Although the Modernist idea of autonomy within each medium continues to play a major role in art and design, much of the most innovative work of the last thirty years has seen practitioners in both fields muddying the waters. Artists have increasingly turned to the more applied processes within the design world (mass-distribution, industrial fabrication, intersection with everyday life) as part of their work, while many designers have been adopting ideas traditionally associated with fine arts (complexity and contradiction within a piece, the idea of challenging the audience, focusing more on making as a process than as a means to an end).
We will visit, on three New York trips, practitioners working at the intersection of art and design. Visits are designed to introduce students to the different steps in the cultural superstructure, from artists, fabricators and designers, to institutional and commercial distributors, to critics and editors writing about the field. Readings ranging from the Frankfurt School to contemporary theorists will supplement our visits and provide focus for in-class discussion, as well as the jumping-off point for written assignments. In several assignments over the semester, students from different disciplines will collaborate on conceiving and making studio projects and preparing a fully realized strategy for their appearance in the world.
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