WEEK 01: Wednesday 18 October 2006

Overview

1. introductions: the module and critical thinking skills
2. online tools for critical theory research
3. critical cultural theory introduction: intersecctions between critical and cultural theory and artistic practice.

three case studies:
a-Rainer Ganahl reading seminars
(critical theory/reading/studying as an artistic practice)
b-Critical Spatial Practice Reading Group
criticalspatialpractice.blogspot.com

c-networked_performance
network-enabled practice
4. basic study hacks/tools for critical thinking
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1. introduction to the module and to critical thinking skills
2. online tools for critical theory research

a. sign up for a blog at http://blogger.com
b. set up a delicious bookmarks account at http://del.icio.us/

To browse and discuss:
What is a weblog? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
What is a Photoblog? http://wiki.photoblogs.org/wiki/What_is_a_Photoblog
flickr http://flickr.com/
What is a vlog? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlog

the basic skills you need to blog, to read critical theory and write your texts are listed in the following section of the theory blog:

are described in the following online tutorials
http://theorykit.wordpress.com/resources/

3.intersecctions between critical and cultural theory and artistic practice.
Three case studies:
1.Rainer Ganahl reading seminars
(critical theory/reading/studying as an artistic practice)
http://www.ganahl.info/

Craig Martin:the communiction of knowledge and the parameters of educational systems (frieze mag)
http://www.ganahl.info/4pict/txt_frieze05.jpg
S/L seminars / lectures
http://www.ganahl.info/s_sl_index.html
Generali Foundation, EDUCATIONAL COMPLEX, Vienna, 1996
http://www.ganahl.info/generali.html
http://www.ganahl.info/e.complex.html
WALLACH ART GALLERY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF COLUMBIA, NEW YORK, 2005 : “PLEASE, TEACH ME” Rainer Ganahl and the Politics of Learning
http://www.ganahl.info/wallach.html
Reading seminars
http://www.ganahl.info/rs_reading_index.html
Reading karl marx
http://www.ganahlmarx.com/

2.Critical Spatial Practice Reading Group: Critical Spatial Practice > IPRH (The Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities) Reading Group > 2006-07 > University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
We propose to investigate critical theories of space and place and what the architectural historian Jane Rendell has termed “critical spatial practice,” the relationship between spatial theory and critical practice. The group’s focus will shift accordingly between consideration of key theoretical texts and in-depth research and discussion about contemporary practices and their historical antecedents that mobilize(d) spatial theory and employ(ed) a range of experimental interpretative strategies.
http://www.walkinginplace.org/iprh/index.htm
http://criticalspatialpractice.blogspot.com/
http://criticalspatialpractice.blogspot.com/2006/06/art-mapping.html

3. networked_performance: a research blog about network-enabled performance

http://www.turbulence.org/blog/
“our intent to chronicle current network-enabled practice, to obtain a wide-range of perspectives on issues and to uncover commonalities in the work. For this purpose, they defined networked_performance as any live event that is network enabled. They included any form of networking in which computational devices speak to each other and create a feedback loop. They also qualified networked performance as being live, or experienced at the moment of creation or reception.”

http://www.turbulence.org/blog/about.html

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DUE on class/week 2 | POST reactions to the assigned theory readings on your blog (300-500w) + image(s) links
Brief 1> reading barthes
Read the following online excerpts of roland barthes writing in preparation for reading seminar week 02
Read the following extracts from Roland Barthes essays
‘Rhetoric of the Image’ [Analysis of the Panzani Ad]
http://homepage.newschool.edu/~quigleyt/vcs/barthes-ri.html
‘Myth Today’ (in Mythologies), both available in
Denotation, Connotation and Myth (skim the whole page)
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem06.html

other chapters of the online edition of Daniel Chandler’s Semiotics for Beginners (S4B) to skim:

Signs
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem02.html

Modality and Representation
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem02a.html

Intertextuality
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem09.html

Strengths of Semiotic Analysis
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem10.html

DIY Semiotic Analysis
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem12.html

Read the following chapters of Dani Cavallaro, Critical and Cultural Theory (Part 1)

2- the sign
3- rhetoric
5- reading
6-textuality