Art Practice

University of California, Berkeley

This is an archived copy of the 2016-17 guide. To access the most recent version of the guide, please visit http://guide.berkeley.edu.

Overview

UC Berkeley’s Department of Art Practice provides professional art training within the context of a world-renowned public research university. We offer innovative, interdisciplinary courses leading to BA and MFA degrees. As practicing visual artists, the faculty members of the Department of Art Practice hold as our principal goal the representation and analysis of human experiences through creative research in visual art. In making art, we seek to expand the boundaries of our cultures and the limits of our perceptions through rigorous experimentation with art forms, media, and content. Considering human experiences from an experiential standpoint, our experimentation leads to questioning our beliefs, rituals, and philosophies as well as our social, economic, and institutional structures. In teaching, our mission is to help students pose profound questions by developing their creative voices, mastering their practices, relating to their audiences, and connecting to histories of art and cultures.

Four goals underlie the teaching in the Department of Art:

  1. To advance the body of knowledge of human experience through aesthetic investigation.
  2. To help students learn to think visually.
  3. To help students understand the strategies that artists have devised to deal with aesthetic problems in both traditional and nontraditional methods of art making.
  4. To help students develop a creative intelligence through practicing a visual arts discipline.

Facilities and Resources

The Department of Art Practice facilities include six studio spaces: Printmaking StudioPainting and Drawing StudioWood and Metal Sculpture Studio , and Digital Media Labs  (for photography, video, audio, and animation productions) in Kroeber Hall and the Ceramics Studio  and Project Lab in Wurster Hall.

Located in 116 Kroeber Hall, the Worth Ryder Art Gallery (WRAG)  has served as the department’s cultural and artistic hub for graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, and the Bay Area arts community for over 40 years. The gallery serves primarily as an exhibition platform for emerging contemporary art practices and methodologies.

The Garron Reading Room, located in 346 Kroeber Hall, houses a collection of books, periodicals, and digital media.

Undergraduate Programs

Practice of Art : BA, Minor

Graduate Program

Practice of Art : Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Visit Department Website

Courses

Practice of Art

ART 8 Introduction to Visual Thinking 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Fall 2017, Summer 2017 Second 6 Week Session
A first course in the language, processes, and media of visual art. Course work will be organized around weekly lectures and studio problems that will introduce students to the nature of art making and visual thinking.

Introduction to Visual Thinking: Read More [+]

ART 8A Introduction to Visual Thinking 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018
The ‘designed world’ is implicated in everyday experience. In an increasingly technological and communications based culture-from print to the Web, advertisements to movies, the built environment to modes of pedagogy-we encounter the visual/sensory as a ‘designed world’ in every area of our lives. Art 8 A: Intro to Visual Thinking asks students to rigorously and critically interrogate the ‘designed world.’ To do this students will look at a range of art, media, and
invention across many locations and periods of history.
Introduction to Visual Thinking: Read More [+]

ART 12 The Language of Drawing 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Fall 2017, Summer 2017 Second 6 Week Session
A study of drawing as a tool for articulating what the eyes, hand, and mind discover and investigate when coordinated. Some sessions will be devoted to drawing the human figure. Lectures and demonstrations introduce students to techniques and varied applications.

The Language of Drawing: Read More [+]

ART N12 The Language of Drawing 3 Units

Terms offered: Summer 2004 10 Week Session
A study of drawing as a tool for articulating what the eyes, hand, and mind discover and investigate when coordinated. Some sessions will be devoted to drawing the human figure.

The Language of Drawing: Read More [+]

ART 13 Language of Painting 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2017, Spring 2016, Fall 2015
A concentrated investigation of what painting on a two-dimensional surface can elicit from what is both observed and felt. Illustrated talks will help familiarize you with issues that have concerned painters in the 20th century. Lectures and demonstrations introduce students to techniques and varied applications.

Language of Painting: Read More [+]

ART N13 Language of Painting 3 Units

Terms offered: Summer 2004 10 Week Session
A concentrated investigation of what painting on a two-dimensional surface can elicit from what is both observed and felt. Illustrated talks will help familiarize you with issues that have concerned painters in the 20th century.

