VIS1010H F
Instructor(s): Zachary Blas
Meeting Section: LEC0101
Wednesday, 9:00am - 12:00pm

How does theoretical thought, philosophy, and discourse interact with and operate within contemporary art? This course provides a survey, albeit far from exhaustive, of theoretical issues, methodologies, and trajectories active in the arts today. We will engage debates on the conditions of artistic and academic research; visual and informatic representations of violence; the fictioning of theory; blackness’s relations to the human, technics, and matter; new materialisms, object-oriented ontology, and the nonhuman; fascism and decolonization; post-truth and the observational documentary; queer and feminist approaches to sex, surveillance, and criminalization; and the ascendance of networked power and internet art. We will consider works spanning a multitude of forms, from academic writings, artist texts, art criticism, lecture-performances, conferences and symposia, exhibitions and their catalogues, films and videos, manifestos, installations, and other theoretical and artistic expressions. This is a seminar-style course, discussion-driven with required weekly readings, written responses, presentations, and a final research project.