Undergraduate Courses New
1A Visual Literacy (5 Units)
Large lecture course. Overview of art movements, and representational and conceptual theories relevant to contemporary art making. The emphasis will be a broader understanding of reasons for certain types of imagery presented in the media, museums, publications, galleries etc. Lectures will include presentations by contemporary artists who will present, and contextually discuss their work.
1C Introduction to Contemporary Art (2)
This symposium format course presents contemporary artist’s creative projects in relation to recent developments in art and cross-disciplinary practices. Lectures by faculty from UCSB’s Art Department as well as distinguished guests invited to expand on art, theory and cultural production.
7A The Intersections of Art and Life (5)
This course explores art in relation to time-based activity and integration with everyday life. Conceptual introduction to authorship, authenticity, and narrative through exercises and examples of performance, video, film, book arts, sound, digital media and interactive/chance derived work.
7B Introduction to Contemporary Practice I: Image Studies (5)
The study of visual perception and image-making across visual art disciplines, both material and digital. Studio assignments are combined with related critical theory, historical practice, current strategies and new evolutions.
7C Introduction to Contemporary Practice II: Spatial Studies (5)
The study of spatial arts in many forms, including material, interactive and dynamic digital. Studio assignments are combined with related critical theory, historical practice, current strategies and new evolutions.
7D Introduction to Contemporary Practice III: Art, Science and Technologies (5)
The study of the foundations of digital and technological arts in all forms, including the history, theory and practice of optical, kinetic, interactive, interdisciplinary and systems-oriented art. Lectures and assignments introduce concepts, methods, movements and practitioners that have shaped the fields.
10 Introduction to Contemporary Painting Practices (4)
A broad range of projects designed to provide strong foundations in fundamental 2D image making, utilizing a variety of media, including acrylic and oil painting. Further supplemented with slide lectures and demonstrations. Both contemporary and historical practices are employed and discussed.
12 Lower-Division Sculpture (4)
Introduction to sculptural problems and techniques dealing with the expanding field of traditional sculpture and contemporary terms.
14 Lower-Division Print (4)
Introduction to making prints. Emphasis on technical fundamentals and conceptual aspects of graphic arts. āPrintā incorporates hand produced, and electronically replicated media.
18 Lower-Division Drawing (4)
Introductory problems in two-dimensional representation with various drawing media, including structural and symbolic implications of human form. Emphasis on organization of vision and thought in terms of drawing techniques and materials.
19 Lower-Division Photography (4)
Examines photography as a means of artistic expression through a variety of media based on, but not limited to, photos. Conceptually-based projects explore how we view, interpret, and manipulate visual information. Lectures cover major historical and contemporary artists. Lab work in digital.
22Ā Introduction to Computer Programming in the Arts (4)
Using a project-based approach, the basic components of web development and computer programming are explored in different markup and programming languages such as HTML/CSS, JavaScript, and Processing. The class is intended to create a general understanding of computer programming, its use and cultural implications, as well as provide a foundation for utilizing programming in a wide range of projects, from traditional to new media.
32 Introduction to Digital Video (4)
Introduction to digital video production including camera work, editing, sound, and distribution platforms. Conceptual and technical concerns relevant to video in the evolving theater of contemporary art and culture.
100 Intermediate Contemporary Painting Issues (4)
Problems in emphasizing the development of personal expression in various media. Consideration given to historical painting as well as trends in contemporary painting. The relationship between drawing and painting will be explored.
101 Advanced Contemporary Painting Issues (4)
Advanced studies in painting utilizing particular faculty interests, media collaborations, and/or special departmental facilities. The exact nature of the course will be specified in the Department of Art Studio syllabus.
102AA-ZZ Super Course Digital Media Toolbox: Concepts and Skills
A project based course with an emphasis on technical skills within the digital media arts context. Topics may include telecommunications, wireless, database aesthetics, networks, interactivity, digital 3D, virtual reality, immersive environments, algorithmic aesthetics, visualization, media theory and others. Topic to be determined by instructor.
102MM Digital Project: Mobile Media
In this class we will make mobile app art projects for smartphones and tablets using HTML/CSS, JavaScript and Perl. Through the conceptualization and creation of these projects, we investigate social and locative media, ubiquity, the possibilities and limits of apps as art and the cultural implications of the increased uses of mobile apps. Students will also learn basic programming skills that can be applied towards learning and using other computer languages for a wide range of purposes.
102MU Digital Projects: Mashups
The web is brimming with continuously updated data about anything from weather, tsunamis, and earthquakes to UFO sightings, animal migration, sports, population, and the stock market, as well as user-generated information at social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. āMashupsā are applications that combine this data into something new and interesting. In the class we make mashup art using HTML5/CSS, JavaScript and Perl, that combine and manipulate real time data while investigating our world of data.
