a course about corporeal representation

[Topics in Convergent Media: Vision [RTF 331S,Unique #s 73137/73223 Instructor: Samantha Krukowski samantha@rasa.net o: cmb studio 4b control / 471.4222 c: 771-2121 TA: Ana Boa-Ventura boaventu@hotmail.com first summer session 2001 cmb studio 4b m and w evenings 5-9pm additional lab times to be announced

Readings

I assign 8 readings that I copy and hand out to you over the course of the semester. See the attached calendar for the dates related to each reading. Spend time struggling with these readings, even if they seem beyond your reach. Your ability to do good work in this course depends on your willingness to think. These readings are by no means the extent of the bibliography you should be consulting. I¹ve provided a list of body categories alongside Assignment #4 you can consider for help with your research. Labs, Screenings, and the Like Additional classes may be scheduled for software or hardware tutorials, for further discussion, or for film screenings. You are not required to attend these classes, but you are strongly encouraged to do so.

Grading

Grading is based on your participation in the course and the quality of your projects. A note: As in any creative class, grading criteria are necessarily subjective. You may not agree with my personal evaluation, but decisions are final and no post-grading negotiation will be permitted.

€Class participation (includes demonstrated understanding of readings) 10%

€Assignment 1 20%

€Assignment 2 20%

€Assignment 3 20%

€Assignment 4 30%

In order to receive a grade for this course, there are three requirements beyond the above.

€You must attend class.

€You must complete all the projects. Failure to turn in any project will result in an F. Your grade will not be averaged based on projects you do complete if one is missing.

€You must document, in a web site, all the work you did in the course. This web-site must be uploaded to the ACTLab server and given to me on a CD-ROM on the last day of class. We¹ll talk more about the website in class.

Course Calendar (labs not included) Week Dates Assignment 1 Wednesday, June 6 Reading 1 handed out 2 Monday, June 11 Wednesday, June 13 Reading 1 due Reading 2 handed out Assignment 1 due Reading 2 due Reading 3 handed out 3 Monday, June 18 Wednesday, June 20 Assignment 2 due Reading 3 due Reading 4 handed out Reading 4 due Reading 5 handed out 4 Monday, June 25 Wednesday, June 27 Assignment 3 due Reading 5 due Reading 6 handed out Reading 6 due Reading 7 handed out 5 Monday, July 2 Wednesday, July 4 (Holiday‹No Class) Reading 7 due Reading 8 handed out 6 Monday, July 9 Wednesday, July 11 (Last Official Class) Reading 8 due Assignment 4 due CD-ROM and website due

Assignment 1 Locating

Get 10 pieces of long and wide paper, each big enough to draw a full-size silhouette of your body (butcher paper on rolls is available in the UT Co-op basement for cheap). Choose the color(s) of your paper carefully and with purpose. Lay down on each piece of paper in a different position and have a friend trace the silhouette of you in that position. Again, think about the medium you are choosing to trace with‹white chalk, black pen, acrylic paint‹each has its own character. You may choose positions that allow for more or less negative space, more or less clarity of your body as a recognizable human form. Ask yourself questions: do you want clothing to play a part in a silhouette? What is the difference between your left and right sides, your frontal and dorsal positions? What do you think a particular position will show or hide? Of the 10 you make, choose your favorite 5 and tack them up side by side so you can look at them individually and as a whole. Now your job is to assign each silhouette a narrative. Each silhouette/narrative will represent one way you see and understand your body and the things it is composed of‹its organs, memories, scars, wounds, stories, sounds, surprises, densities, hollows, developments, emptinesses. Once you have set the narrative tone for each silhouette, your job is to make each silhouette into a body by filling it with relevant texts, icons, images and substances. You are being asked to consider the relationship of your skin (outer layer‹the thing that is the mediating layer and container that separates your internal body from the world) to the body that it covers (its parts, metaphors, systems.) You may wish to maintain anatomically correct relationships in one silhouette, and completely rearrange or destroy them in another; you may wish to write truths or falsehoods; you may wish to invent organs or entire bodies; you may wish to work with various kinds of languages‹the intonations of mechanics, front-porch storytellers, alien tongues. A type of source that may help: The Body : An Encyclopedia of Archetypal Symbolism George R. Elder (Editor) Assignment