Language of Painting: Read More [+]

ART 14 The Language of Sculpture 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
This course is the study of the interaction between physical form and space. We will focus on building a strong conceptual foundation while developing the practical studio skills needed to translate your ideas into three dimensions. Shop practices will include hand, machine, and computer-aided fabrications. Field trips and illustrated talks will help acquaint students with the ideas sculptors have explored through history and in contemporary
sculptural practices.
The Language of Sculpture: Read More [+]

ART 15 The Language of Sculpture: Ceramics 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
This course will challenge students to use ceramics as a way to explore and understand three-dimensional space, and use a contemporary art framework for critiquing and discussing the work produced. We will develop a practical understanding of how clay and glaze behave, while building a conceptual framework through which to apply this knowledge. Studio practice includes hand building, modeling, carving, and glazing as possibilities for turning
ideas into three dimensional propositions. Illustrated talks will help acquaint students with the ideas artists have explored through history and in contemporary sculptural practices.
The Language of Sculpture: Ceramics: Read More [+]

ART 16 Introduction to Printmaking 4 Units

Terms offered: Fall 2016, Fall 2015, Fall 2014
This course examines and explores various print disciplines. Students study and create traditional forms of fine art printmaking including woodcut, lithography, intaglio, and screenprinting as well as newer approaches which include transfer and digital printmaking. This course is a prerequisite for upper division print courses. Lectures and demonstrations introduce students to techniques and varied applications.

Introduction to Printmaking: Read More [+]

ART 21 Digital Photography: The Image and the Hive Mind 4 Units

Terms offered: Summer 2017 Second 6 Week Session, Fall 2016, Summer 2016 Second 6 Week Session
This is a basic foundation class for digital photography with hands-on instruction in the use of digital cameras and online image dissemination. Topics include image capture, composition, image syntax, image analysis, image manipulation, meta-text production, and image sequencing for visual narratives. We also study image dissemination through online networks-social networks, blogs, news, storage
, search, and print services. Rather than limiting the discussion of photography to the production of the photographic image itself, we explore in written assignments how the reception of images can change based on context, usage, and network dynamics. We use required DSLR digital cameras to produce images for weekly photographic assignments.
Digital Photography: The Image and the Hive Mind: Read More [+]

ART 23AC Foundations of American Cyber-Culture 4 Units

Terms offered: Fall 2014, Fall 2012, Summer 2012 Second 6 Week Session
This new course will enable students to think critically about, and engage in practical experiments in, the complex interactions between new media and perceptions and performances of embodiment, agency, citizenship, collective action, individual identity, time and spatiality. We will pay particular attention to the categories of personhood that make up the UC Berkeley American Cultures rubric (race and ethnicity), as well
as to gender, nation, and disability. The argument threading through the course will be the ways in which new media both reinforce pre-existing social hierarchies, and yet offer possibilities for the transcendence of those very categories. The new media -- and we will leave the precise definition of the new media as something to be argued about over the course of the semester -- can be yet another means for dividing and disenfranchising, and can be the conduit of violence and transnational dominance.
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ART N23 Digital Media Foundation 3 Units

Terms offered: Summer 2004 10 Week Session, Summer 2003 10 Week Session
Server-based art course introduces principles of digital media creation from program to poetry through a combination of lectures, creative projects, and studio seminars. Topics: basic units of digital media, video, audio, and interactivity authoring, digital cinema, scripting, interactive art, web cam and net art. Final project is a web-based ambient/dramatic performance. All course resources, projects, and reviews are
web-based. Students must own networked computer.
Digital Media Foundation: Read More [+]

ART W23AC Data Arts 4 Units

Terms offered: Fall 2017, Spring 2016, Spring 2015
Can we measure everything? What is the role of privacy? Can we count beauty? Is data always fair? This course explores participation as the foundation of online citizenship. Participation is based on data literacy and community awareness. Through online assignments, peer reviews and video chats, students form communities of explorers and innovators who challenge data culture through creative interventions including surveys, visualization, animation
, video, interaction design, music and other forms of digital expression. Assignments are based on readings about media theory, abstraction, interactivity, design theory, archives, performance, identity, privacy, automation, aggregation, networking, diffusion, diffraction and subversion.
Data Arts: Read More [+]

ART 26 Moving Image Media Production 4 Units

Terms offered: Summer 2017 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2016 10 Week Session, Summer 2016 First 6 Week Session
This course provides students with the technological and conceptual groundwork for advanced courses in video art and filmmaking including the use of digital cameras, sound recording, basic lighting techniques, digital editing, compression, and online dissemination. We will focus on what makes compelling moving images that elicit powerful intellectual and emotional responses. The course
also explores the range of techniques and languages of creative video making from traditional story genres to more contemporary experimental forms.
The course consists of weekly lectures, screenings, discussions and a lab section. The lab is a production workshop in which students will produce a series of short exercises and a final project.