105AA-ZZ Super Course Intermediate Spatial Practices
Designed to develop student knowledge and proficiency of material and method, cultivating both manual and conceptual skill-levels in three-dimensional practices. Course focus varies by quarter, but includes a variety of approaches to material practices and engages students in the role of spatial awareness and production within contemporary art.
105PP Intermediate Spatial Practices: Public Practice
Designed to develop student knowledge and proficiency of material and method, cultivating both manual and conceptual skill-levels in three- dimensional practices. Course focus varies by quarter, but includes a variety of approaches to materials and concepts in Public Practice.
105KY Intermediate Spatial Practices: Kim Yasuda
Designed to develop student knowledge and proficiency of material and method, cultivating manual, conceptual and collaborative skill-levels in both the studio and public realm. Course focus varies by quarter and includes a range of approaches to an engaged spatial practice within contemporary art and its related fields.
105TD Intermediate Spatial Practices: Physical and Virtual
Designed to develop student knowledge and proficiency of material and method, cultivating both manual and conceptual skill-levels in three-dimensional practices. Course focus varies by quarter, but combines āhands onā physical practice with digital practices, tools and methods. No previous digital skills required.
106AA-ZZ Super Course Advanced Spatial Practices
Advanced study and investigation of new forms and spatial practices. Individual and group projects may encompass formal and collaborative research as well as multi-disciplinary production that engages new and exploratory practices, such as interactive and performative media, public art, social design at the intersection of architecture, urbanism and contemporary art. Course content detailed in syllabus each quarter.
106FA Advanced Spatial Practices: Friday Academy
106FA is an open, interdisciplinary, project-based instructional environment designed to explore experimental curricula relevant to a publicly-engaged art practice. Straying from the traditional studio/classroom arts training models, FA offers locally embedded, multi-quarter, off-site research in real-world settings, encouraging flexible programs in response to immediate social and environmental concerns. FA draws from an interdisciplinary team of students, faculty and community scholars to work in partnership with one another.
106PP Advanced Spatial Practices: Public Practice
Advanced study of new forms and spatial practices within Public Practices. Individual projects may encompass formal sculptural practices as well as investigations that engage new technologies and alternative practices such as interactive media, the intersection of architecture and contemporary art, and site-specificity. Course content detailed in syllabus each quarter.
110 Intermediate Print (4)
With its concern for the individual print, the sequential use of pictorial information, the intermedia aspects of image and text, and the book as an expressive form, āprintā focuses not only on how prints are made, but also on when and why they are used. Assigned projects and supervised group and independent study are required.
111 Digital Intermedia I (4)
The investigation of imagination and visual communication. Students create image and/or text based projects using digital and hybrid tools, including digital drawing, photography, vector imaging. Project themes and methodologies include site-responsive public space art, and distributed multiples.
111PP Public Practice Arts: Digital Intermedia
The use of digital and hybrid media to create site-responsive public projects including unsanctioned, permission based, and speculative works. The investigation of the evolving nature and use of public space and its interrelations of individual, social, architectural/built, and infrastructure conditions. Projects will be executed both on and off campus.
112 Artistsā Books (4)
An investigation of the book as an art form. Based on conventional media, artistsā books encompass a variety of methods, techniques, and ideas. Assigned and self-directed projects using traditional and innovative practices, combining reading with pictorial and tactile experience.
113 Experimental Video and Animation
The development of independent, innovative projects that utilize digital video and/or post-production and hybrid means to create video-works for screens and surfaces, including projection, installation, distributed platforms. Projects may employ a variety of strategies and methodologies in concept, production, and presentation. Broad exposure to contemporary and pioneering video/film, with an emphasis on experimentation in substance and form.
117 Intermediate Drawing (4)
A continuing investigation into the challenges of two-dimensional representation . Course focus to depend on instructor, but may include structural and symbolic implications of the human form, historical and contemporary strategies of visual analysis, and exploration into experimental media.
118 Advanced Drawing (4)
Problems emphasizing development of personal expression in drawing, utilizing various media. Consideration given to historical as well as contemporary trends in drawing.
120 Intermediate Photography (4)
Continued refinement of digital and traditional photographic technique, and development of photography as an art making tool. Course to range by instructor, but may include photo narrative, journalism, fashion, artists’ books, desktop publishing, web design, time-based work, and intermedia collaborations.
120SE Intermediate Photography: Social Engagement
Building on the tools of lower division photo and the skills learned in Art 120, SE links social issues such as mass incarceration, poverty, LGBTQ rights, racism, environmental justice and give you the framework to photograph, layout, write, research, publish, post and impact a broad audience about the issues that are keeping you up at night. This is ART for engagement rather than the galleries or privileged walls.
121 Advanced Photography (4)
Advanced studies in photography utilizing particular faculty interests and/or special departmental facilities. Exact nature of course will be specified in the Department of Art syllabus.
