Art History 153: Transnational Interplanetary Film & Video Consciousness

This course takes its title from underground director George Kuchar’s irreverent approach to making low-budget, low brow movies that helped situate film and video as a legitimate artistic media. Topics will explore experimentations with technologies of the moving image that exist outside of mainstream commercial moviemaking practices, histories of individual artists, groups and collectives experimenting with film and video, “expanded cinemas,” and how new forms of image production and distribution in the digital era challenge traditional hierarchies of taste and value. A weekly screening, typically no more than 1 hour, is required. The class will agree on a set screening time during our initial class meeting. Requirements include short papers and presentations and one longer research project chosen in consultation with instructor.  May be taken for credit toward the Film and Media Studies major or minor.