Visual Arts
- AMS 403/ENV 403/VIS 408: Advanced Seminar in American Studies: Art and Politics of FoodThis course brings methods and ideas from two fields--American studies and the environmental humanities--to examine the role of the arts in US food movements related to agriculture, culinary experimentation and environmental justice. Course materials will include film, visual and performance art, journalism, political ephemera and culinary artifacts. Course participants will develop both an independent research-based essay and a multimedia collaborative project that build on the seminar's guiding questions and assigned materials.
- ART 455/VIS 455/ECS 456: Seminar in Modernist Art & Theory: Alienation in Modern Art & LiteratureAlthough "alienation" might seem passé as a concept, modern art and literature were long steeped in this condition. This seminar will explore its principal expressions by its primary voices--artists, writers, and philosophers--from Baudelaire, Marx, and Manet through Rimbaud, Nietzsche, and Gauguin, to Existentialist philosophy and outsider art, and on to "Black Dada" today. Among our themes will be the underground, spleen, dandyism, detachment, primitivism, art brut, absurdity, and objectification.
- CWR 348/VIS 348: Introduction to Screenwriting: Writing the Short FilmThis course will introduce students to core screenwriting principles and techniques. Questions of thematic cohesiveness, plot construction, logical cause and effect, character behavior, dialogue, genre consistency and pace will be explored as students gain confidence in the form by completing a number of short screenplays. The course will illustrate and analyze the power of visual storytelling to communicate a story to an audience, and will guide students to create texts that serve as "blueprints" for emotionally powerful and immersive visual experiences. Final portfolio will include one short exercise and two short screenplays.
- CWR 405/VIS 405: Advanced Screenwriting: Writing for TelevisionThis advanced screenwriting workshop will introduce students to the fundamental elements of developing and writing a TV series in the current "golden age of television." Students will watch television pilots, read pilot episodes, and engage in in-depth discussion about story, series engine, character, structure, tone and season arcs. Each student will formulate and pitch an original series idea, including season arcs, and complete most or all of the pilot episode by end of semester.
- CWR 448/VIS 448: Introduction to Screenwriting: AdaptationThis course will introduce students to Screenwriting Adaptation techniques, focusing primarily on the challenges of adapting "true stories" pulled from various non-fiction sources. The class will address the ethics of adaptation, questions and techniques surrounding the need to fictionalize truth for dramatic purposes, as well as touching on the differences between fictional and nonfictional original materials. Students will be exposed to various contemporary non-fiction adaptations, and will write a short film (under 15 pages) and one longer project (30 pages).
- THR 318/MTD 318/VIS 318: Lighting DesignAn introduction to the art and craft of lighting design for the stage and an exploration of light as a medium for expression. Students will develop an ability to observe lighting in the world and on the stage; to learn to make lighting choices based on text, space, research, and their own responses; to practice being creative, responsive and communicative under pressure and in company; to prepare well to create under pressure using the designer's visual toolbox; and to play well with others-working creatively and communicating with directors, writers, performers, fellow designers, the crew and others.
- THR 400/MTD 400/VIS 400: Theatrical Design StudioThis course offers an exploration of visual storytelling, combined with a grounding in the practical, communicative, collaborative and anti-racist skills necessary to create physical environments for live theater making. Students are mentored as designers, directors or creators (often in teams) on realized projects for the theater program season. Individualized class plans allow students to design for realized productions, to imagine physical environments for un-realized productions, or to explore contemporary visualization techniques, depending on their area of interest, experience and skill level.
- VIS 201/ARC 201: Drawing IThe great thing about drawing is you can do it anywhere! This course approaches drawing as a way of thinking and seeing. We'll introduce basic techniques while also encouraging experimentation, with a focus on both drawing from life and drawing as an expressive act. Students will be introduced to the basics of line, shading, proportion, composition, texture and gesture. You'll also maintain a drawing journal, and use it as a regular space for observation and personal expression. Through exposure to a variety of mediums and techniques, you'll gain the skills and confidence necessary to develop an individual final project of your choosing.
- VIS 203/ARC 327: Painting IAn introduction to the materials and methods of painting, addressing form and light, color and its interaction, composition, scale, texture and gesture. Students will experiment with subject matter including still life, landscape, architecture, self-portraiture and abstraction, while painting from a variety of sources: life, sketches, maquettes, collages, photographs and imagination. Students will progressively develop personal imagery that will inform an individual final project. Princeton will provide all materials for the painting class.
