Installation & Performance
Where the body becomes the medium — exploring installation art and live performance in Florence
Installation & Performance — Florence as a City Laboratory
Installation & Performance Art are both based on the merger of space and time and on a relationship between the artist and the audience which is inter-dependent. The piece doesn't fully exist without the viewer's active participation. Utilizing interests and abilities in a variety of subjects and media, students will create environments that immerse the viewer in a sensory, intellectual and emotional experience.
The class will consist of demonstrations of art skills particularly useful in installation and performance that will lead us to investigate alternative approaches to documentation through image-making as well as sculptural residues and storytelling. Students may incorporate a variety of media including photographs, painting, drawing, video, sound, sculptural materials, found objects, collage, their own body and/or someone else's body in works that expand the physical boundaries of art and communication beyond the "neutral" wall or displaying isolated objects on a pedestal.
Students in this course will have an opportunity to immerse themselves not only in Florence's renowned art institutions such as the Uffizi and Accademia, but most importantly in the fabric of Florentine street life, food and culture in order to develop a more intimate engagement with the city than that of the casual tourist and in doing so to explore a new kind of art practice.
Terms: Fall, Spring | Prerequisite: None
Directed Studies — Advanced Installation & Performance
For students who have taken the basic installation and performance course, and who are prepared to work on a body of work, develop an in-depth approach to a personal aesthetic, and share in a community of other artists. This class is meant for self-motivated individuals who have completed at least one semester in installation and/or performance, and who wish to focus on evolving their work and defining the scope of their issues and ideas. The class will have regularly scheduled class meetings where students can continue a dialogue with each other; students will also meet individually with the instructor.
Terms: Fall, Spring | Prerequisite: None