Course News

Readings

The next section of Cresswell's Place (pp. 33-51) is due on Monday Oct 6.
REMEMBER TO POST READING SUMMARIES TO YOUR BLOG. Some of you have been doing great with this, some not so much.
Think of these reading summaries as a test.
<repeating myself>If I can't tell you read the selection, you don't get credit.</repeating myself>
If you write: "The author didn't say much, so there's not much to post," I read: "I didn't feel like reading this."
These readings may or may not be the most fascinating thing you've read since Everybody Poops, but I can assure you that the author does indeed say something that could be argued with, discussed, or at the least, simply restated in every section we read. Not everyone will, or should, pick up on exactly the same thing, but we should all be able to read someone's post and say, "Oh yeah, Cresswell was talking about X in this section."
The concepts in these readings should have an impact on the image-based work that we do in the class. Consideration of landscape, space, place, environments - these are all historical and contemporary concerns of art, from landscape painting to land/earth works to documentaries on graffiti.

posted by ryan griffis at 11:05 PM Monday, September 29, 2008

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For Wednesday, October 1

You will be watching a film called "Los Angeles Plays Itself" (or rather part of the film) that I've set up with the grad student film screening crew. The film is an analysis of how Los Angeles has been protrayed and utilized in cinema. As usual, these screenings begin at 5pm in room 114.
I will be away at a conference, but you will need to sign an attendance sheet.
The lab will also remain available for the class from 4-6:40. I strongly encourage you to use the class time before and after the 1 hour screening to work on the group presentations.
** These presentations will be delivered on October 8 - next Wednesday.

posted by ryan griffis at 8:50 AM

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For Monday September 29 (back in 229)

We will discuss the first 2 sections of Cresswell's Place. If you haven't read the first section, this means that you need to read pp. 1-33. If you have read the first section already, you just need to read 15-33. Stop reading at the "Place, Practice and Process" heading.
Remember, a reading summary on your blog is required for all readings.
We'll also discuss this past Wednesday's tour with Dave Monk and the group portion of project 2, including presentation strategies.

posted by ryan griffis at 2:23 PM Thursday, September 25, 2008

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Geographer Don Mitchell on Focus 580

For people who have an hour to spare over the weekend and are interested in the politics of geography and how it relates to the everyday lives of many people, there is a great interview with Syracuse University geographer and author Don Mitchell, who also delivered a lecture on campus on Thursday. You can listen online or download an MP3 at the Focus 580 site.

posted by ryan griffis at 3:14 PM Thursday, September 18, 2008

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Important Info for Monday Sept 22 and Wednesday

On Monday, Sept 22, we will meet at the Geography and Map Library, where will be getting a tour of their resources.
Where is this library? In the Main Library building, room 418 (yes, on the 4th floor).
**ALSO: You need to have read Cresswell's Place: A short introduction Chapter 1, pp 1-12 - and REMEMBER TO MAKE YOUR BLOG POST-READING SUMMARY **

On Wednesday, Sept 24, we will meet in downtown Champaign to take a tour and meet with Dave Monk, a local activist/educator working on environmental and social concerns in the area.
Our exact meeting spot is next to the WEFT radio station on Market Street in downtown Champaign (see the map below).



Both days, we will meet at the beginning of our class time - 4pm, DO NOT BE LATE.
Carpool, take public transit, ride a bike - everyone is responsible for getting themselves to downtown. If you need to take a bus, you can plan it here. Basically, you need to get to the corner of E. University and Market St. (WEFT is on the North side of University).

posted by ryan griffis at 11:42 AM Tuesday, September 16, 2008

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For Wednesday, September 17

Create a quick map that shows the places/spaces you inhabit in Urbana-Champaign. This should be created by hand (as in a drawing) and should not be simply a replica of a street map. In fact, don't use or refer to a street map AT ALL. Construct your map only from memory. Your map SHOULD NOT aim to be comprehensive, of either "reality" or your experience. It SHOULD locate your knowledge of this place in some manner by narrowly focusing on what has become part of your memory from the places you go (and go through). In other words, it should provide some geographically oriented information about your interests and actions as they unfold in space. Use drawn images, written stories, lines... you can even use collage if you want.
BUT NO EXISTING MAPS - not traced, plotted on, or drawn from.
Create your map on paper roughly tabloid size (11x17).
Where to start, you ask? Well, how about where you live, work, study, eat, take walks, see friends, play hacky sack, take naps, pass through on the way to get coffee... and go from there.
For some inspiration and guidance, check out the following:
Interview with Denis Wood on This American Life about mapping
and some examples of Wood's maps. (more examples and explanations here)

posted by ryan griffis at 11:25 AM Monday, September 15, 2008

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For Monday, Sept 15 - Project 1, Part 2