- VIS 211: Analog PhotographyAn introduction to the processes of photography through a series of problems directed toward lens projection, the handling of light-sensitive material, and camera operation. The processes will begin with cyanotypes and culminate with large format film exposure and processing, and printing. These processes trace the origins of photography. Final projects will examine new potentials in photographic expression including images that hybridize analog and digital interfaces. The goal of this course is to make art, and by doing so, understand the necessity for the invention of photography.
- VIS 213: Digital PhotographyThis studio course introduces students to the aesthetic and theoretical implications of digital photography. Student emphasis is on mastering digital equipment and techniques, managing print quality, and generally becoming familiar with all aspects of the digital workspace. Popular media, found photographs, and the "life" of digital images will also be investigated. Slide lectures, readings and class discussions of student work in critique format will augment visual skills with critical and conceptual understandings of contemporary photography.
- VIS 215/CWR 215: Graphic Design: TypographyThis studio course introduces students to graphic design with a particular emphasis on typography. Students learn typographic history through lectures that highlight major shifts in print technologies. Class readings provide the raw material for a sequence of hands-on typesetting exercises which punctuate the class weekly. Metal letterpress typesetting, photo-typesetting, and digital typesetting will be covered through online demonstration sessions. This semester, the class may also further explore the typographic future by engaging and designing novel electronic text entry interfaces and decoding a fictional alien typography.
- VIS 216: Graphic Design: Visual FormThis course introduces students to techniques for decoding and creating graphic messages in a variety of media, and delves into issues related to visual literacy through the hands-on making and analysis of graphic form. Graphic design relies on mastering the subtle manipulation of abstract shapes and developing sensitivity to the relationships between them. Students are exposed to graphics from the late 19th-century to the present in slide lectures. Studio assignments and group critique will foster an individual ability to realize sophisticated forms and motivate these towards carrying specific meanings.
- VIS 218: Graphic Design: ImageThis studio course engages students in the decoding of and formal experimentation with the image as a two-dimensional surface. Through projects, readings, and discussions, students take a hands-on approach to making an array of technologies (the camera, video camera, computer, solar printing, web publishing) and forms (billboard, symbol, screensaver, book) to address the most basic principles of design, such as a visual metaphor, composition, sequence, hierarchy, and scale.
- VIS 220: Digital AnimationThis studio production class will engage in a variety of timed-based composition, visualization, and storytelling techniques. Students will learn foundational methods of 2D animation, acquire a working knowledge of digital animation software and technology, and explore the connective space between sound, image, and motion possible in animated film. Screenings, discussions, and critiques will relate student work to the history and practice of animation and to other media, art, and design forms.
- VIS 221: Sculpture IThis class will be a home studio introduction to sculpture, with particular emphasis on the study of how form, space, and a wide variety of materials and processes influence the visual properties of sculpture and the making of meaning. A balance of indoor, outdoor, and/or transient assignments will lead to the development of an understanding of contemporary sculpture, as well as basic technical facility with found objects, common materials, natural earthworks, ergonomics, and three-dimensional design.
- VIS 226/MUS 228: Sound/Material/MindSound is at once ephemeral in air, concrete in material, and conceptualized in the mind. This unique quality makes sound ideal for examining the relationship of our internal experience to physicality. In this course, students will reconsider sound as material through projects exploring physical technologies of sound-making along with listening and viewings of related arts and artists, readings and writings in theories of sound, new media, and phenomenology. This class offers a hybrid experience - an engagement with art-making and seminar, reconsidering our relationship to the body, physical material, and sound embodied in the world.
- VIS 229: Fabric Logics: Textiles as SculptureThis class experiments with 3D fabric construction, weaving, knitting, knotting and more as a means for making sculpture. In her essay, "The Materialists", curator Jenell Porter asks, "Why not consider fiber as painting and sculpture, drawing and sculpture, installation and painting, and most problematically, art and craft?" Through this 'both/and' condition, this course introduces a range of art in which textiles are used as the primary material while providing techniques and materials for developing textile-based sculpture. Studio work will be complemented by readings, research presentations, breakout groups, and individual meetings.
- VIS 232: Collage: Diversions, Contradictions, and AnomaliesThis course is an introduction to the fascinating history of collage. Students study techniques employed in the iconography of China and Medieval Europe, and expand to its historical resurgence in the form of keepsakes and scrapbooks. Students evaluate the relationship of collage to historical advancements in photography, assemblage, and décollage. Students discover collage's relationship and technical developments to the radical histories of trauma, disruption, and desire by studying contemporary artists. Projects are structured around mixed media drawing, printmaking, painting, along with found object sculpture.
