The Visual Archive

Last week, we looked at space and ways to translate it into an archive. This week we will be looking at time: How can an archive capture a time frame; a moment, a minute, a year, one hour?

→ Asynchronous
Read, Watch, Write

→ Sven Spieker: The Big Archive. Introduction pages 1-5 (continue if you are interested!)
→ Interview with Penelope Umbrico

→ Prepare
Experiment 3 — One Hour
Due: OCT 13
Document one hour in a micro-archive. This specific hour can be any time from OCT 6 to OCT 12. The archive needs to have exactly 15 records with captions; its title will be the date and hour. Presentation/ dissemination requirements: all records needs to be visible at the same time.

Prepare for our individual meeting on OCT 6:
→ Sign up for a time slot in this google spreadsheet
→ Your manifesto: five intentions (things you want to achieve with your research/archive)
→ Concept for the One Hour assignment:
Which specific hour will you archive and why?
What are the recording instruments you will be using?
What is the visual language you are planning to use (bring examples)?
What will be the captions?
How will you share the archive? (Printed on paper, on screen, format, …)

While you are defining your individual research inquiry we will explore experimental ways of visual form-making. These methodologies can inspire the visual direction of your final archive project.
     This week’s experiment takes you out in the streets (if that is safe for you) for field studies and footage gathering.

→ Asynchronous
Read, Watch, Write

→ Experiment 2: Urban Type Collages. Find the password on Canvas.
→ Scott McCloud. Understanding Comics, Chapter 5, pp 118-137.
→ Principles of Visual Language. Kennedy Art Center.
→ OPTIONAL: Beautiful (Then Gone). A short documentary on the work and life of San Francisco designer, Martin Venezky. (14min)

→ Prepare
Experiment 2 — Urban (Type) Collage
(It is ok to not include type)
Print and crop your collages for class!

→ Step 1 Identify
Based on your research inquiry, decide for a physical location near to you. A street, a building, a corner, a park, a room, (…)

→ Step 2 Observe
Take a camera (mobile phone) and and spend at least two hours at your location. As a visual journalist, study the environment from different perspectives (zoom in, zoom out) and take pictures of lines & shapes, positive and negative spaces, patterns & textures, and typography & letters. 

→ Step 3 Create
Tutorial: Using Photoshop to create the Urban Type Collages. Get the password from Canvas.
Use your images to create 7 collages that express 7 of the 9 “Principles of Visual Language” discussed in class:
1. 7×7 inches, black on white only.
2. Apply the demonstrated method combining: Image>Adjustment>Threshold and “Multiply” layers.
3. Take into consideration how your seven compositions become a series to represent the same thing in different ways. Even though it is called “Type Collage” not all compositions have to include type.
4. Upload to google drive, week 5, “Urban Collages”.
Print and crop your collages for class!

→ Martin Venezky’s work in the letterform archive.
→ Appetite Engineers Promotion

Arthur Jafa screening: The White Album: https://www.gladstonegallery.com
(Thank you, Anayah)

The records (images) of your archive will tell a story. How does the order of things impact the narrative you are intending to convey?
   This week, we will explore ways to arrange visual material and playfully implement elements & principles of visual language.

→ Asynchronous
Read, Watch, Write

Briefing:
Experiment 1: Bilderatlas.
Find it on vimeo—link and passw on Canvas.

Videos:
Lorna Simpson, Studio Visit @TATE
Batia Suter, Parallel Encyclopedia

Article:
Its Nice That, Design, Revolt, Rainbow: the pioneering work of graphic designer Willy Fleckhaus

Readings:
1. This helps with your homework for next week:
Koren, Leonard: Arranging Things, pp. 41-47

2. This helps to think about your research inquiry:
Colomina & Wigley: Are We Human, chapter 1

→ Prepare
Experiment 1 — Bilderatlas
Create 3 plates of a speculative atlas about your research topic:

1. Use all 16 images—your 12 images (you can change these if you need to) + 4 images “stolen” from peers—on each panel.
2. Take time to study the images and arrange them inspired by aspects of your research inquiry. You can also revisit the instructions everyone submitted this week. Only rule: you have to come up with three completely different ways of laying them out.
3. Go back to your research inquiry (or area of interest) and give a title to each plate.
4. Write one sentence about your process for each plate.
5. Both title and process should not be part of the plate.
6. You can use any software or analog process for this assignment.
7. Submission/ bring to class:
   3 plates, each on a tabloid size paper (11 x 17 inches)

