Artistic Framework Development: The Artistic framework you build will serve as the lens through which you observe and interpret experiences, guiding your creative process throughout the course. Begin gathering materials and experiences to activate or deepen your artistic sensibilities. Below are suggested steps to guide this process:
Step 1: Identify a Body of Inspiration
Identify an unfamiliar and thought-provoking source of inspiration—it could be anything, such as an emerging subculture, a disruptive technology, mysterious forces in your basement, taboo, asymmetrical warfare, first kisses, last kisses, a futurist whose work challenges your assumptions. Engage deeply with this source, seeking to uncover unexpected connections that can inform your artistic framework. Reflect on what fascinates or unsettles you, and explore how these reactions can fuel your creative momentum.
Example:
Duncan Trussell’s exploration of esoteric knowledge, including contemporary conspiracy theories, informs his creative work, particularly in his animated series,
Midnight Gospel (YouTube link). Note the critical distance between the subject matter and his personal beliefs. You do not need to adopt the viewpoints of your chosen body of inspiration, but aim to uncover something personally revealing.
Step 2: Explore Emerging Artistic Insights
Document your reflections and evolving artistic framework. These can be based on abstract concepts or grounded experiences. Allow wildly disconnected thoughts to surface and give them unusually earnest attention. Both moments of existential dread and eureka are equally valid. Follow your intuition to iteratively seek, collect, lurk, play, dwell, or commune in ways novel to you.
Example:
Jodorowsky’s theories on the transformative power of fantasy in the film Jodorowsky’s Dune (YouTube link) illustrate how personal artistic frameworks can develop from specific hunches or ideas.
Optional Suggestions:
Create an alternate persona and social media accounts to engage more freely with your chosen interest. Anonymity may help you experiment more boldly. Restart yourself from scratch, build it up differently, playfully. Become the kind of person who can make the art that YOU want to make.
Compile a digital collection (e.g. instagram likes on a new account where you only follow teacup makers, or a Google Drive of images from) of media, artists, movements, and other inspirations that invigorate your artistic framework. Aggregate fodder with which to build a way to creatively see and feel the world anew. For some this is a like a mood board, for others its like making a tarot deck out of found objects. What will it be like for you?
Explore the tools or material structures relevant to your artistic framework, such as a quirky game engine, textile craft, AI, blockchain, or even biotech - why not. Understanding these technologies may deepen your engagement. For some, learning new technologies might be like communing with alien planes of existence. Game engines hold unique material spaces for exploration and play. AI is akin to alien life landing on the planet. LLMs, image models, and audio models all exhibit forms of intelligence that invite deeper engagement. Our technologies are always speaking back to us. What insights are these digital spirits whispering to us?
You may choose to keep your Artistic Framework entirely private if it emboldens you to take meaningfully daring risks. Engaging with art-making independently can help foster a more authentic, experimental process. Strive to awaken your latent artistic drives and sensibilities. Share what you feel comfortable with.
Week 2 – Immerse in Process (April 9)
In-Class Activities:
Lecture and discussion on assigned readings
Overview of the main class project
Homework:
Continue developing your artistic framework from Week 1. In-class examples will help orient and inspire your process.
Week 3 – Gather up Hunches and Give them a Whirl (April 16)
In-Class Activities:
Lecture and discussion on assigned readings
Optional Sharing: Students may share aspects of their developing artistic framework.
Class Discussion: Explore how to translate artistic frameworks into projects.
Homework:
Continue developing your artistic framework. Put it to gentle and varied use. Adjust and adapt it to what your gathered hunches are telling you. Experiment with approaches to how you can be creative and play within your developing artistic framework with regard to your project development.
Week 4 – Shape Artistic Framework & Put it to Good Use (April 23)
In-Class Activities:
Lecture and discussion on assigned readings
Progress Sharing: Present project progress, receive feedback, and guidance.
Homework:
Continue developing your artistic framework. Vigorously perform within it to do whatever is needed to manifest the aspects of your project that are most compelling to you at the moment.
Weeks 5 – 7: Flesh out Body of Work (April 30 - May 14)
In-Class Activities:
[Optional] Discussion on assigned topic
Progress Sharing: Students are invited to share progress or experiences with the class when they determine it is helpful. It could be informal discussions about choices they have to make regarding the direction of their work. It could be a playtest where they want to see people experiencing their work. Any structure students want to use to engage the class with their work or process is fine. The structure of class time will adapt based on class progress and individual needs of students.
Homework:
Operate and adapt your artistic framework so you can creatively develop your project from an increasingly informed sense of direction.
Weeks 8 – 9: Clothe your Body of Work and Prepare to Let it Go (May 21 - May 28)
In-Class Activities:
[Optional] Discussion on assigned topic
Progress Sharing: Students are invited to share progress or experiences with the class when they determine it is helpful. It could be informal discussions about choices they have to make regarding the direction of their work. It could be a playtest where they want to see people experiencing their work. Any structure students want to use to engage the class with their work or process is fine. The structure of class time will adapt based on class progress and individual needs of students.
Homework:
Operate and adapt your artistic framework so you can creatively dress up your body of work. Give your project its own life. In other words, develop your project enough so that you don't feel you have to explain it to people. Prepare your project so it may speak for itself.
Weeks 10-11 – Share Body of Work (June 4 and June 11)
In-Class Activities:
For the final two weeks of class (which includes the final exam, scheduled June 11 from 11:30am-1:45pm) students share their work, process, and themselves in their project context. Each student will have 15-20 minutes to do with that class what they want. Students may opt-out from participating in any other student's project or discussion if they feel uncomfortable for any reason. Students who feel emotionally vulnerable and who would find it helpful to share their work remotely via zoom (perhaps with the camera off), may choose to do so but you will need to speak with the instructor at least a week before you plan on sharing.
Final Deliverable:
The entire deliverable due is what you want to show to the class or have them do. There is no other item needed that you must deliver or do for this class. Every student has agency to shape how they want to engage the class, share their work, and use their time. It could be a light-hearted play session, or it might be an avant-garde performance, or anything you feel will help people connect with your work. Consider how best to invite the class into your artistic world, fostering meaningful engagement and discussion around your work’s experience or force.