Prof. Michael O'Rourke DDA-606A, Seminar I

Assignment

Exhibition Proposal

This is a research assignment in the form of a proposal for an exhibition of digital art.

You are to curate the work of 4-5 artists working with digital art. One of the artists you select must be either over the age of 60 or deceased. This artist may or may not have worked digitally. (This selection structure will oblige you to not focus solely on young contemporary artists.) The other artists may be of any age and either living or dead and should be using digital technologies in a significant way in their art.

Your exhibition should be built around a cohesive theme relevant to the digital arts. Research various themes, ideas, issues and artists. That which connects the artwork in your exhibition may be conceptual, social, technical, visual, etc. For your research, make use of the field trips, lectures, and readings you have done for this course. Do any additional research you need.

Assemble relevant information about each artist. For each artist, select specific artworks to be included in your exhibition. Assemble images, videos, and/or audio of these artworks.

Written Proposal

The written portion of your proposal should consist of :

• a short ( approximately ½ page) Abstract describing your exhibition

• a more detailed (approximately 1-2 pages) description of the common theme(s) that unify your exhibition
• descriptions of the artists you selected
• images of all included artworks
• label information for each artwork: (name of artist, date of artwork, medium or media, dimensions or running time)

Exhibition Layout

You must also design a proposed layout for your exhibition. Either design an imaginary exhibition space or replicate an actual exhibition space. You can use any techniques or software to do this – hand-drawing, Maya, Illustrator, Photoshop,...) Think about where each artwork should go in your space and why, and then place the artworks into this virtual space. Produce enough images and visuals to clearly show the layout and look of the exhibition.

Assemble all of your materials (both text and visuals) into one well-organized PDF file. Post this to your blog. Also print out a hardcopy printout of this PDF file and hand this in on the due date.

Poster

Using two boards hinged together, create a folding poster board for your exhibition proposal. Each half of the folding poster should be a minimum of 18" wide x 26" tall. Onto the two halves of this poster you should glue or tape the following printouts/information:

• your name

• title of exhibition
• Abstract (the short description of the exhibition)
  
• images of several of the artworks. (You don't have to include all the artworks.) Each image should include its label information.
• one or more images showing the gallery layout of the exhibition

This folding poster will be displayed in our classroom on the due date. We may also possibly display some of these posters in the DDA hallway spaces.

Below is an image showing a sample poster.

On the due date, all students will display their physical poster in the classroom. We will look at all these posters, then hear a short explanation from each student about his/her exhibition proposal. All physical materials will then be submitted to the instructor for grading.