Moving Image Media Production: Read More [+]

ART 98 Directed Group Study 1 - 3 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
This is a student-initiated course to be offered for academic credit. The subject matter will vary from semester to semester and will be taught by the student facilitator under the supervision of the faculty sponsor. Topics to be related to art practice.

Directed Group Study: Read More [+]

ART 99 Supervised Independent Study 1 - 2 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
This course will be a rubric for all one and two credit Independent Study courses in Art Practice that concentrate on the practical aspects of art production. Some students will study gallery work by participating in every phase of producing art exhibitions--from selecting works to hanging and insuring them. Other students will learn concepts, skills and information they can use in their major courses. All students gaining credit from these
courses will have to produce at least three short term papers analyzing their experiences and reflecting on the principles involved in their work.
Supervised Independent Study: Read More [+]

ART 100 Collaborative Innovation 4 Units

Terms offered: Fall 2017, Spring 2017, Spring 2016
In this hands-on, project-based class, students will experience group creativity and team-based design by using techniques from across the disciplines of business, theatre, design, and art practice. They will leverage problem framing and solving techniques derived from critical thinking, systems thinking, and creative problem solving (popularly known today as design thinking). The course is grounded in a brief weekly lecture that sets out the
theoretical, historical, and cultural contexts for particular innovation practices, but the majority of the class involves hands-on studio-based learning guided by an interdisciplinary team of teachers leading small group collaborative projects.
Collaborative Innovation: Read More [+]

ART 102 Approaches to Painting 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Summer 2017 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2017 Second 6 Week Session
Inquiry into concepts of order, process, and content as related to human experience. While faculty contact with students is highly individualized, the course involves group critiques and lectures as well as assigned field trips. Lectures and demonstrations introduce students to techniques and varied applications.

Approaches to Painting: Read More [+]

ART N102 Approaches to Painting 3 Units

Terms offered: Summer 2004 10 Week Session
Inquiry into concepts of order, process, and content as related to human experience. While faculty contact with students is highly individualized, the course involves group critiques and lectures as well as assigned field trips.

Approaches to Painting: Read More [+]

ART 103 Advanced Painting 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018
This is an advanced studio and lecture class for art majors, to advance their practice through practical research into the varied processes and methods of contemporary painting. Students will expand their skills and develop a dedicated practice through self generated projects and critical engagement. In-class critiques and open discussion will reinforce and challenge the students as a vital part of their technical, conceptual, and professional development. Lectures
, studio presentations, guest speakers, and field trips will provide a real world context for classroom explorations.
Advanced Painting: Read More [+]

ART 117 Research, Methods and Materials of Drawing 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Fall 2017, Spring 2017
Advanced drawing and composition, color and black-and-white, primarily on paper. 117 or 118 is required of all art majors. Lectures and demonstrations introduce students to techniques and varied applications.

Research, Methods and Materials of Drawing: Read More [+]

ART N117 Drawing and Composition 3 Units

Terms offered: Summer 2004 10 Week Session
Advanced drawing and composition, color and black-and-white, primarily on paper. Art 117 or 118 is required of all art majors.

Drawing and Composition: Read More [+]

ART 118 Contemporary Perspectives of Figure Drawing 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
Emphasis on the human figure seen in the context of pictorial space, dark and light and color. Various media. 118 or 117 is required of all art majors. Lectures and demonstrations introduce students to techniques and varied applications.

