Instructor: Donna Szoke, Associate Professor

Course: VISA 3P10 – Advanced Video Art

Program: Visual Art, Interactive Arts & Science

‘THE IN-BETWEEN IMAGE’: VIDEO ART PRODUCTION & SCREENING

According to Professor Szoke, “students often enter VISA 3P10 immersed in mainstream media and vernacular YouTube creative practices. This course exposes students to the depth and complexity in how video media is seen and appreciated in the context of contemporary video art.” Advanced Video Art provides a platform for students’ to express their unique cultural moment through research-creation. Through a number of experiential learning components embedded throughout the course, Professor Szoke supports students in expanding their understanding of how video-based art is contextualized in contemporary art discourses and in developing their creative, technical, and critical skills for video art production, post-production, and critical evaluation. Students demonstrate their grasp of these skills through a curated video art exhibition that culminates their learning.

In the first half of the course, students travel to VTape, Canada’s leading artist-run, not-for-profit distributor of video art in Toronto, where they watch a special screening of a video art show (curated by Masaki Kondo, PhD Candidate, Cinema and Media Studies, York University, in 2018) followed by a private curator’s talk and discussion. This field experience, funded through a Teaching & Learning Innovation Grant,  is supported by an assigned reading written by the curator. The experience is designed to scaffold students’ learning related to video-based contemporary art and inform their production of a video artwork and accompanying artist’s statement in the second half of the course. The focus of their video artwork is centred on the theme of “The In-between Image” which engages students in exploring the space between moving and still images. According to Professor Szoke, “while historically photographic and video practices were separate, we see many examples of how they merge in contemporary life – snapchat filters, gifs, live photographs, etc.”  This guides students’ reflection on their production – they are asked to address questions such as what way their video artwork ‘photographic’ and in what way is their still image artwork ‘filmic’? At the end of the term, the students host a reception and screening of their completed works for the public at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts. To create wider community dialogue, the screening also invited student of Advanced Digital Media (IASC 3P91) to screen their video work in the shared event.