Yve-Alain Bois - Seminars / Workshops / Lectures

HISTORY OF FILM, MEDIA AND ART – Aesthetics and Visual Media (3 Credits)

Yve-Alain Bois, Ph.D.

Description: This course begins with developing the basic structural elements of communications. Once we have established this guide we begin to move towards our larger goals of exploring the relationship between media and art. This course often features a guest artist who highlights the directions by which creativity is linked to communication. Through intensive readings before the course begins combined with a unique classroom experience students will be pushed towards achieving their own personal and professional goals.

Objectives: Students shall create a theoretical background essential to the process of critical thinking. As we approach the spaces by which art and media are both limited and created, we begin to see the essential connections between media and current critical theory. The main goal of this class will be to raise students ability to discuss and write about theories of communication as they relate specifically to modern art movements and historical art criticism.

Learning Outcomes: Students will have developed a significant grounding in both teaching and writing artistic criticism. Students will further their theoretical and practical understanding of the structures of communication theory. As students engage art from a communications framework they begin to prepare for the process of their dissertation projects. This class in particular focuses on the relationships between creativity and structure. We will continue to ask ourselves, in what ways can the framework of communicative structures inform the creative process? Studying these critical issues is essential to both communication scholars and artists alike.

Course Outline:

Module 1: Introduction to Painting and Film
History of perspective (Renaissance to today), Modelisation and perspective in film, The cinematic apparatus, Reading film from an art historian/painting authority’s perspective

Assigned readings:
Metz, Christian. "The Imaginary Signifier." in: Screen. 1975, Vol. 16, No. 2, p. 14-76. (English).
Metz, Christian. "The Imaginary Signifier." in: Robert Stam and Toby Miller (Editors) Film and Theory: An Anthology. Blackwell Publishers. 2000. pp.408-436. Paperback, 880 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0631206264. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Assigned films:
"Rhythm 21" (Viking Eggeling and Hans Richter, Germany, 1921)
"La Jetée" (Chris Marker, France, 1962)

Module 2: Painting as a Theme in Film
Biographic representation, Tableaux vivants, Film by painters, Quoting painters in film

Assigned readings:
Eisenstein, S.M. "Yermalova," in Selected Works Vol. II: Towards a Theory of Montage. eds. Glenny, Michael and Richard Taylor, St. Edmundsbury Press Ltd., 1991, pp. 82-99.

Assigned films:
"Carivagio" (Derek Jarman, UK, 1986)
"Andrei Rublyov" (Andrei Tarkovsky, Russia, 1969)
"Basquiat" (Julian Schnabel, USA, 1996)

Module 3: "All-Over": Time and Surface
The aesthetic of decentering, Henri Matisse, Jackson Pollack, Slowing down the gaze, Barnett Neuman, Ad Reinhardt, Dadaists, Surrealists, the 60s underground, Texture in film

Assigned readings:
Greenberg, Clement. "The Crisis of Abstract Art," in: Arts Yearbook 7. 1964.
Greenberg, Clement. "The Crisis of Abstract Art," in: John O’Brian (Editor). Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism. Vol. 4, University of Chicago Press. 1993. Paperback, 358 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0226306240. Krauss, Rosalind E. "Horizontality," in Formless: A User’s Guide. with Yve-Alain Bois, Zone Books, NY, NY, 1997, 93-108.
Rose, Barbara. "Kinetic Solutions to Pictorial Problems: The Films fo Man Ray and Moholy-Nagy." in: Artforum. 1971.

Assigned films:
"Tillie’s Punctured Romance" (Mack Sennett, USA, 1914)
"Kiss" (Andy Warhol, USA,1963)
"Empire" (Andy Warhol, USA, 1964)
"Playtime" (Jacques Tati, France, 1967)
"2001: A Space Odyssey" (Stanley Kubrick, USA, 1964)
"In the Mood for Love" (Wong Kar-Wai, China, 2000)

Module 4: Omnivorous Philosophy
Historical origins of painting and film, "Cut your tongue if you want to be a painter" (Henri Matisse), Film-makers read painting, Painters critique film-makers, Eisenstein and intertextuality, Collaborations between painters and film-makers