Contemporary Perspectives of Figure Drawing: Read More [+]

ART 119 Global Perspectives in Contemporary Art 4 Units

Terms offered: Summer 2017 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2017 Second 6 Week Session, Spring 2017
This course is designed to explore a range of contemporary art movements around the globe, through a closer look at their central ideas, artists, and artworks, as well as the preconditions and broader social context in which the work is being produced. Topics covered will range from the emergence of localized avant-garde movements in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America to the implicit globalism
of the international biennial circuit.
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ART 120 Approaches to Printmaking: Intaglio 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2016, Fall 2015
An opportunity to discover what an artist can do with an etching press and a familiarity with such processes as etching, drypoint, aquatint, color, and monotype printing. The difference in the ways that these mediums enhance and condition your ideas will be made clear through individual and group critiques. Lectures and demonstrations introduce students to techniques and varied applications.

Approaches to Printmaking: Intaglio: Read More [+]

ART 122 Approaches to Printmaking: Lithography 4 Units

Terms offered: Fall 2013, Fall 2012, Fall 2010
In the course of making lithographs, you will be encouraged to find an aesthetic direction of your own. Your instructor will also help you develop skill in using both stone and metal plates. Lectures and demonstrations introduce students to techniques and varied applications.

Approaches to Printmaking: Lithography: Read More [+]

ART 123 The Language of Printmaking-Screenprinting 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
The process of screenprinting images onto paper and other surfaces will be explored in a variety of image producing techniques. Hand drawn, photographic, and digitally manipulated images are combined to produce multiple works of limited edition fine art prints. Image content and development is examined through drawings, studies, slide lectures, group critiques, and direct assistance. Each student is required to attend all class periods and
participate in group discussions and critique. It is the responsibility of the student to maintain a portfolio of all works executed during the semester and to turn in all assignments on time. The grade is determined by attendance, completion of projects and participation in critiques. Personal improvement will also be taken into account.
The Language of Printmaking-Screenprinting: Read More [+]

ART 124 Advanced Projects in Printmaking 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2013, Spring 2012, Spring 2011
Non-traditional projects in printmaking. Lectures and demonstrations introduce students to techniques and varied applications.

Advanced Projects in Printmaking: Read More [+]

ART 130 Approaches to Sculpture: Concept and Construction 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2016, Spring 2014, Spring 2013
Course is geared toward constructing objects, forms, and particular structures to reveal concept. This class will have more advanced instruction in fabrications, emphasizing the use of wood and metal shops. Architectural considerations, physical experience of space, and innovative sculptural practices will be explored. Lectures and demonstrations introduce students to techniques and varied applications.

Approaches to Sculpture: Concept and Construction: Read More [+]

ART 132 Approaches to Sculpture: Ceramics 4 Units

Terms offered: Fall 2016, Spring 2016, Fall 2015
An opportunity to learn the many ways of shaping and giving form to wet clay, then making it permanent by firing it. Illustrated talks will examine the ideas that have engaged ceramic sculptors in many traditions and the processes that they have used to expand them. Lectures and demonstrations introduce students to techniques and varied applications.

Approaches to Sculpture: Ceramics: Read More [+]

ART 133 Approaches to Sculpture: Meaning in Material 4 Units

Terms offered: Fall 2017, Fall 2016, Fall 2015
This class will investigate the possibilities and potentials of sculptural material, both physically and conceptually. We will focus on a deeper exploration of the current state of art practice while questioning what methods and materials are considered non-traditional. We will discuss multiple applications as a means of mediating ideas in space, including sculpture, installation, video, photography and public exchanges. This class will have more
advanced instruction in fabrications, including the wood and metal shops. Lectures and demonstrations introduce students to techniques and varied applications.
Approaches to Sculpture: Meaning in Material: Read More [+]

ART 137 Advanced Projects in Ceramic Sculpture 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Spring 2014
Students who are experienced in clay may enroll in this course to continue developing their ideas and their technical command of ceramic materials and processes. Lectures and demonstrations introduce students to techniques and varied applications.

Advanced Projects in Ceramic Sculpture: Read More [+]

ART 138 Approaches to Sculpture: Installations 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Spring 2015
In this class we will consider sculptural issues of (and beyond) the object itself, notions of "site specific," and of whether an object is distinct from its environment or is part of it. We will also question issues of space, placement, installation, context, and public interaction. Students will engage with a variety of sites, both on and off campus, with drawings and written proposals being an intergral part of all projects.
Lectures and demonstrations will introduce students to techniques and varied applications.
Approaches to Sculpture: Installations: Read More [+]

ART 141 Temporal Structures: Video and Performance Art 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Spring 2015
Projects are aimed at understanding and inventing ways in which time and change can become key elements in an artwork. Regular screenings of professional tapes will illustrate uses of the mediums and provide a historical context. Lectures and demonstrations introduce students to techniques and varied applications.

