Claire Fleming Staples

This studio course focuses on themes, practices, contexts, and questions undertaken by contemporary artists and designers. Research Studio I is a course that asks students to begin to develop and connect their own work and ideas with a diverse range of artists, designers, and communities. This course engages with cultural institutions including: museums, galleries, libraries and archives as resources of critical engagement. Students will undertake various types of research activities: a) collecting and classification, b) mapping and diagramming, c) systems of measurement, d) social interaction, e) information search systems, f) recording and representation, and g) drawing and other notational systems. Assignments in this course are faculty directed, open-media, interdisciplinary and idea based. The projects are designed to help students recognize their work habits, biases, strengths, and weaknesses. Students will experience a wide range of research methods and making strategies. Critique as an evaluative process used in art and design schools, is a focus in this course. Various methods and models of critique are used in order to give students the tools to discuss their own work and the work of others.

In this class we will be learning about and making works that are both somatically engaging and virtually transportive. How can we remain in our bodies while also traveling into different worlds? How can we create portals into a desired reality that we can actually step into? The course will cover methods of immersive installation including sound, projections, haptics, and working in digital environments like New Art City, with 3-D and video elements. We will be looking at artists like Jacolby Satterwhite, Morehshin Allahyari, Pippoloti Rist, Yayoi Kusama, Anti-Body Corporation, Heesoo Leymusoom Kwon, & Peter Burr, reading texts by Octavia Butler, Hito Steryl, Karen Barad, Laura Marks, Resmma Menakem , and Samuel Delaney. Class work will include reading discussions, world-builidng workshops, and somatic exercises, as well as technical demonstrations. Students will work in groups and individually on two major projects, and lead one reading discussion.