Assigned readings:
Eisenstein, Sergei M. "The Problem of the Materialist Approach to Form," in: Selected Works Vol. II: Towards a Theory of Montage. eds. Glenny, Michael and Richard Taylor, St. Edmundsbury Press Ltd., pp. 59-76.
Eisenstein, Sergei M. "Béla Forgets the Scissors," in Selected Works Vol. II: Towards a Theory of Montage. eds. Glenny, Michael and Richard Taylor. St. Edmundsbury Press Ltd., pp. 77-81.
Malevich, Kasimir. "And Images Triumph on the Screens," in Essays on Art, 1915- 1933, Rapp and Whiting, London, 1969, pp. 226-232.
Malevich, Kasimir."The Artist and the Cinéma," in Essays on Art, 1915-1933, Rapp and Whiting, London, 1969, pp. 233-238.

Assigned films:
"Strike" (Sergei M. Eisenstein, Russia, 1925)
"Kinoeye" (Dziga Vertov, Russia, 1924)
"Diagonal Symphony" (Viking Eggling and Hans Richter, France, 1925)

Module 5: Credits (and Other Formal Exercises)
Early film experiments, Op art, french musicals, and the Nouvelle Vague, Figure-ground relations, Saturation, In-class exercise: A formalist reading of "Battleship Potemkin"

Assigned readings:
Michelson, Annette. "Anemic Reflections on an Emblematic Work," in Artforum. September, 1972.
Kracauer, S. "Experimental Film," in Theory of Film. Oxford University Press, 1960.

Assigned films:
"Desmoiselles de Rochefort" (Jacques Demy, France, 1967)
"Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" (Jacques Demy, France, 1964)
"Funny Face" (Stanley Donen, USA, 1957)
"Ballet Mechanique" (Leger, France, 1924)
"Anemic Cinema" (Marcel Duchamp, France, 1926)

Module 6: The Third Meaning
Roland Barthes’ "Image Music Text", Structuralism and Post-structuralism, Undoing denotation and connotation, Unfolding: Baroque and obtuse meaning.

Assigned readings:
Barthes, Roland. "The Third Meaning," in: Image, Music, Text. ed. Stephen Heath, Hill, NY, 1977, pp. 50-68

Assigned films:
"Battleship Potemkin" (Sergei M. Eisenstein, Russia, 1925)
"Happy Together" (Wong Kar-Wai, China, 1997)

Module 7: Excess
Theatricality, Decorativism, Bakhtin and the relationship to the perceiver

Assigned readings:
Bataille, Georges. "The Big Toe," in: Encyclopedia Anacephalica. Atlas Press, London, 1995, pp. 85-94.
Yve-Alain Bois. "Abbatoir," in Formless: A User’s Guide with Rosalind Kraus, Zone Books, NY, NY, 1997, pp.43-50.

Assigned films:
"Ivan the Terrible" (Sergei M. Eisenstein, Russia, 1944)

Module 8: Political Influences
Pre-revolution abstraction (1917), Communist ideological theory, Productivists and Constructivists, France: May 1968

Assigned readings:
Bataille, Georges. "Slaughterhouse," in: Encyclopedia Anacephalica. Atlas Press, London, 1995, pp. 72-4.
Eisenstein, S.M. "Laocoon," in: Selected Works Vol. II:Towards a Theory of Montage. eds. Glenny, Michael and Richard Taylor., St. Edmundsbury Press Ltd., 1946, pp.139-181.
Eisenstein, S.M. "The Races," in: Selected Works Vol. II:Towards a Theory of Montage. eds. Glenny, Michael and Richard Taylor, St. Edmundsbury Press Ltd., 1991, pp. 285-295.

Assigned films:
"Strike" (Sergei M. Eisenstein, Russia, 1925)
"Kinoeye" (Dziga Vertov, USSR, 1924)
"Tout Va Bien" (Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1972)
"La Maman et La Putain" (Jean Eustache, France, 1973)
"Le Cochon" (Jean Eustache, France, 1970)

Module 9: Subliminal Affects of Plastic Formations
Eisenstein vs. Vertov, Montage, Foregrounding the medium, Saussure: Subliminal effects and obtuse meaning

Assigned readings:
Eisenstein, S.M. "Montage," in: Selected Works Vol. II:Towards a Theory of Montage. eds. Glenny, Michael and Richard Taylor, St. Edmundsbury Press Ltd., 1991, pp. 22-41.
Michelson, Annette. "The Man with a Movie Camera: From Magician to Epistemologist," in: Artforum. 1972.