Assignment 2 Reading and Writing

Go to a palm reader. Pay to have your palm read. Go to a fortune teller. Pay to have your fortune told. Carefully record and describe your experiences. Go to: http://pwccentral.com/palmistry/palmistry/ Follow the instructions. Carefully record the results. Go to: http://pwccentral.com/numerology/ Follow the instructions. Carefully record the results. Go to the library or a bookstore. Utilize 5 references that are astral, spiritual or paranormal in nature. One example: The Power of Birthdays, Stars, & Numbers :The Complete Personology Reference Guide Saffi Crawford, Geraldine Sullivan Make a list of the sources you consulted and record what each one revealed. Once you¹ve completed these exercises, write a narrative. This narrative should examine, in whatever tone or spirit you wish, how these individual experiences function to give you information about your ³self² and your ³body² and how you think the two are related. Whatever tone you choose for your narrative, it should be critical and well-written. Attach to this narrative as addenda the 4 exercises you completed prior to writing it.

Assignment 3 Object of Power

Many cultures make objects of power that are associated with or derived from their conceptions and representations of bodies. These objects (bodies themselves) often refer back to the body of the person who possesses them. They have various meanings‹they may surround, adorn, protect, situate, teach, remind‹but whatever their meanings they are usually substantial in character and effect. You are to make an object of power. To do so: 1. Research objects of power from at least 10 cultures. 2. Make a list of at least 20 things that you think have substantial power and meaning for your life at this time‹scents, materials, places, photographs, mementos, objects, people. Know why and how. 3. Consider things that people empower themselves with in the 21st century. Make a list of 20 of these, and list them in best to worst order in your view. 4. Make an object of power. It should incorporate what you¹ve learned from the objects you studied, what you know and keep that is powerful in your own life, what you think about things that people empower themselves with in today¹s world. The form of this object is completely your invention. However. It should be, like the objects you studied, substantial in character and effect. When you turn in your object, include: 1. A source list that lists the objects you learned from, their cultures/countries of origin, when they were made. 2. Your list of the 20 powerful things in your life. 3. Your list of the things people empower themselves with in the 21st century.

Assignment 4 The Interactive Body

Based on the readings and projects you have so far completed, you should be ready to make an interactive body that addresses one or more of the themes we have touched upon in the course. This body might be your body reconfigured for interaction (ie sensory equipment), it might be a body you make that is interactive,it might be your interpretation of the word ³body² as an interactive thing in the world. We will talk much more about the word ³interactive² and its possible relationships to the word ³body.² In the meantime, consider the relationship, and consider the categories below. The point of this project is to engage some aspect of your understanding of how bodies exist and interact with/in the world and its myriad other bodies, and to make a project that not only demonstrates this understanding, but ENACTS it. You know, the hip bone¹s connected to the, ____ boneŠ Body Categories (just some of them) abnormal bodies, diseased bodies, alien bodies, absent bodies, invisible bodies (invisible man), disappearing body, formless body, aesthetic body,, idealized body, design for the body, cinematic body, bodies of work, architectural body, feng-shui, altered body, adorned body, marked body (tattoos, piercings), cosmetic surgery, body guards (apotropeic figures, amulets, charms), anatomical body, medical body, body composition (what are we made of?), cut body, biotechnology, transplants, dissection, vivisection, cloning, psychosomatic body, tortured body, dead body, implants, body language, body memory, extra-body, out of body experiences, paranormality, aura, afterlife, past lives, disembodiment, soul, fantastic bodies (mermaids, demons, fairies, angels, spirits, ghosts, vampires, other inventions), machinic body (robotics, machine parts), technological body, virtual body, future body, masked body (identity), mirror, performing body, mind/body, subconscious, consciousness, originary bodies (darwin, prophecies, recent discoveries, ideas about evolution), physical body, exercised body, bodybuilding (analyse this word), sensory body, aromatherapy, accupressure, massage therapies, psychokinesiology, healing the body, alternative medicine, meditation, radionics/radiesthesia--working with energy patterns, sexual/gendered body, social body, world body, body politic, consumer body, theological body, symbolic body, reflexology, chakras, palmistry, astrology, color medicine, textual body, poetic body, tarot, untouchable body/untalkable body (fart, burp, spit, phleghm, body products/by-products, indigestion). A selected bibliography organized around these categories is available to those of you who want to look at it/copy itŠ