Willy Fleckhaus
→ Article on It’s Nice That
→ Spreads on Pinterest

Aby Warburg
→ About the Mnemosyne Atlas (The Warburg Institute)

Lorna Simpson
→ Lorna Simpson Studio
→ Lorna Simpson @TATE
→ Studio Visit @TATE

Additional Introduction to the grid:
→ Ellen Lupton explains the history and usage of the grid
→ An Introduction to Grids and How-to by Andrew Maher

“Seeing per se means thinking about the world and this actually takes place on different levels at the same time,” says Wolfgang Tillmans in an interview for Fondation Beyeler.
     Reflecting on his artistic approach, Arthur Jafa has said that he’s “driven by an impulse to consolidate things that were there, but were dispersed.” (Triple Canopy)
     This week we will expand from one object to 12 images that tell a story. How important are order, sequence, and arrangement?

→ Asynchronous
Read, Watch, Write

Videos:
1. Charles and Ray Eames:
Powers of Ten
2. Wolfgang Tillmans:
Interview Fondation Beyeler
3. Arthur Jafa:
APEX @MoMA (graphic content)
Notebooks

Readings:
1. Research for people who think they rather create, Vis Dirk, pp 25-31.
2. Read all peer responses to the archive screening (you will find them in the week 2 folder).

→ Prepare

1. After reading all peer responses, reach out to at least one of your peer students in an email. You can share a thought, inspiration, ask a question, (…). The content of the message will NOT be shared in class but please cc me (ONLY) on your first email so I can see you initiated a conversation.

2. Select one object from your PECHA KUCHA and find 11 related images. These can be found images, your own, or a mix. Print these 12 images. 4×6 inch (landscape or portrait). We will use them in class for a workshop—don’t select images you feel uncomfortable sharing.

3. After watching/reading this week’s articles, look at your images and come up with ten ways to give them an order. This can be based on content, form, or speculation. Write down each way of organizing as a one-line instruction and add them to the shared document “Visual Narrative” in the week 3 folder of our google drive.

Charles and Ray Eames | Powers of Ten, 1977 from Salon 94 on Vimeo.

Arthur Jafa
→ Notebooks @MoMA
→ Article @NewYorkTimes

Wolfgang Tillmans
→ Installation shots, Zwirner 2015
→ Installation Shots Kunstsammlung Duesseldorf 2013
→ Google Search: Exhibition Set Up

This class explores the relationship between form and content: How is meaning constructed and communicated through visual language?
    Through observing, collecting, analyzing, writing, and form making, students apply design processes involving visual research, concept generation, and craft skills.
     Driven by research interest, you will use digital and analog means to build visual archives. These collections are approached as a resource of critical inquiry and to respond to current socio-political issues.
    So, what is your research interest?

→ Asynchronous
Read, Watch, Write

1. Archive as Method. Screening. (password on Canvas). As a response, summarize your interest in archives in 200 words. Use at least one example from the screening and add a definition of what an archive is at the very end. Work in the google doc in our shared google drive WEEK 2. Submit by Wednesday, 9/7 6pm ECT
2. John Berger: Ways of Seeing, pages 7-10 (min)
3. Hillary Collins: What makes a good research topic?

→ PREPARE
A Pecha Kucha presentation

1. Take pictures of 5 objects that represent your research interest.
2. All 5 objects can represent the same topic or diverse areas of interest.
3. Create a PDF with 5 pages, each page has one object.
4. Upload the PDF to the shared google drive into the folder week 2: PECHA KUCHA
5. Be able to talk about each image for 20 sec.
6. Make a test at home!

→ In the 1920s, the historian of art and culture Aby Warburg (1866-1929) created his Bilderatlas Mnemosyne tracing recurring visual themes and patterns across time. Last fall, an exhibition at HKW Berlin restored the last documented version of this atlas.

→ Archive as inquiry: objects of the everyday. Belgian photographer Barbara Iweins classifies and archives her personal belongings in KATALOG

→ Bernd and Hilla Becher @TATE
→ Hans-Peter Feldmann, Portrait, 1994
→ Herman de Vries, from earth: everywhere @designboom | Journal de Maroc | Branches of trees @hermandevries.org
→ Aby Warburg, Bilderatlas Mnemosyne: Warburg Institute | Exhibition in Berlin this fall @HKW
→ Mario Klingman, X Degrees of Separation
→ Kelly Walters, With a Cast of Colored Stars
→ Mishka Henner, Astronomical
→ Observational Practices Lab: Atlas of Everyday Objects — In the Age of Global Social Isolation