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Sculptural Practices of the
20th Century (3) (IV.4)
This course will examine the manifold ways in which avant-garde sculptors from c.1900-c.1970 have theorized the relationships between art and technology. Stimulated by the technological optimism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many sculptors in Europe and North America sought to close the gap between these two realms, upholding the utopian belief that technnology could rescue sculpture from academicism and that, in turn, this newly generated sculptural sensiblility could help humanize technology itself. With the destruction of the Second World War, however, sculptors became more circumspect about technology's utopian promise, but nevertheless continued to bridge the divide between the two domains through their introductions into sculptural practice of systems aethetics and serial production, their renewed interest in kineticism and the problem of motion in an art form traditionally theorized as static, their increasing pursuit of collaborative projects with engineers, and their appropriation of early video technologies. The course seeks to provide the student with a sense of the philosophical and historical traditions that not only predate the current fascination with the interface of visual culture and electronic media, but also underpin it. Classes will be part-lecture, part-discussion. Course requirements: weekly readings, regular contributions to discussion, short in-class presentations, and two papers. Cost:2 WL:4 (Gough) |
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