Open Studio

This is a video production workshop designed for the virtual classroom Bard shares with Smolny College in Russia. Students will produce individual video works in response to assignments but also work in teams, collaborating with their peers abroad, on projects which utilize the various communication and exchange possibilities offered by the net for personal artistic expression, for example email and file exchange. As virtual interaction transforms our experiences of space and time, privacy, authorship, friendship and memory, this course is an opportunity for a critical investigation of virtual communication and related technologies and a chance to explore directly these new modes as they apply to art making. Students are challenged to refine their video skills, utilize the networking options available through the net and incorporate into their videos the artistic strategies of students from very different traditions. Tech demos and in-class exercises will be supplemented by readings from media theory and aesthetics, critiques of work-in-progress and screenings of related works.