122AA-ZZ Super Course Advanced Topics in Digital Media
An advanced project based course in digital media arts. Students are expected to have relevant conceptual, aesthetic, and technological grounding in digital media. Topic to be determined by instructor.
122CC Advanced Digital Topics: Creative Cartography
Historically, map-making was a privilege of the ones in power, and more recently a craft of trained professionals. Today, anyone can make and publish their personally annotated maps online. In this class we will investigate and participate in these new participatory map-making paradigms, making our own artistic and conceptual mapping projects using the Google Maps/Earth APIs, HTML5 and JavaScript. The class explores psychogeography, critical cartography, locative media, real time data, and social and mobile media.
122PC Advanced Digital Topics: Physical Computing
Course will focus on development of New Media projects through the exploration of open-source computer software and hardware development tools. Students will study the fundamentals of multimedia programming and learn how to connect their software to tangible hardware devices to create interactive digital artworks. Students are expected to have a h5 technological grounding in digital media and experience with digital graphics, sound, video, or web programming. Final projects will be based on knowledge and capabilities of each student.
123 Papermaking (4)
Introduction to historical and contemporary methods of handmade papermaking leading to innovative uses of handmade paper as an integral part of art forms.
125 American Art Since 1950 (4)
Developments in American and European art since 1950 with an emphasis on the most recent decades. Focus ranges from the post-war impact of the New York School, Pop Art, Minimalism and Conceptualism to more recent, āpostmodernā trends.
126 Introduction to Contemporary Theory (4)
A basic beginning survey of contemporary art, film and media theory, focusing specifically on: realism, formalism, semiotics, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, feminism, Marxism, gender/queer studies, post-structuralism, and broader issues of authorship, narratology, postmodernism and multiculturalism.
130 Visual Art As Culture (4)
Exploration of the visual arts in a wide range of socio-cultural and economic contexts. Topics include artās changing institutional role in relation to the shifting parameters of ideology and the state apparatus, history, revolution, nationalism, Orientalism, multiculturalism, postmodernism, high and low culture and new technologies.
132 Intermediate Digital Video
The making and use of video in contemporary art. Hands-on production and post production are combined with viewing, critique, and discussion topics, including cultural prominence and future trends. Single and multiple channel, installation, and integration with other media are all encouraged.
134 Performance (4)
A workshop introduction to the forms, styles, and strategies relating to the use of the body as both a physical and psychological basis for making art. Method, space, narrative, audience, object, games, chance and rituals are explored.
136 Personal Narrative (4)
A writing based workshop designed for formulating and producing artwork based on oneās own personal experiences and histories. Experimentation and expansion into other artistic media are encouraged.
137 Spoken Word (4)
A workshop introduction to the use of voice as an artistic medium, with emphasis on personal monologue, and improvisation.
185GL Digital Project: Optical-Digital Culture & Practice
A project based art course focused on image-processing as an experimental tool and as creative medium. Assignments will bridge technical experimentation with artistic and conceptual approaches to examine the nature of the computational image.
185IV IV Open Lab
IV OpenLab is an open, project-based, learning/research environment designed to encourage student and campus engagement in the Isla Vista community. Weekly Friday gatherings will take place in IV, hosting different campus and community members who will be present, discuss and provide feedback on the range of Isla Vista issues and opportunities. Students taking the course will be required to design outside research projects (individually or collaboratively) to present to the community groups at the end of the quarter.
192 Internship in Art (1-4)
Opportunities in applied learning related to visual art through local business, government, or institutional organizations, working under faculty direction with periodic and final written reports and supporting portfolio.
194 Special Group Studies (2-4)
A means of making special studies or meeting special curricular problems.
192AA-ZZ Super Course Internship in Art
Opportunities in applied learning related to visual art through local museums, art galleries, and other art related organizations or institutions. Students work under the direction of the faculty sponsor who maintains contact with the supervisor for whom the student is interning.
192ES Internship in Art
This internship provides pedagogical and practical support for students exhibiting work within the Art Building and other venues across campus such as Cheadle Hall and the University Library. Among other skills, the course will include intensive training in exhibition scheduling and curating, installation and display, the production of didactic supplements such as information sheets, wall texts and titles, methods of promotion as well as de-installation and art handling.
196 Honors Seminar (4)
Open to qualified art studio majors with at least a 3.5 grade-point-average in the major and at least a 3.0 grade-point-average overall; upper-division standing; and acceptance into the departments honors program.
199 Independent Study (1-5)
Advanced study in a variety of media. To be determined by the professor and the student. Student must have upper-division standing and a minimum of a 3.0 grade-point-average.
199RA Independent Research Assistant (1-5)
Coursework shall consist of faculty supervised research assistant. Student must have upper-division standing.