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ART 142 New Genres 4 Units

Terms offered: Fall 2012, Spring 2010, Spring 2009
A survey intended to expose you to the nature and potential of such non-traditional tools for artmaking as performance, video, and audiotape. Lectures and demonstrations introduce students to techniques and varied applications.

New Genres: Read More [+]

ART 160 Special Topics in Visual Studies 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Summer 2016 First 6 Week Session
Topics of concern to the instructor, usually related to current research, which may fall outside of the normal curriculum or be of more restricted content than regular studio courses. An opportunity to investigate topics and mediums on an ad hoc basis when there is a compelling reason to do so, providing there is no other course that deals with these concerns. Primarily intended for advanced undergraduates and graduates
in Art Practice but open to others. For special topics and enrollment see listings outside of 345 Kroeber.
Special Topics in Visual Studies: Read More [+]

ART N160 Foundations of Digital Photography 4 Units

Terms offered: Summer 2013 10 Week Session, Summer 2013 First 6 Week Session, Summer 2013 Second 6 Week Session
While digital photography has simplified the process of taking and sharing pictures, the challenges of image composition, visual storytelling, and image sequencing remain at the center serious photography. In this course, students who have a working knowledge of photography and who have access to a digital camera learn to compose and sequence images beyond the stereotypes of popular
photography. The course covers essential topics such as lighting, timing, composition, image sequencing, history of photography, potential and limitations of mechanical reproduction, photography and fine art, alternative tradition and digital image processes. All student work will be shared and reviewed online; classes are 33% lecture, 33% studio work, and 33% group critique.
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ART 162 Issues in Cultural Display: Studio and Post-Studio Art Practices 4 Units

Terms offered: Prior to 2007
This is a seminar class designed to engage in "close readings" of contemporary art-making and curatorial practices. Through weekly studio visits with artists and/or curators, the course examines the practical methods, historical origins, philosophical roots, and political and aesthetic implications of each maker's practice. Readings and discussions will focus on (though not be limited to) issues concerning the interaction of aesthetics and ethics; culture
and capital; copyright law; art and craft; singular vs. collective authorship.
Issues in Cultural Display: Studio and Post-Studio Art Practices: Read More [+]

ART 163 Social Practice: Critical Site and Context 4 Units

Terms offered: Fall 2016, Fall 2015, Fall 2014
Social Practice broadly refers to work produced through various forms of direct engagement with a site, social system or collaborator. Interdisciplinary in nature, such work often takes the form of guerilla interventions, performance, institutional critique, community based public art and political activity, all sharing the premise that art created in the public sphere can help alter public perception and work toward social transformation.

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ART N163 Social Practice: Critical Site and Context--ESCUELA de ARTE UTIL 6 Units

Terms offered: Summer 2017 8 Week Session
Social Practice broadly refers to work produced through various forms of direct engagement with a site, social system or collaborator.
Arte Útil, which translates into English as “useful art,” will consider the practice of Arte Útil as institutional self-criticism, active hyperrealism, a-legality,reforming capital,sustainability, and modes of creative collaboration.
Enrollment in the class requires familiarization with the Arte Útil archive
(http://www.arte-util.org/projects/) and lexicon (http://www.arte-util.org/tools/lexicon/), as well as the submission of a written statement of 250-400 words explaining how you think aesthetics can disrupt institutional structures and what social issues interest you. Send to school@arte-util.org.
Social Practice: Critical Site and Context--ESCUELA de ARTE UTIL: Read More [+]

ART 164 Art and Meditation 4 Units

Terms offered: Fall 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2013
Meditation is arguably the most ancient, powerful, and yet simple spiritual practice in the world. It is known in various forms in nearly all times and cultures, and plays a part in every religious tradition. We will examine how meditation can affect your art both in terms of practice and content. The class will be structured with slide presentations, museum visits, discussion of reading, and reviews of art work. Art from various contemplative
traditions will be examined.
Art and Meditation: Read More [+]

