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Description
The post-WWII era inaugurated another stage in the unfolding of the
great saga of the machine and human movement. The National Interstate
and Defense Highways Act of 1956 (a.k.a. the Federal Highway Act of
1956) was passed under President Eisenhower, inaugurating an ongoing
process of road development that brought with it the fundamental
transformation of community and urban form. Today there are46,726 miles
(75,198 km) of roads and a new normative urban condition called urban
sprawl. Reflecting a concomitant shift in human perception, artists and
filmmakers such as Dan Graham, Robert Smithson, Ed Ruscha, Paul
McCarthy, John Baldessari, Jeff Wall, Robert Altman, Steven Spielberg,
Jean-Luc Godard, Joel Schumacher, and Wim Wenders have distilled the
technology of the double aperture, or the art of “seeing-through” the
car window. The focus of this course is twofold: a body of image-text
art from the mid 1960s and 1970s and the transformation of the human
senses ushered by automotive movement taking form in a prosthetics of
mobile perception. We will read texts by Peter Galison, Reyner Banham,
Jeff Wall, Robert Smithson, Peter Wollen, Marshall McLuhan, Jonathan
Crary, Mitchell Schwarzer, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, John
Brinckerhoff Jackson, Dolores Hayden, and Robert Bruegmann.
Required Texts
Banham, Reyner, Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four
Ecologies ISBN: 0520219244
Ballard, J. G., Crash ISBN: 0312420331
Bruegmann, Robert, Sprawl: A Compact History ISBN: 02260766903
Crary, Jonathan, Techniques of the Observer ISBN: 0262531070
Hayden, Dolores, A Field Guide to Sprawl ISBN: 0393731251
Jackson, John Brinckerhoff, Landscapes ISBN: 0870230727
Kerouac, Jack, On the Road ISBN: 0142437255
McLuhan, Marshall, Understanding Media ISBN: 0262631598
Schwarzer, Mitchell, Zoomscape ISBN: 1568984413
Venturi, Robert, Steven Izenour, and Denise Scott Brown, Learning
from Las Vegas ISBN: 026272006X
Texts on Reserve and Electronic Texts
Brottman,
Mikita, ed., Car Crash Culture
Wollen, Peter
and Joe Kerr, eds., Autopia
Smithson,
Robert, "A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey," Artforum,
December 1967
Wagstaff, Jr.,
Sam , "Talking with Tony Smith," Artforum, vol. 5, no. 4,
December 1966
Charre,
Alain, Marie-Paule Macdonald, and Marc Perelman, Dan Graham
Galison,
Peter,"War against the Center," Grey Room 4, Summer 2001, 6-33
[electronic]
Scott Brown,
Denise and Robert Venturi, “The Highway,” catalogue essay from The
Highway, exhibition January 14-February 25, 1970, pp. 9-18
McCoubrey,
John W., “Art and the Road,” catalogue essay from The Highway,
exhibition January 14-February 25, 1970, pp. 19-28
Requirements
Attendance is
mandatory. Students must complete all reading and view screenings prior
to class. There are three primary assignments in the class: each
student will lead a seminar in discussion of an assigned text, make a
presentation based on a final essay, and write a research paper that
engages the subject of the class.
Leading a
Seminar
Each of you
will be required to lead discussion of one or more texts in a given
seminar. For this, images are not necessary, though, you may choose to
show a few. You must come to class with copies of an outline of
discussion points that relate to the assigned textual and/or visual
material.
Presentation
Each of you will be required to present your paper
topic and thesis. For this, images are
necessary. Your presentation should be
45 – 50 minutes in length, confront pertinent issues concerning contemporary
issues of landscape, mobility and perception, and instigate lively discussion.
Essay
Each of you
will be required to write an essay. The essay may focus on an artist,
architect, a film and/or filmmaker, or theories of the landscape and
mobile perception. It is due in my mailbox by 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday,
May 2. The requirements for the essay are the following:
- title page
- 17-20 pages
- standard margins and 10 or 12 pt. font
- foot- or
endnotes
- bibliography
with at least 5 sources of which only two may be websites
- images where
necessary
Grading
Your grade in
the course will be calculated from the following percentages:
Leading Class
Discussion/General Participation: 34%
Presentation: 33%
Essay: 33%
Attendance
As stated
above, attendance is mandatory. You may have one unexcused absence,
after which your grade will be lowered by one letter grade with each
subsequent absence.
If
you will not be able to attend a specific session, you must make
arrangements with another student to get copies of notes, etc.
Assignments must be turned in on time; for each 24-hour period an
assignment is late, one full grade will be deducted (e.g., an “A” paper
will become a “B” paper). Appropriate medical and family excuses will
be accepted in order to establish new dates for assignments. Students
participating in an officially sanctioned, scheduled University
extracurricular activity will be given the opportunity to make up class
assignments or other graded assignments missed as a result of their
participation. It is the responsibility of the student to make
arrangements with the instructor prior to any missed assignment for
making up the work. (University Undergraduate Catalogue) Religiously
observant students wishing to be absent on holidays that require missing
class should notify their professors in writing at the beginning of the
semester, and should discuss with them, in advance, acceptable ways of
making up any work missed because of the absence. (See University
Policy No. 1.9.)
Schedule
January 17: Introduction
-Peter Wollen, “Introduction: Cars and Culture,”
Autopia,
eds. Peter Wollen and Joe Kerr, 10-20
-Denise Scott
Brown and Robert Venturi, “The Highway,” catalogue essay from The
Highway, exhibition January 14-February 25, 1970, pp. 9-18
-John W.
McCoubrey, “Art and the Road,” catalogue essay from The Highway,
exhibition January 14-February 25, 1970, pp. 19-28
January 24: Views of and from the Road
-Jack Kerouac, On the Road
-Robert
Smithson, "A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey," Artforum,
December 1967
-Sam Wagstaff,
Jr., "Talking with Tony Smith," Artforum, vol. 5, no. 4, December
1966, excerpt on driving on the New Jersey Turnpike
-Screening of
The Wild One (1955)
January 31:
Culture of the Crash
-J.G.
Ballard, Crash
-David
Sterritt, “Thanatos ex Machina: Godard Caresses the Dead,” Car Crash
Culture, ed. Mikita Brottman, 225-232
-Allen
Samuels, “Accidents: The Car and Literature,” Autopia, eds. Peter
Wollen and Joe Kerr, 50-58
-Screening of
Weekend (1967)
February 7:
Roving Landscapes
-John
Brinckerhoff Jackson, Landscapes
-Andrew
Cross, “Driving the American Landscape,” Autopia, eds. Peter
Wollen and Joe Kerr, 249-258
-Screening of
Easy Rider (1969)
February 14:
Sprawling Landscapes
-Robert
Bruegmann, Sprawl: A Compact History
-Dolores
Hayden, A Field Guide to Sprawl
-Peter
Galison, "War against the Center," Grey Room 4, Summer 2001, 6-33
-Screening of
Duel (1970) February 21:
Fascinations with Sprawl
-Alain Charre,
“Dan Graham’s Unplaceable Architecture,” Dan Graham, essays by
Alain Charre, Marie-Paule Macdonald, Marc Perelman, 5-26
-Marie-Paule
Macdonald, “Materializations,” Dan Graham, essays by Alain
Charre, Marie-Paule Macdonald, Marc Perelman, 27-68
-Peter Wollen, “Automobiles and Art,”
Autopia,
eds. Peter Wollen and Joe Kerr, 25-49
-Screening of
Kings of the Road (1976)
February 28:
Transforming Bodies Transforming Perceptions Transforming Perspectives
-Jonathan
Crary, Techniques of the Observer
-Marshal
McLuhan, Understanding Media
-Screening of
Mad Max II (1981)
March 7:
Mobile Viewing
-Mitchell
Schwarzer, Zoomscape
-Screening of
Vanishing Point (1971)
March 14:
Spring Break
March 21:
Western Roads I: Los Angeles
-Reyner
Banham, Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies
-Screening of
Falling Down (1993)
March 28:
Western Roads II: Las Vegas
-Robert
Venturi, Steven Izenour, and Denise Scott Brown, Learning from Las
Vegas
-Screening of
Nashville (1976)
April 4:
Presentations April 11:
Presentations April 18:
Presentations April 25:
Presentations May 2: Final
Essay Due by 5:00 in Dr. Terranova’s mailbox
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