UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER: MA Art & Media Practice
Research, Creative Production, Critical Debate, Public Engagement

Theory Module 2AMP701 2006 – 2007 http://theorykit.wordpress.com

Introduction
The Theory Seminar provides a forum to enable students with diverse educational and experiential backgrounds to collectively encounter and debate a range of theoretical and cultural issues, and to provide them with grounding in key ideas relating to twenty-first century art and media practice.

1 Learner Outcomes
At the end of the module you should be able to:
1.1 participate in debates around appropriate contemporary cultural issues
1.2 relate theoretical formulations to your own practice
1.3 contextualise your concepts and practice in relation to wider concerns
1.4 identify, research and produce a paper on a subject informed by the module

2 Content
This module aims to provide a forum for debate between staff, researchers and students and between practitioners, theorists and critics. The general subject concerns theories and attitudes which can influence and illuminate art and media practices, the responses of their audiences and their place in our cultural economy. The programme is based around twentieth century and contemporary cultural debates where particular attention will be paid to relationships between different forms of practice and how the resulting hybridity enables existing forms, aesthetic concepts and user / spectator responses to be reconceived. After a series of formal seminars, students will be encouraged to use the forum for the presentation and discussion of their own research.

3. Programme

WEEK 01: Wednesday 18 October 2006
Introductions: the module and reading/writing/online skills for critical theory research

WEEK 02: Wednesday 25 October 2006
Structuralism and Semiotics
Required reading
Cavallaro pt1 chapt 2-the sign / chapt 3-rhetoric/
chapt 5-reading/ chapt 6- textuality
Additional material> blog links

WEEK 03: Wednesday 15 November 2006
Marxist and Post Marxist theories, Poststructuralism
Required reading
Cavallaro pt2 chap1-ideology/ chapt2- subjectivity
Additional material> blog links

WEEK 04: Wednesday 01 November 2006
Feminist and Queer theories
Required reading
Cavallaro pt2 chapt 3-the body/ chap4- gender and sexuality
Additional material> blog links

WEEK 05: Wednesday 08 November 2006
Multicultural and Postcolonial theories
Required reading
Cavallaro pt2 chap5- the other/ chapt 6- the gaze
Additional material> blog links

WEEK 06: Wednesday 22 November 2006
Spatial theory
Required reading
Cavallaro pt 3: chapt 3-space/ chapt 6-simulacrum
Additional material> blog links

4. Teaching and learning methods
Taught seminars, reading seminars, seminar presentations and discussions, writing exercises, guided individual research, tutorial support.

5 Assessment Requirement
You are expected to identify your own research topic guided by the module content, your interests and discussion with the Module Leader, and to complete one of the following:

i) A critical theory blog documenting your weekly research with text and images (25%) and
ii) An essay of 3 – 4,000 words, illustrated ass appropriate (75%)

5 Assessment Methods and Criteria
Assessment is the responsibility of the module leader who reads and marks all the texts and gives a selection of them to a second marker. The two markers then agree a final mark. This process is called ‘internal moderation’.

Assessment will be based on:
i) the appropriateness and depth of the research
ii) your understanding of the subject and selection of information
iii) your level of understanding of theoretical debates
iv) your capacity to construct a coherent and formal presentation of ideas
6 Submission of Coursework
Coursework essays (two copies) must be submitted to the Graduate Office. If you are making a Seminar presentation, this must be discussed separately with the module leader.

Submission date / time: Wednesday, 6th April 2007 by 5.00pm

7 Feedback
Written feedback will be given within three weeks of the submission date. A tutorial will also be arranged to discuss any significant issues and for processes of ‘feedforward’

8 Course Book
Main textbook: Cavallaro, Dani, Critical and Cultural Theory, Athlone Press 2001

Supplemented by a study resources and weekly list of urls to skim and browse, available on the module’s blog (http://theorykit.wordpress.com)

Previous research topics

• On Being Somebody Investigating language, control and subjectivity
• Video Art Its role in contemporary society
• Reading Landscape Representation, interpretation and land
• The Art of Conflict Representation, reality and new technology
• Conversational Sculptures The return of the figure in sculpture
• The Unperceived What and how we see / do not see in the everyday
• Abjection, the Body and Representation A discussion in relation to photography
• Searching for meaning in Autobiographical film Discussion of “My Mother India’
• The Limits of Criticism in the Commercial Media
• A study of audience relationships with interactive artworks
• An Exploration of User Centered Web Design Practices
• Landscape as Sculpture: the Archaeology of Landscape in Reverse
• The Role of Realism and Reality in Contemporary Society and Cinema
• Jackson Pollock: Hermetically sealed – or was there a leak
• French New Wave: What was new or alternative about it?
• The Alchemy of Art: Healing through the transformative aspects of art referencing the work of Eva Hesse and Joseph Beuys
• Installation art
• Holography as Art
• Zimbabwean Stone Sculpture
• Stonehenge: Turner’s and Constable’s interpretation
• Which Came First – the Curator or the Egg?
• Installation Art and Photography
• Weaving Ways . . . between the real and the illusory,
• From Auckland to Hollywood: Tracing the ways in which the films of Jane Campion might be read as Feminist
• Making a Mark: an investigation into drawing

Other topics have included: Aboriginal art, Net Art, Fine art and digital photography, How new is internet design?, Oppositional Film of Latin America, Masculinity in crisis: recent Hollywood film, New Orientalism, the plastic arts and Art Cinema, The creativity of Andreas Serrano . . .

Qualities of the essays
Characteristics of the better paper / Characteristics of the weaker papers
• precise title / clear intention general topic/ absence of clear intention
• introduction gives ‘map’ of topic / introduction discusses material
• the subject has been carefully researched/ text demonstrates poor research
• a range of research methods have been considered/ poor consideration given to methods
• good use of source material/ minimal or inappropriate use
• the material is well-organised/ material is confusingly organised
• a balance of general discussion and detailed analysis/ too great a stress on either

• capacity to critique aspects of source material/ lack of comment on source material
• analytical and debate-based/ predominantly descriptive
• application of theoretical concepts/ reference to historical facts
• use of textual analysis where appropriate/ minimal or inappropriate use
• thorough referencing/ minimal referencing
• follows guidelines in Course Handbook/ ignores these
• well-designed / ‘illustrated’/ densely printed / no examples

Presentation
Please refer to the Course Handbook for guidelines on essay structure, style and presentation. If you wish to give a seminar presentation, please discuss the process and material required with module leader.