UK School of Art and Visual Studies offers a BA, BFA in Art Studio and BS in Digital Media and Design, and beginning in Fall 2026 a new BA degree in Film and Sonic Arts. Over the years I have taught a range of courses in our degree program, in the Gaines Center, and abroad in Berlin, Barcelona and Buenos Aires.
An intermediate course that will introduce students to the fundamental theory and practice of cinematography and lighting for film and video. We will examine the technical aspects of camera movement as well as aesthetic aspects of cinematography and learn how to apply this knowledge to practical cinematographic choices. We will also learn about how lighting is effectively used to convey mood, control exposure, and work collaboratively on a film crew.
Students will learn advanced video compositing methods, image control and key effects in the digital world specific to the Final Cut Pro environment. Basic storyboarding, sound design and title effects will be taught. This class will explore video for performance and as metaphoric narrative. Work will be collaborative in theory but individual in execution.
An intermediate level course that allows students to explore a variety of programming environments. