Emily Eddy

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 course, we will look through the lens of cinema to consider art making and storytelling. We will also study the contemporary landscape of film and video artwork. In class, we will watch films together and explore how films can inspire our art practices in every medium. We will learn from filmmakers and moving image artists, unpacking the complex relationships between sound and image, the viewer and the screen, and more. We will read cinema theory, analyze films, and explore moving image history together, along with attending film screenings and events. By the end of this course, you can expect to have an introduction to contemporary film, video art, and cinema theory, as well as a working knowledge of film history and groundbreaking filmmakers from the last century. Assignments may include: making artworks inspired by films and videos, writing shot-by-shot analyses, reenacting films, reinventing ways to experience moving images, performing for the camera, and reading film and media theory.