AD 485 Foundations: Theories and Practices
Course Description: Utilizing a range of analytical and practical frameworks this course includes an intensive examination of the methods, production, values, philosophies and theories surrounding art and design.
Instructional Goals
- Analyze and evaluate the range of theories of art and design.
- Synthesize and evaluate methodology for the creative process.
- Evaluate the value of art and design and examine how “value” is determined.
- Contextualize art and design within a cultural system.
- Understand that interpreting art and design is interdisciplinary.
- Critically evaluate and assess art and design.
Required Methods
- Exposure to a survey of prevailing theories of art and design
- aesthetics
- representation and realism
- expressionism, formalism
- spiritualism
- psychoanalysis
- documentary/biography/autobiography
- iconography
- marxism
- feminism
- structuralism and semiotics
- deconstruction: modernism and postmodernism
- community and commodity
- Examination of art and design with regards to theoretical aspects
- art, design and identity: race, class, gender, memory & artifacts, spirituality, post colonialism
- art, design and ethics: sustainability, authorship, social networking & collaboration, globalism
- art, design and business: art vs. design vs. craft, entertainment, protest & persuasion, commerce & consumerism, art as cultural capital, public funding
- Evaluate art and design from a synthesis of interpretive methods: structure; production; interpretation and reception; function, meaning, and response
- Effectively synthesize a methodology of analysis-research-iteration and evaluate its effectiveness
Course Outcomes
- Analyze a range of theories as they apply to specific works, historical movements, and modes of production in Art & Design
- Formulate a methodology for the creative process which includes analysis-research-iteration and evaluate its effectiveness
- Critically evaluate and assess art and design via written criticism
- Critically evaluate and assess art and design via verbal assessment