In “On Permission to Write”, essayist Cynthia Ozick distinguishes between the “good-citizen writer” and the “shaman-writer” The first, she says, writes dutifully; the second, “obsessively”, “torrentially”, and most crucially, with self-given permission. For artists and designers who have, by and large, favored visual over written expression, obsession and torrent probably come more naturally in the studio than on the page. This course seeks to bring that same uninhibited, exploratory, and illuminating sensibility to the thesis, to suggest that writing is not a duty, but rather can be integral to studio practice. We will look at writing about one’s work — its art-historical, theoretical, and personal sources; its form and process; its motivation; its interpretation — as a kind of translation from form to language (one that can be as individual and authentic as our chosen materials). The course will include writing exercises designed to help us think more deeply and coherently about our work and ideas, as well as discussion of assigned readings. The readings are exclusively written by artists and designers: criticism, manifestos, journal writings, and artist interviews – a selection intended to suggest that in permitting themselves to write, artists and designers establish artistic agency, lineage, and history itself through that writing.
Required for all Digital Media students in the Fall semester of the final year
Majors outside of Digital+Media require instructor permission