Projects

Short projects over the course of the semester will ask you to make something off Grounds. Some projects are individual exercises and others will be completed in groups. Everyone must submit a one page reflection with each project. The reflection is a time and space for you to explore discussion topics in more depth, collect project ideas, and track your thinking about art and community. The projects will be presented and discussed on the Thursday they are due. Projects will be assessed on the following criteria:

  • you have followed project directions (or broke from the directions to serve the project’s goals)
  • your work shows adequate effort and consideration
  • your reflection makes connections to the course topics and readings
  • you are pushing yourself to actively engage with different perspectives

Each project will be assigned a grade from 0-5.

5 = exceptional (takes risks, effort over and above)
4 = good (complete assignment, good effort)
3 = ok (well, you did it)
0 = no effort (didn’t hand it in)

Project One | Deep Listening

Due in class Thursday 9/13

From Pauline Oliveros…

Deep coupled with Listening or Deep Listening for me is learning to expand the perception of sounds to include the whole space/time continuum of sound – encountering the vastness and complexities as much as possible. Simultaneously one ought to be able to target a sound or sequence of sounds as a focus within the space/time continuum and to perceive the detail or trajectory of the sound or sequence of sounds. Such focus should always return to, or be within the whole of the space/time continuum (context). Such expansion means that one is connected to the whole of the environment and beyond.

Read Introduction to Deep Listening by Pauline Oliveros

Choose a location in Charlottesville and spend 27 minutes sitting still, listening. Afterwards, write down some of the sounds that you remember and some of the ideas / thoughts / emotions that linger from the experience. Feel free to bring in thoughts from the Deep Listening reading or class conversations if you would like. You can supplement your writing with drawings and figures as well (no photographs, recordings, or indexical records). Try not to write anything too specific that reveals precisely where you were but focus on the connections you formed with your space and the way information travels in and through sound.

Bring two copies of your reflections to class.

Project 2 | Forming Perspective (Video)

Due in class Thursday 10/04

  1. Read the following: Guy Debord’s “Theory of the Dérive” and this chapter from Karen Rourke’s Walking and Mapping: Artist as Cartographer
  2. Practice Relationscapes in a public area off grounds. Detailed instructions HERE.
  3. Create a 3 minute video using a smartphone. Take inspiration from an experience(s) within Relationscapes or not. Make CLEAR choices about framing, texture, relationship to time, relationship to space, etc.

Due Sunday 10/8 via email

  1. Write a 1-2 page reflection on the process of transforming your experience into an experience for someone else. Make connections to any of our class readings and be SPECIFIC.

 

Project 3 | Walking

Read
Constraints…
  • craft a walking experience for the rest of the class within the designated area
  • consult at least one person who occupies your area/location, temporarily or permanently
  • construct a method of delivering the instructions/guidelines for the walk
  • consider multiple time scales/histories
  • cater to multiple senses

 Screen Shot 2017-10-28 at 5.31.06 PM

Example Projects to think with:

APoetic Walk in Public Space

 

Optional Further Reading