ART 165 Art, Medicine, and Disabilities 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2016, Spring 2015, Spring 2014
This course will examine how visual artists have responded to illness and disability. We will consider visual representations of disability and healing, as well as the expressive work of visual artists working from within the personal experience of disability; in other words, we will look at disability as both a subject and a source of artistic creation. Several topics, historical and contemporary, will be explored. Students will complete
either a semester-long internship with an arts and disability organization, a research paper, or a creative project.
Art, Medicine, and Disabilities: Read More [+]

ART 171 Digital Video: The Architecture of Time 4 Units

Terms offered: Fall 2016, Fall 2015, Spring 2015
This hands-on studio course is designed to present students with a foundation-level introduction to the skills, theories and concepts used in digital video production. Non-linear and non-destructive editing methods used in digital video are defining new "architectures of time" for cinematic creation and experience, and offer new and innovative possibilities for authoring new forms of the moving image. This course will expose students
to a broad range of industry standard equipment, film and video history, theory, terminology, field and post-production skills. Students will be required to techinically master the digital media tools introduced in the course. Each week will include relevant readings, class discussions, guest speakers, demonstration of examples, and studio time for training and working on student assignments.
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ART N171 Digital Video: The Architecture of Time 4 Units

Terms offered: Summer 2006 10 Week Session, Summer 2005 10 Week Session, Summer 2004 10 Week Session
This hands-on studio course is designed to present students with a foundation-level introduction to the skills, theories, and concepts used in digital video production. Non linear and non destructive editing methods used in digital video are defining new "architectures of time" for cinematic creation and experience and offer new and innovative possibilities for authoring new forms
of the moving image. This course will expose students to a broad range of industry-standard equipment, film and video history, theory, terminology, field, and post production skills. Students will be required to gain techinical mastery of the digital media tools introduced in the course.
Digital Video: The Architecture of Time: Read More [+]

ART 172 CGI Animation Studies 4 Units

Terms offered: Summer 2011 First 6 Week Session, Spring 2011, Summer 2010 First 6 Week Session
Motion is a ubiquitous element of human experience, yet attempts to explain it remain incomplete. The representation of motion with technical means is in continuous development, starting perhaps with sculptural representations of celestial movements in antiquity and leading to dynamic computer graphics simulations of molecular processes today. In this production-intensive studio course, we will study
computer graphics for motion simulations, or animations. We will also probe these tools for their use in creative expression and analyze their impact on our own perception of motion. Software used: Maya. Each week will include relevant readings, class discussions, guest speakers, demonstration of examples, and studio time for training and working on student assignments .
CGI Animation Studies: Read More [+]

ART 173 ELECTRO-CRAFTING 4 Units

Terms offered: Fall 2016, Fall 2015, Fall 2014
This studio class aims to provide students with the digital tools for expanding and augmenting their work in traditional media such as photography and sculpture, and also to encourage the exploration of new hybrid forms of art-making. If you are interested in exploring sound, sensors, immersive experience, interactivity, bots, wearable computing, gamification, AI, feedback systems, process-oriented artwork or data-driven artworks in any media--then
this may be the class for you. Students will learn to use basic software and hardware for the manipulation of sound, image and video that were designed by artists for artists, like: pf5.js, sonic pi, makey-make, arduino and others.
ELECTRO-CRAFTING: Read More [+]

ART 174 Advanced Digital Video 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2014, Spring 2013
This advanced studio course is designed for students who have mastered basic skills and concepts involved in digital video production, and are interested in further investigating critical, theoretical, and creative research topics in digital video production. Each week will include relevant readings, class discussions, guest speakers, demonstrat ion of examples, and studio time for training and working on student assignments .

Advanced Digital Video: Read More [+]

ART 178 Game Design Methods 4 Units

Terms offered: Fall 2017, Spring 2016, Spring 2015
This course offers an introduction to game design and game studies. Game studies has five core elements: the study of games as transmitters of culture, the study of play and interactivity, the study of games as symbolic systems; the study of games as artifacts; and methods for creating games. We will study these core elements through play, play tests, play analysis, and comparative studies. Our reading list includes classic game studies theory
and texts which support game design methods. After weekly writing and design exercises, our coursework will culminate in the design and evaluation of an original code-based game with a tangible interface.
Game Design Methods: Read More [+]