UNIVERSITY SPEAK Regarding Scholastic Dishonesty: The University defines academic dishonesty as cheating, plagiarism, unauthorized collaboration, falsifying academic records, and any act designed to avoid participating honestly in the learning process. Scholastic dishonesty also includes, but is not limited to, providing false or misleading information to receive a postponement or an extension on a test, quiz, or other assignment, and submission of essentially the same written assignment for two courses without the prior permission of the instructor. By accepting this syllabus, you have agreed to these guidelines and must adhere to them. Scholastic dishonest damages both the student's learning experience and readiness for the future demands of a work-career. Students who violate University rules on scholastic dishonesty are subject to disciplinary penalties, including the possibility of failure in the course and/or dismissal from the University. For more information on scholastic dishonesty, please visit the Student Judicial services Web site at http://www.utexas.edu/depts/dos/sjs/. About services for students with disabilities: The University of Texas at Austin provides upon request appropriate academic accommodations for qualified students with disabilities. For more information, contact the Office of the Dean of Students at 471-6259, 471-4641 TTY. About the Undergraduate Writing Center: The Undergraduate Writing Center, located in the FAC 211, phone 471-6222, offers individualized assistance to students who want to improve their writing skills. There is no charge, and students may come in on a drop-in or appointment basis.

ABANDON ALL SELF CONSCIOUSNESS

Water is ineffable, like wind, like shadows. A virtual medium, water contains the unseen (darkness), unseeable (particulate wetness), the unknown (fear). Water is disobedient‹a cranky interface. It moves when stroked, interrupted, punched, intersected. It refuses containment, its waves and splashes and droplets radiate out, away, vanishing (evaporating), dissipating (slowing), reverberating (returning anew). Water is powerful as a healer, a timekeeper in tides, an elemental force, a necessary corporeal and nutritive essence. Water is the content-source and the image-source of self.

Air You cannot breathe underwater

Go to a depth where you are comfortable. Let the air out of your lungs and sink to the bottom of the pool. Arrive there in whatever pose the water and ground suggest. Stay as long as possible. Repeat.

Force Water resists you

Swim the length of the pool and back. Swim on your back, on your side, face down. Test strokes. Study the character of resistance given various positions and movements. Under what circumstances does the water collaborate with and against you most?

Light Layers of visibility

Open your eyes above and below the surface. Open your eyes so they are half in and half out of the water. How does a sunbeam change from sky to surface to interior? Find one and follow it. Swim toward the bottom of the pool. Study the coming darkness. What is the character of liquid dark? Find the place in the pool where sight is annihilated. What sense takes over first? Find the level in the pool where sight first returns. What is the character of the first sighting, the first image?

Network You are not alone

Your body is one among many jumping, thrashing, exercising, relaxing, diving, playing, floating, sinking, maneuvering, viewing and viewed bodies. Sit and watch the pool and its environs for a while. Consider it as a system with circuits and breakers, on/off switches, hot and cold rooms, points of connection and disconnection, strong and weak elements. Break it down into areas of activity, areas of a particular character or type. How many areas are there? Name them. Describe their content and activity types. Appear in each one as an element that belongs, and as an element that interrupts service.

Plane The water cuts you everywhere

When you draw a body you can perceive it topographically such that horizontal contour lines describe loops and cross-sections of corporeal expanse and diminution. Let the water surface act as topographical indicator for your body. Study how it defines parts, encircling them at exactly their surface limits. Water also acts as a plane, bisecting those parts over from those parts under. Study the moment of cutting at surface level. Project parts of your body into the air and into the water and learn the nature of water as knife. Note the distortions caused by the water¹s surface, the apparent disconnections and relocations of things ordinarily perceived as a whole.

Reflection Images from surface to sky

What is the effect of water¹s reflectivity? Make 10 self portraits by looking into the water and altering the reflection you see. Draw over the reflection. Do nothing and allow the actions of others to influence your appearance. Throw pebbles into your reflection (water pointillism?) Insert a stick there. Invent, reflect, make. Ripple Reverberation 10 actions, 10 reactions. Dislocate the water 10 times 10 different ways.

Sculpture Water shapes

With two or more people, compose five floating shapes in the water. Test minimal and maximal connectivity before deciding on the final shapes. Two fingertips vs. hands. Tops of heads vs. backs. Soles of feet vs. broadside.

Weight Do you float?

Lay on your back in the water. Do you sink? Close your eyes. How does the water tell you where your body begins and ends? Writing Disappearing ink Think of a sentence based on Bachelard¹s writing. Write it on the water until someone else can read it.