Course detail

Documents of Presence and Experience

FaVU-1PMA-LAcad. year: 2023/2024

Documents of Presence and Experience is a series of lectures accompanied by audiovisual projections. Art films, videos, and documentaries and excerpts from lectures by international artists and collectives from the early 20th century to the present are shown throughout the course, illustrating theoretical deliberations on given themes and artistic movements. Art and artist databases, institutional resources, alternative communities, and artist residencies are also showcased within the sessions. Conceptual texts and deliberations are included as part of the curriculum. The course's primary objective is to aquaint the student with the manifesto as a transdisciplinary device.

Language of instruction

English

Number of ECTS credits

3

Mode of study

Not applicable.

Offered to foreign students

Of all faculties

Entry knowledge

User IT skills. Basic orientation in the history of 20th century culture.

Rules for evaluation and completion of the course

Final evaluation will be based on attendence (75%), active participation in class, the presentation of a project or theme of the student's choice accompanied by a theoretical text (comparative study, curatorial project, personal manifesto (approx. 2 n/s)) based on the given theme of the semester. Semester projects will be assesed based on relevance of theme and quality of research and delivery (presentation, text).
Projections are optional, but students who are absent must produce a paper corresponding with the presented document on the given session.

Aims

Upon succcessful completion of the course students will be able to: - identify and summarize the guiding concepts of important avant-garde movements - recognize conceptual tendencies within contemporary art practice - write a theoretical text detailing or adopting the mechanisms of the manifesto - analyse the socio-politcal context which gave/gives rise to shifts in aesthetic paradigms Students should be able to identify and describe the socio-politcal contexts which gave rise to avant-garde cultural movements, discuss key works, and understand the mechanisms of a written manifesto and participatory practice.
Upon succcessful completion of the course students will be able to: - identify and summarize the guiding concepts of important avant-garde movements - recognize conceptual tendencies within contemporary art practice - write a theoretical text detailing or adopting the mechanisms of the manifesto - analyse the socio-politcal context which gave/gives rise to shifts in aesthetic paradigms Students should be able to identify and describe the socio-politcal contexts which gave rise to avant-garde cultural movements, discuss key works, and understand the mechanisms of a written manifesto and participatory practice.

Study aids

Not applicable.

Prerequisites and corequisites

Not applicable.

Basic literature

Alex Danchev, 100 Artists Manifestos, From the Futurists to the Stuckists, Peguin Modern Classics (EN)
Serpentine Gallery Manifesto Marathon, Koenig Books (EN)
Hakim Bey, TAZ: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism (EN)

Recommended reading

Not applicable.

Classification of course in study plans

  • Programme VUB Bachelor's

    branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-VT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-VT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-IDT , 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
    branch VU-IDT , 4 year of study, summer semester, elective

  • Programme FAAD Master's 2 year of study, summer semester, elective
    1 year of study, summer semester, compulsory-optional
  • Programme VUM_B Bachelor's 3 year of study, summer semester, elective
    4 year of study, summer semester, elective

  • Programme ZST-BX Bachelor's

    branch ZST , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective

  • Programme ZST-NX Master's

    branch ZST , 1 year of study, summer semester, elective

Type of course unit

 

Seminar

26 hod., compulsory

Teacher / Lecturer

Syllabus

Key Themes: Underground, The Manifesto, Declarations, Participation, Surveillance, Social engagement, Identity Politics

The manifesto is a philosophical and theoretical framework within which deeds or experiments can and are performed in support of its proclamations. It provides a platform, radical in how it instates itself at the moment of its presentation, distribution, or publication, its incubation having taken place prior to it's formulation. What is characteristic for the avant-garde art manifesto is its intention to serve as a tool to initiate a paradigm shift in the approach to both the creation and the consumption of art, while having, at the moment of its inception, already bore witness to its establishment as a movement. When the avant-garde manifesto is written, there is already a body of work that represents what is being proclaimed. What is being proclaimed is a message intrinsic, or at the very least carried by the works that are made in its name, including those preceding its actual utterance. In addition the manifesto serves as a call to action, an invitation to join a movement with the potential to initiate change. Where, or whether, a paradigm shift takes place along this axis, and to what degree, varies from manifesto to manifesto. As with the political manifesto, the art manifesto is meant to cause a fracture or fissure through the representation of a communal body which speaks in the first-person plural, 'we'.