ART 180 Advanced Digital Photography 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Fall 2017, Summer 2017 Second 6 Week Session
This course will cover a range of digital media and practices, with a view towards exploring current and future possibilities for photography. Inclusive of multiple approaches to scale, execution, and technique, the course enables students to examine and push the limits of photographic practices. This course will help students advance their digital shooting and Photoshop skills from a beginning to a more advanced level
, and will cover the workflow of digital photography: camera usage, scanning, image editing, management, and printing.
Advanced Digital Photography: Read More [+]

ART 184 Junior Seminar: Meaning and Making 4 Units

Terms offered: Fall 2016, Spring 2016, Fall 2015
This immersive studio/seminar class focuses on contemporary models of art making, exposing students to current issues in the art world, and fostering interdisciplinary models of thinking and making. Through field trips to museums, galleries, and alternative art spaces, as well as studio visits with local contemporary artists, students will be able to situate their own projects within the larger sphere of contemporary art. Language and writing
skills around artist statements, critical readings, and the critique process will be emphasized to understand how research methods give meaning in a studio practice. Presentation of a final studio project asks students to examine their place within a contemporary art dialogue.
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ART 185 Senior Projects/Professional Practices 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
This course provides students with a foundation for understanding their work within a cross-disciplinary critical context. Through class and individual critique, readings, guest artists, and field trips, students will explore the practical and conceptual components of their own media and practice within a broader discussion of artistic production. In addition to this focused attention on the critique process, the class with address the ongoing
needs of supporting one's work within a community of artists, arts professionals, and arts organizations. Each student will work towards developing the most effective tools for communicating their work to these broader audiences using strategies that are appropriate/effective for their ideas, media, and audience.
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ART H195A Special Study for Honors Candidates in the Practice of Art 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Fall 2017, Spring 2017
Honors students are required to take three units of H195A. They may elect to take an additional three units (H195B) the following semester.

Special Study for Honors Candidates in the Practice of Art: Read More [+]

ART H195B Special Study for Honors Candidates in the Practice of Art 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Fall 2017, Spring 2017
Honors students are required to take three units of H195A. They may elect to take an additional three units (H195B) the following semester.

Special Study for Honors Candidates in the Practice of Art: Read More [+]

ART 196 Bridging the Arts Seminar 1 - 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2016, Fall 2015, Spring 2015
Bridging the Arts is open to artists from a variety of disciplines including dance, spoken word, theater, performance, creative writing, social practice, music, and visual arts. Through readings, written reflection, guest speakers, group discussion, and teaching in the field, Bridging the Arts (BtheArts) Student Instructors explore the arts in the public education system. Student Instructors develop and implement arts curricula that is both
age appropriate and culturally relevant to their students in underserved Bay Area Schools.


Bridging the Arts Seminar: Read More [+]

ART 198 Directed Group Study 1 - 3 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Fall 2017, Spring 2017
This is a student-initiated course to be offered for academic credit. The subject matter will vary from semester to semester and will be taught by the student facilitator under the supervision of the faculty sponsor. Topics to be related to art practice.

Directed Group Study: Read More [+]

ART 199 Supervised Independent Study for Advanced Undergraduates 1 - 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Fall 2017, Spring 2017

Supervised Independent Study for Advanced Undergraduates: Read More [+]

ART N199 Supervised Independent Study for Advanced Undergraduates 1 - 3 Units

Terms offered: Summer 2004 10 Week Session
This course is for students wishing to pursue an interest not represented in the curriculum by developing an individual program of study supervised by a faculty member. Study may involve creative projects, research.

Supervised Independent Study for Advanced Undergraduates: Read More [+]

ART 218 Seminar: Theory and Criticism 4 Units

Terms offered: Fall 2016, Fall 2015, Spring 2015
Weekly meetings will provide a forum for the discussion of issues related to assigned readings in the fields of esthetics, theory and art criticism.

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ART 229 NEW MEDIA METHODS 3 Units

Terms offered: Fall 2014
In this methods course we will study key languages of new media innovation, ranging from flow charts to scripting languages and circuit diagrams. Our study method involves the creation and application of sensing devices in an urban context, and engages students in establishing chains of references which connect ground truth to data, data to information, information to people, people to actions, and actions to policies. Taking into account technical, political, cultural
and literacy questions we seek to connect our data production work with information needs of
underserved communities in the Bay Area region.

