Oliver Sann

'The Anthropocene' is the name of the new geological epoch, first proposed by atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen and marine biologist Eugene F. Stroemer in 2000, with the proposal that human species has become the single prominent agent of change affecting the earths geology and ecosystems. Since then, the conversations on the Anthropocene, climate change, sustainability and the planetary ecological crisis have proven that the extremely complex problems the Earth is facing can only be addressed by new forms of collaboration and innovative knowledge production. Photography plays in this context a pivotal role and goal of this class is to promote empirical and forensic work on landscapes of the Anthropocene, the degraded and damaged ecologies of the planet Earth. Collaborative work and access to different material forms, laboratories, analog and digital photographic media as well as scholarship and first-person testimony on health, race, politics and aesthetics, will help generate diverse perspectives on the entangled realities of the world and the complex human-natural systems. Questions of environmental justice and environmental ethics will take center stage in this class.

Science fiction films imagine futures that often comment on the failures of the present. In recent years, “clif-fi,” or science fiction about climate change, has become an increasingly popular sub-genre, and some historical films have been newly understood within this framework. This class will study a wide range of historical and contemporary cli-fi films, including international films, experimental films, and blockbusters, in order to understand how they encourage us to see the escalating crisis of climate change. Each week a film will be screened at the Gene Siskel Film Center. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015, George Miller, Australia); Snowpiercer (2013, Bong Joon-ho, South Korea); Neptun Frost (2021, Saul Williams, Rwanda); Princess Mononoke (1997, Hayao Miyazaki, Japan) or The Day After Tomorrow (2004, Roland Emmerich, USA), to name a few. Students will be expected to read essays before class, attend film screenings, participate in conversations and other tasks.

This is a 0 credit study trip placeholder course. Specific credit courses will be applied to your enrollment for the term based on your Study Trip Preregistration information.

Exploratory Media examines the fluidity and connection between various forms of media. The course builds on the history of Conceptualism, an artistic practice born in the 1960s that prioritized the idea, allowing the medium to follow as well as the highly influential theory of the medium itself being meaning and message. This course will highlight the history of artists who worked with a wandering “nomadic” mindset due to access to new technologies such as video art collectives of the 1970’s as well as photographers who work within a non-traditional lens based practice. This laboratory-like course encourages students to experiment and iterate: In this course students are asked to consider their artistic intentions through different kinds of media like performance, sculpture, sound, while also focusing on different outputs for lens based work such as alternative photographic substrates, performance, installation. The course structure relies on assignment-based projects, frequent hands-on studio experimentations, peer-to-peer feedback, and looking at other artists' work in a variety of mediums. Intermittent readings, lectures, and screenings provide a conceptual framework for this work.

This graduate level studio seminar course is a hybrid of reading, discussion, making and critique, designed to pursue positions in historical and contemporary philosophy, critical analysis, and current thought relevant to photography and visual literacy. Throughout the semester, the course aims to explore the past and future of visual media and to look at its discourse in relation to life as an artist in the greater realm of culture, society and politics. Course programming includes critical readings, short and informal writing assignments, work and research presentations.

This graduate level studio seminar course is a hybrid of reading, discussion, making and critique, designed to pursue positions in historical and contemporary philosophy, critical analysis, and current thought relevant to photography and visual literacy. Throughout the semester, the course aims to explore the past and future of visual media and to look at its discourse in relation to life as an artist in the greater realm of culture, society and politics. Course programming includes critical readings, short and informal writing assignments, work and research presentations.