Assigned films:
"The Man With a Movie Camera" (Dziga Vertov, Russia, 1928)

Module 10: Semiotics
Symbol, Icon, Index, Photography, Technology and the organic, Modernism and materials, Film and Projection, Occular themes

Assigned readings:
Krauss, Rosalind E. "Where’s Poppa?," in: The Definitively Unfinished Marcel Duchamp. ed. Thierry de Duve, Halifax, NZ: NSCAD; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001, pp. 432-62.

Assigned films:
"The Way Things Go" (Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Germany, 1987)
"The Mine" (William Kentridge, South Africa, 1991)
"Howl at the Moon" (William Kentridge, South Africa, 1982)

Module 11: History of Color
Color as a supplement, Color vs. line and mass, Renaissance painting, Challenging "local color", Delacroix, Courbet, and Impressionism, Science of color, Seurat and Post-impressionism, Creation of line with color, Cezanne, Neo-plasticism, Mondrian, Experiments with color, Matisse and Picasso, Joseph Albers’ color theory

Assigned readings:
Albers, Joseph. Interaction of Color. Yale University Press, USA, 1963.
Johnson, William. "Coming to Terms with Color," in The Cinematic Apparatus. ed. De Lauretis, Teresa and Stephen Heath. Macmillan, 1980, pp. 2-23.

Assigned films:
"Fargo" (Joel & Ethan Coen, USA, 1996)
"Falling Angels" (Wong Kar-Wai, China, 1995)

Module 12: Color in the 20th Century
Technical, psychological, and symbolic uses of color, Return of "local color", Deterrence and the Cold War paradigm, Mondrian and Godard, The "Hegelian" system of oppositions, Color interaction and tension, Color separation, Pollack, Bonnard, Antonioni

Assigned readings:
Dalle Vache, Angela. "Painting as Ventriloquism and Color as Movement," in: Cinema and Painting: How Art is Used in Film. University of Texas Press, 1994, pp. 43-80.
Krauss, Rosalind E. "Six" in: The Optical Unconscious. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.,1994, pp. 243-329.
Sharits, Paul J. "Red, Blue, Godard," in: The Cinematic Apparatus. ed. De Lauretis, Teresa and Stephen Heath. Macmillan, 1980, pp 24-29.

Assigned films:
"Pierre Le Fou" (Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1968)
"Contempt" (Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1964)
"Red Desert" (Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy, 1964)

Required Readings:

Bois, Yve-Alain and Rosalind Krauss (Translator). Formless: A User's Guide. Zone Books. 1997. Hardcover, 296 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0942299434. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr. 304 pages, Paperback, ISBN: 0942299442. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Bataille, Georges. Encyclopaedia Acephalica: Comprising the Critical Dictionary & Related Texts. Atlas Press. 1996. Paperback, 196 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0947757872. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Barthes, Roland. The Grain of the Voice: Interviews 1962-1980. University of California Press. March 1991, Paperback, Language English, ISBN: 0520072375. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Bois, Yve-Alain. Painting as Model. October Books. The MIT Press. 1990, Paperback, Language English, ISBN: 0262521806. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Recommended Readings:

Bois, Yve-Alain. Matisse and Picasso. Flammarion. 2001. Hardcover, 271 pages, Language English, ISBN: 208010618X. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr. Chan, Paul, Melissa Larner, and Ben Fergusson. Paul Chan: The 7 Lights. Verlag der Buchhandung Walther König. Hardcover, 150 pages, Language English, ISBN: 3865602479. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Eisenstein, Sergei and Richard Taylor (Editor). S. M. Eisenstein, Selected Works, Volume 1. BFI Pub. 1988. Hardcover, 433 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0851702066. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Eisenstein, Sergei, Richard Taylor (Editor) and Michael Glenny (Editor). Sergei Eisenstein Selected Works, Volume 2, Towards A Theory of Montage. I. B. Tauris. Paperback, 448 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0851704611. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.