- VIS 263: Documentary Filmmaking IIn the real world, what relationships have the necessary friction to generate compelling films? Documentary Filmmaking I will introduce you to the art, craft and theory behind attempts to answer this question. Through productions, readings, screenings, and discussions, you'll take your first steps into the world of non-fiction filmmaking. You will analyze documentary filmmaking as an aesthetic practice and a means of social discourse. Further, as films are often vessels for their directors, preoccupations, the course will push you to examine the formal, social and political concerns that animate your life during these turbulent times.
- VIS 265: Narrative Filmmaking IAn introduction to narrative and avant-garde narrative film production through the creation of hands-on digital video exercises, short film screenings, critical readings, and group critiques. This course teaches the basic tools and techniques for storytelling with digital media by providing technical instruction in camera operation, nonlinear editing, and sound design paired with the conceptual frameworks of shot design, visual composition, film grammar and cinema syntax.
- VIS 313: Intermediate PhotographyThis course will examine photography's evolving technologies. Students will work with analogue black and white and color film which they will scan and print their digitally in order to broaden their photographic strategies, technical skills, and their understanding of the medium. A range of tools will be introduced, including camera operation, film scanning, Photoshop image management tools and inkjet printing. The course will require independent and collaborative assignments with critiques augmented by readings, visiting photographers, discussion, and potential field trips provided that travel restrictions and the pandemic conditions allow.
- VIS 331: Ceramic SculptureThis course is designed for students who are interested in learning the fundamentals of working with clay. A wide variety of hand-building will be taught, enabling students to make utilitarian vessels as well as sculptural forms. Students will learn about glazing and colored engobe application methods and how to operate electric and gas kilns. Studio work will be complemented by readings, field trips, and slide presentations.
- VIS 365: Narrative Filmmaking IIAn intermediate exploration of narrative and avant-garde narrative film production through the creation of hands-on digital video exercises, short film screenings, critical readings, and group critiques. This course picks up where Narrative Filmmaking I left off, expanding on the basic tools and techniques for storytelling with digital media by providing further technical instruction in camera operation, nonlinear editing, dialogue recording, and sound mixing paired with the conceptual frameworks of point of view (narrative stance), master shot technique, performance, and blocking.
- VIS 373/AAS 398/ART 372/GSS 440: Curating Within Obscurity: Research as Exhibition Structure and FormHow can posthumous research on a curatorial subject influence the structure and form of an exhibition or a new conceptual artwork? This course retraces the steps taken to produce McClodden's 2015-2019 artistic and curatorial work centering the lives of three Black gay men - poet Essex Hemphill, writer/poet Brad Johnson, and composer Julius Eastman - in order to examine key concepts central to research-based practice. Students will be expected to produce a research/exhibition study of an artist whom they feel has been obscured posthumously.
- VIS 392/ART 392: Artist and StudioA required seminar for Art and Archaeology Practice of Art majors and Program in Visual Arts certificate students emphasizing contemporary art practices and ideas. The course addresses current issues in painting, drawing, sculpture, film, video, photography, performance and installation. It includes readings and discussions of current contemporary art topics, a visiting artist lecture series, critiques of students' work, and an artist book project.
- VIS 416: Exhibition Issues and MethodsThe structure of Sr Issues and Exhibition Methods is to create a conversation and vision for, and in regards to and around your Sr Thesis. The nature of the class is somewhat informal and conversational, with the majority of class time being for student studio presentations and visiting artists lectures. There are two projects; a proposition presentation and a "handmade" poster project which will be virtual this year. There may be readings from the visiting artists and recommended short readings. Where Jr Seminar concentrated on "the studio", Sr Seminar focuses the conversation around "the exhibition". Students must attend all classes.
- VIS 418/CEE 418: Extraordinary ProcessesThis year, students will design, build, and critically analyze three common objects - a Cushion, a Prosthetic, and a Light Fixture - each of which will be informed by the diverse structural properties of a single material: ash wood. Assignments will be three weeks long and will be executed round-robin. The round-robin structure allows students to lead the way on some assignments, and learn from the work of their classmates on others, supported by concrete data gathered from visiting artists and lab work. A larger goal of this class, then, is to compare and contrast methods of evaluation in visual art, engineering, design, and ergonomics.