Steven Heyman

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 focus on the development of artistic research skills for students already engaged in a practice. Students take this required course in order to experience and develop a variety of research methodologies, both conventional and alternative, which include utilizing collections and archives in the School and the extended community.

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.

Faculty directed, open-media, interdisciplinary, idea based assignments are designed to help students recognize work habits, biases, strengths, and weaknesses. Through this course work students will be able to identify the most productive research methods and making strategies to bolster their emerging studio practice. 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.

Time passes, things change. How do artists work with time, in kinetic and static mediums, in ways that deliver time sensitive materials and convey meaning and heightened understanding of the human condition? From time management to time travel and beyond, how does our past shape our present, what do we project for the future? What shall we make today? In this course, initial assignments are geared toward the development of independent studio projects, informed by student research, discussion and critique, with the emphasis on building a body of work, a sustained practice, one piece at a time. Looking at artists such as Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Vija Clemins, Nick Cave, Josef Koudelka, Roni Horn, Malcolm McLaren, Paul Pfeiffer, Miller & Shellabarger, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Rodney Graham, Luc Tuymans, Pipilotti Rist, and Tehching Hsieh, we will explore, and put into practice process/concepts such as simultaneity, time loops, portraiture, slow motion, memento mori, time lapse, linier and non-linier narrative, eternal art, and cinematic time tropes. Selected reading from texts such as Einstein¿s Dreams by Alan Lightman, and Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord. Over the course of the semester, students will produce 3 five week projects in the medium of their choice. Course work and activity will include studio time, prompts, readings, field trips, small group meetings, documentation of practice and critique.