Modes of Engagement: Critical Thinking and Making in the Arts, 7.5 credits

Contents

The course is conceived as a critical exploration of the interplays of art with culture, society and life through engaged theory and philosophy, allowing and encouraging participants to take and develop a position regarding the role and potential(s) of art as a world-making practice.

The course encourages students to formulate and develop a position in relation to the role and potential of art as a world-making practice. Theories and practices are not understood as things apart: the inseparability of thinking/making/feeling informs the conception, content and organization of the course. A pragmatic engagement with the here-and-now 'situatedness' of art practices is the core object of the course, and participants will be encouraged to think and share through their practices and experiences.

**Module 1: Seminars and Active Participation, 4.5 ECTS credits: **The module comprises six seminar sessions involving close reading and discussion of texts, critical analysis and discussion of artworks and projects, and short writing/thinking experiments.

These sessions are structured along the vectors defined by a series of 'matters of concern' that aim at capturing core, timely and urgent threads of/in contemporary art. These might include but will not be limited to the following: Art/Institution(s), Environment/Life, Situatedness/Movement, Material/Technicities, Body/Apparatus, Performative/Things, Affective/Coexistence, Love/Care, Fragility/Affinity.

**Module 2: Critical, Reflective and Speculative Text, 3 ECTS credits: **The module comprises the student's independent development of a longer critical, reflective and text. The text is to be developed in relation to the course's work with theory and philosophy and the student's artistic practice and experiences.

Expected learning outcomes

• To provide students with an opportunity to draw upon various practices, theories and disciplines in order to critically inform the quality of their artistic thinking, and making;
• To provide the students with an opportunity to encounter theory and philosophy otherwise, not as abstract, inaccessible and detached disciplines but as engaged practices of thinking through what we do, could do and ought to do as artists or art practitioners;
• To sharpen and develop the student’s understanding of the relationship between art, people, their environment(s) and the specific conditions which coproduce each and every ‘situation’, and thus the importance of the notion of ‘situatedness’ for art practices;
• To enhance and sharpen the student’s awareness and understanding of the ways in which ‘bodies’ play fundamental and critical roles in the exploration, making and articulation of art and the world in general;
• To enhance and sharpen the student’s awareness and understanding of the importance and impact of affective dimensions and values in the conceptualisation and realisation of art;
• To develop students’ conceptual and analytical skills and methods of investigation necessary to explore relationships between theoretical concepts and art practices/artworks;
• To develop the students’ ability to synthesise, document and judge their creative, artistic and intellectual explorations of theory and philosophy through short critico-fictional (written) texts.

Expected Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students will have started to demonstrate:

• knowledge of theories and practices drawn from other disciplines (and in particular from philosophy, critical theory, anthropology, STS and poetry) which can influence and impact art practice, and how this knowledge might be creatively used to conceptualise, make and present art(work/s);
• A critical ability to engage in art-related speculation and reflection through theory and philosophy;
• critical knowledge of theories and philosophies of situatedness and their potential impact in differing art practices and modes of coexistence;
• an ability to critically understand and make use of the role of bodies and movement in the making and articulation of art;
• an awareness of the role of affects, values and value systems in the potential development of responsible art practices and futures;
• an increased ability to critically and creatively mobilise and articulate theories and concepts in/ through art exploration and practice, as well as to make art ‘think’;
• an ability to mobilise writing as a tool for speculative and critical art reflections, speculations and interventions.

Required Knowledge

Bachelor's degree in Fine Art (180 ECTS credits) or equivalent, and English 6/Level 2.

Form of instruction

The course consists of six intensive seminar sessions conducted remotely. The seminars comprise close reading and discussion of a selection of texts, critical analysis and discussion of artworks and projects, and short writing/thinking experiments. The seminars are organised around a number of questions within contemporary art.

All participants are expected to attend and actively participate in all sessions, read selected texts in advance, prepare short presentations, and gather materials and examples for discussion and analysis. In addition, students are required to develop a longer critical, reflective and/or speculative text.

The language of instruction is English.

Examination modes

Examination is based on active participation in the seminars and on the required assignments, including the longer critical reflective text.

Those students who do not take part in the required activities may receive a different but equivalent assignment to complete within the span of the course.
The grades awarded are Pass (G) or Fail (U).

For students who have a recommendation of support for students with disabilities the examiner may decide on individual adaption of examination modes set out in the course syllabus. Individual adaption of examination modes must always be considered based on the student's specific needs and the framework of the intended learning outcomes in the course syllabus. For more information, see Procedure for support for students with disabilities and Rules for grades and examination.

Transitional provisions

Rules for grades and examination govern what applies regarding retakes when a course has been discontinued or a syllabus has undergone major changes.