring physical structures, methods, and devices of narrative discourse.

The course treats the book form in broad terms: sequencing that reveals content or meaning over time. In 3-4 projects, students will develop their own content, work within project parameters to construct stories through image and/or text, and experiment with possibilities in narrative structure and form, whether paper-based or in other media.

This studio course surveys cross-disciplinary approaches to publishing, encouraging students to explore the role of publications in their creative practices. Self-publishing and independent publishing models will be studied as ways to express ideas, share stories, and form community. The course will cover periodical, serial, and standalone formats, such as journals, chapbooks, and zines; varied design and production methods, including DIY, bookbinding, and printing techniques; and distribution platforms and strategies, including book/zine fairs. Readings will include publishing manifestos and projects by artists, designers, writers, and small presses, as well as visits to the Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection. Students will produce 2-3 self-directed, editioned projects that could serve as foundations for or further developments of their publishing practices. Pre-req: Viscom 3011 Intermediate Type or Viscom 3001 Intermediate Graphic Design, or instructor consent.

This course includes guidance on the preparation and design of a resume and business card; the planning, development and design of an online portfolio; interview strategies and techniques; professional connections with practicing designers; and resources and advice for locating and contacting various types of design employers. This course is ideal for visual communication students preparing for internships or seniors preparing for entrance into the design profession. This course may be repeated.

This critique seminar explores conceptual and structural configurations of personal and public cultural space. Constructing discourses about social, cultural and political phenomena, students derive content and voice to produce process artifacts that may range from a communications tool (a singular, interactive element) to a communications scenario (a system of urban or media elements). Two projects are given, each using a distinct methodology. Beginning with a focus on personal cultural space, students investigate the influence of mediated messages on the construction of identity using a generative matrix, pairing symbol systems with functions of communication. The semester continues with a focus on public cultural space, as students examine the dynamics of a chosen community using the process of dialogical mapping, developing diagrams that clarify rhetorical and metaphoric relationships within a community. Each methodology introduced in this seminar is inferred from linguistic analysis, intended to reveal and cultivate the complexities within each student's work.

This critique seminar explores conceptual and structural configurations of personal and public cultural space. Constructing discourses about social, cultural and political phenomena, students derive content and voice to produce process artifacts that may range from a communications tool (a singular, interactive element) to a communications scenario (a system of urban or media elements). Two projects are given, each using a distinct methodology. Beginning with a focus on personal cultural space, students investigate the influence of mediated messages on the construction of identity using a generative matrix, pairing symbol systems with functions of communication. The semester continues with a focus on public cultural space, as students examine the dynamics of a chosen community using the process of dialogical mapping, developing diagrams that clarify rhetorical and metaphoric relationships within a community. Each methodology introduced in this seminar is inferred from linguistic analysis, intended to reveal and cultivate the complexities within each student's work.

This critique seminar explores the structure of storytelling. Students review traditional dramatic form, incorporate methods of collaging content and explore experimental narrative structures and physical configurations. The course begins and ends with targeted design+writing projects utilizing non-linear narrative methods such as circular or never-ending, list formats, and multiple perspectives. Here, students focus on new forms as a means of driving narrative. In between, a longer investigation with a more expanded process focuses on analogy and its relationship to narrative. Using analogy, students deploy various research strategies and novel mapping techniques, fashioning stories out of the strange or incongruous, prodding connections that push against cliche. Each project in this seminar reconsiders basic tenets of reading?flow, dramatic pacing, the capacity to be entertaining.

This seminar will introduce students to contemporary visual communication theories and realities by presenting diverse models of design practice and counter-practice. A series of visiting designers and artists will represent their own working relationships within the realms of commerce/culture/community, to expose students to the evolving range of theoretical, aesthetic, and professional options open to them. Students will engage with contextual readings and conduct self-directed research, in order to inform the development of a series of brief conceptual design exercises and/or analytical writings.

This critique seminar explores the structure of storytelling. Students review traditional dramatic form, incorporate methods of collaging content and explore experimental narrative structures and physical configurations. The course begins and ends with targeted design+writing projects utilizing non-linear narrative methods such as circular or never-ending, list formats, and multiple perspectives. Here, students focus on new forms as a means of driving narrative. In between, a longer investigation with a more expanded process focuses on analogy and its relationship to narrative. Using analogy, students deploy various research strategies and novel mapping techniques, fashioning stories out of the strange or incongruous, prodding connections that push against cliche. Each project in this seminar reconsiders basic tenets of reading?flow, dramatic pacing, the capacity to be entertaining.

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

Guided Studies are intensive, self-driven courses of study that have a clear rationale for their configuration and articulate an expressed need in terms of a student's scholarly, material, and theoretical research. As a 3 credit course, a Guided Study constitutes 135 hours of study and production on the part of the student, including four meetings (virtual or otherwise) with a supervising faculty who has expertise in the research areas. On the Guided Study syllabus co-produced by the LRMFA student and supervising faculty, expected research accomplishments must be formulated, alongside a course description, learning objectives, evaluation criteria, a proposed timeline, a communication plan, and a suggested reading list or bibliography. Open to Low Residency MFA students only.