NEW MEDIA METHODS: Read More [+]

ART 290 Independent Study 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
Individual projects by first-year graduate students with one assigned instructor.

Independent Study: Read More [+]

ART 294 Seminar for M.F.A. Students 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
Studio work emphasizing various aspects of form. Group criticism. Intended especially for M.F.A. candidates.

Seminar for M.F.A. Students: Read More [+]

ART 295 Independent Study for M.F.A. Students 4 - 12 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Fall 2017, Spring 2017
M.F.A. candidates, special study--M.F.A. Committee members as well as other faculty.

Independent Study for M.F.A. Students: Read More [+]

ART 298 Directed Group Study 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Spring 2016
Directed group study in special problems, group research, and/or interdisciplinary topics.

Directed Group Study: Read More [+]

ART 299 Supervised Independent Study for Graduate Students 1 - 4 Units

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
Special projects by graduate students undertaken with a specific member of the faculty.

Supervised Independent Study for Graduate Students: Read More [+]

ART 301 The Teaching of Art: Practice 1 Unit

Terms offered: Spring 2018, Spring 2017, Fall 2016
Utilizing aspects of pedagogical and andragogical teaching, the interactive lecture, collaborative learning, simulations, and brainstorming-freewriting, this semester-long seminar will focus on these various intergrative teaching approaches, to facilitate communication in the diverse and wide-ranging arena which is fine arts today. Discussion of course aims, instructional methods, grading standards, and special problems in the teaching of art
practice.
The Teaching of Art: Practice: Read More [+]

Faculty and Instructors

Faculty

Allan Desouza, Associate Professor.

Greg Niemeyer, Associate Professor. Art, film studies, digital media installations, photography.
Research Profile

Brody Reiman, Associate Professor.

Katherine D. Sherwood, Professor. Art & Disability.
Research Profile

Stephanie Syjuco, Assistant Professor. Art, sculpture, ceramics, social practice, craft, activism, public art, feminism, capitalism, communes, material culture, informal economies, black markets, hacker culture, detournement, digital culture, the industrial revolution, Russian Constructivism, Arts & Crafts Movement, The Bauhaus, The Berlin Wall, design culture, architecture, brutalist architecture, urbanism, survivalism, archives, libraries, museums, museum display, modernity, postcolonial studies, labor history, American history, globalization, revolutions, cargo cults, the Philippines, Asian American studies, empire, textiles, fashion, ethnography, trade routes, science fiction, afrofuturism, camouflage, surveillance technologies, DIY culture, zines, punk rock, maker culture, kittens.
Research Profile

Anne Walsh, Associate Professor.

Lecturers

Nathan Kwame Braun, Lecturer.

Aida Gamez, Lecturer.

Michael Hall, Lecturer.

Jamil Hellu, Lecturer.

Randy M. Hussong, Lecturer.

Sahar Khoury, Lecturer.

Christopher S. Kubick, Lecturer.

Carmen Lang Merino, Lecturer.

Stephanie F. Lie, Lecturer.

John S. Mcnamara, Lecturer.

Masako Miki, Lecturer.

Jill S. Miller, Lecturer.

Indira M. Morre, Lecturer.

Craig K. Nagasawa, Lecturer.

James S. Pitt, Lecturer.

Elise A. Putnam, Lecturer.

Erik Scollon, Lecturer.

Stacy Jo Scott, Lecturer.

Azin Seraj, Lecturer.

Jenifer K. Wofford, Lecturer.

Emeritus Faculty

Jerrold Ballaine, Professor Emeritus.

Squeak Carnwath, Professor Emeritus. Art, painting, printmaking.
Research Profile

Robert L. Hartman, Professor Emeritus.

Anne Healy, Professor Emeritus.

James Melchert, Professor Emeritus.

Mary Lovelace O'Neal, Professor Emeritus.

Richard Shaw, Professor Emeritus.

David Simpson, Professor Emeritus.

Brian Wall, Professor Emeritus.

Contact Information

Department of the Practice of Art

345 Kroeber Hall

Phone: 510-642-2582

Fax: 510-643-0884

Visit Department Website

Department Chair

Allan deSouza

adesouza13@berkeley.edu

Undergraduate and Graduate Adviser

Dee Levister

341 Kroeber Hall

Phone: 510-643-9107

dplev@berkeley.edu

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