What you need to have completed:
1. tagging of images on Flickr from Part 1 with themes and formal devices (metatag: cityarchive)
2. 5 pictures in 2 forms
a. printed (from 300 ppi close to 8x10 in)
b. uploaded to flickr as 72 ppi at < 600px in any direction. (no other tags needed except: ourcity)
Details:
Create a series of 5 iconographic pictures of Champaign-Urbana using a digital camera. Each picture should attempt to convey an interpretive notion of the city (as explored in part 1) through an economy of means, using visual conventions and pictorial concepts that you can argue are socially recognizable (again, as explored in part 1). Your pictures must be minimally modified in the form of color alterations, but can be as complex of montages as you want. But ALL pictures used must be created by you with a camera.

posted by ryan griffis at 4:38 PM Monday, September 8, 2008

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Metropolis and the City

For people interested in the film (Fritz Lang's Metropolis) we watched on Wednesday, I thought I'd post some thoughts on the specific image of the city and its inhabitants presented. The film was produced in 1927 in Germany during the regime known as the Weimer Republic, a time between the first World War and the rise of Nazi Germany. You can get more German history if you're interested, but it's worth comparing it to some of the other visual representations of the time. It would be hard not to notice that a major theme in Metropolis is the divide between "working people" and the "visionary" elite that run the city and the obvious plea for a humanist reconciliation between them. The depiction of a mechanized, industrial utopia is also there.
To think about this, it might be useful to look at three other images representative of similar ways of looking at the Weimar city:
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s "Berlin Street Scene" (1913-1914)
A Drawing by George Grosz (unknown title and date, probably between 1915-19)
Church of the Minorities, Lionel Feininger 1926
We'll talk about the film a bit more on Monday, but how do the ideas represented in these pictures come together very specifically in Metropolis?

posted by ryan griffis at 11:09 AM Thursday, September 4, 2008

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For Monday, Sept 8

Here's what folks need for Monday (remember - in room 229):
Your completed "city" archive (project 1, part 1) in digitized form. This should be 10+ "images" - images can be literary passages, still pictures, video clips, sounds, basically any media form that you have not produced yourself, but are found in the broader culture.
How things should be digitized:
A. Still images - if not digital already, scanned in at 72 ppi and saved as a medium quality .jpg
B. Text/literary passages - either scanned in as an image (same as above) or typed and saved as a .rtf file.
C. Video - an isolated clip of relevant scene, saved as a .mov or .avi at 480x640 or larger (the name of the file should include the title of the video and year produced). For anyone who does not know how to do this, we can cover this in class, but at least have the timecode where the scene is located, and the DVD or other media that contains the scene(s).
D. Sound - sound, from film/video or any source, should be saved as a .wav or .aiff if possible. If it is already an mp3, that is fine. Sounds should also be edited to just the relevant segment. As with video, we can discuss how to do this - but have the timecode for the clip.
E. SAVE YOUR ARCHIVE TO YOUR PORTABLE STORAGE DEVICE, perferably in a folder named "archive" in a "project1" folder + Upload the jpgs to your Flickr photostream, adding them to the class group that everyone should have become members of.
In class, the established groups will work together to construct a meta-data/classification system that will help identify key themes and formal characteristics of the group's images. Each group will end up with a database.
We will also talk about using digital cameras, so if you have your own, bring it.

posted by ryan griffis at 10:45 AM Wednesday, September 3, 2008

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Flickr Group

Once people have their Flickr account established, please join this group. All relevant photos will be added to this group and distinguished by tags. This way we don't need to link to everyone's individual Flickr page. We'll talk more about tags later.

posted by ryan griffis at 11:17 AM Tuesday, September 2, 2008

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Previous Posts

| Readings | For Wednesday, October 1 | For Monday September 29 (back in 229) | Geographer Don Mitchell on Focus 580 | Important Info for Monday Sept 22 and Wednesday | For Wednesday, September 17 | For Monday, Sept 15 - Project 1, Part 2 | Metropolis and the City | For Monday, Sept 8 | Flickr Group

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