Key Pages
- |Changes [Feb 26, 2009]
The cameraGraduate seminar open to upper level undergraduates
Spring 2005
Tuesdays 2.15 - 4.05 Building 60 Room 62N
Michael Shanks mshanks@stanford.edu 650 996 8763
The Carew Hunt 1994 - link
This course looks at these questions through some strands of contemporary performance practice and performance theory. But the context is a broad one – the course will take in the fields of archaeology, human geography, history, anthropology, folklore and literature studies, and will consider the themes of location and time in a range of cultural practices where art meets theater – installation, conceptual, minimalist, site specific and land art since the 1960s – from John Cage through Robert Smithson to Brith Gof Theater.
The course is designed for anyone wanting to think creatively about these questions, and will be particularly relevant to those with an interest in the contemporary arts and interdisciplinary treatments of memory, cultural identity and performativity.
An introduction will set the scene by sketching an intellectual history of the concept of place since 1750.
The course is then organized around nine key themes or fields. It is not proposed that these are complete or exhaustive, but they will expose the class to a broad range of discussion, in accordance with the course aims and objectives.
Each theme will be connected with one or more works or case studies. These will be available on the class web site, and/or as a video/DVD. The web site allows comments, discussion and additional materials to be posted by any class member.
Each theme will also be backed by one or more works that provide comment and context. Books will be placed in the Classics Department Library - accessible to all class members. Essays and articles will be photocopied or made available on the web site.
Performance Research 3.2 Summer 1998. Issue: On Place.
Kaye, N. 2000. Site-specific art : performance, place and documentation. London ; New York: Routledge.
Pearson, M. and Shanks, M. 2001. Theatre/Archaeology. London: Routledge.
Tuesday March 29
1 Introduction - an intellectual and disciplinary frame.
Tuesday April 5
2 Romantic paradigms and antecedents - William Wordsworth and J.M.W. Turner
Wordsworth. Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour. July 13, 1798. Wordsworth
Hill, D., Tate Gallery. and Harewood House (Harwood England) 1996. Turner in the North : a tour through Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland, the Scottish Borders, the Lake District, Lancashire, and Lincolnshire in the year 1797. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Tuesday April 12
3 Site specific art - the interrogation of space and place in contemporary art
Kaye, N. 2000. Site-specific art : performance, place and documentation. London ; New York: Routledge.
Tuesday 19 April
4 Land Art - gesture, walking, building, and their documentation in the work of Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy
Goldsworthy, A. 2000. Time. New York: Harry N. Abrams.
Goldsworthy, A., Riedelsheimer, T., Mediopolis (Firm), Skyline Productions Ltd. and Absolut Medien GmbH. 2003. Rivers and tides : Andy Goldsworthy working with time. Germany: Absolut Medien.
Long, R. 2002. Richard Long : walking the line. London ; New York, N.Y.: Thames & Hudson. Goldsworthy, A. 2000. Time. New York: Harry N. Abrams.
Tuesday 26 April
5 Forensics - scene of crime as site of performance and experience
Rugoff, R., Vidler, A., Wollen, P., Fellows of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles Calif.) and UCLA at the Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center. 1997. Scene of the crime. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Tuesday 3 May
6 Tourism - travel, souvenirs, staging the past and constituting identity
Performance Research 2.2 Summer 1997. Issue: On Tourism.
Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, B. 1998. Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Tuesday 10 May
7 Science and fieldwork - Performance as the core of scientific knowledge of place - William Martin Leake and mapping the past - Link to Chris Witmore's notes
Phillips, R. 1997. Mapping men & empire: a geography of adventure. London/New York: Routledge.
Tuesday 17 May
8 Building memories - architecture and philosophy in the work of Daniel Libeskind
Libeskind, D. 2000. Daniel Libeskind : the space of encounter. New York: Universe.
Binet, H., Bunschoten, R. and Libeskind, D. 1997. A passage through silence and light : Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum extension to the Berlin Museum. London: Black Dog Pub.
Schneider, B. and Libeskind, D. 1999. Daniel Libeskind : Jewish Museum Berlin : between the lines. Munich ; New York: Prestel.
Tuesday 24 May
9 Mixed realities - the implications of new media - from Situationist art to Blast Theory
Tuesday 31 May
10 Site Specific Theater - place-event, host and ghost - the work of Brith Gof
Brith Gof. 1993. Haearn (Iron). BBC and S4C.
Brith Gof. 1990. Gododdin. BBC and S4C.
McLucas, C. 2000. 'Ten feet and three quarters of an inch of theatre: a documentation of Tri Bywyd - a site specific theatre work' in Kaye, N. (ed.) Site Specifics: Performance, Place and Documentation. London: Routledge.
Pearson, M. and Shanks, M. 1996. 'Performing a visit: archaeologies of the contemporary past'. Performance Research 2: 42–60.
Pearson, M. and Shanks, M. 2001. Theatre/Archaeology. London: Routledge.
To write a case study on any work, artist or practitioner that deals with the themes of the course. The case study may take any (reasonable!) form - dossier/portfolio (think crime-scene report!), essay, linked web pages (through the course web site), digital presentation (Powerpoint/Keynote) .. whatever.
Length - 1500 words per unit.
Plan and initial draft to be submitted digitally by 26 April.
Final version to be submitted digitally by 4.00pm 3 June.
The objective is to develop an individual line of commentary and critique on a work or artist that also displays understanding of the key concepts of the course.
A Mad Archaeologist, A Recurring Present
Daniel Sack: Societas Raffaello Sanzio
Some discussion on related themes
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/modernism-modernity/v011/11.1shanks.html
Check out this artist, he does amazing installations, a bit Andy Goldsworth-like. Ned Kahn
