Avant Garde and the Moving Image

Level: Undergraduate, Graduate

Division: The New School for Public Engagement

School: School of Media Studies

Department: Media Studies

Course Number: NMDS 5181

Course Format: Lecture

Location: NYC campus, Online

Permission Required: No

Topics:

• Film & Video History, Theory & Criticism
• Media Studies

Description:
This course will provide an historical survey of avant-garde moving images, concentrating on the major tendencies within these traditions. Topics presented will include Dada and surrealist films, the camera as metaphor for the eye, structural film and expanded cinema, the filmmaker as poet, found-footage filmmaking, cinema and sexuality, abstract filmmaking multiple projection/installation, as well as cross-genre practices. Work by filmmakers such as: Hans Richter, Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, Bruce Conner, Shirley Clark, Kenneth Anger, George Kuchar, Martha Colburn, Peggy Ahwesh, Jack Smith and Craig Baldwin will be presented. The course will also explore various techniques, concepts and means of production employed by experimental filmmakers and should be of particular interest to students who wish to work outside the traditional mode of narrative filmmaking. The class will consist primarily of screenings and discussions about the work viewed and the context in which it was produced but will also provide a forum for discussion of the practical aspects of being a practicing film artist once outside the academy.

Restrictions:

College

Open to New School Public Engagement students.

Level

Open to Graduate students.

Major

Open to Documentary Media Studies students.

Open to Environmental Studies students.

Open to Global Studies students.

Open to International Affairs students.

Open to Liberal Arts students.

Open to Media Studies students.

Open to Media Management students.

Open to Media Management students.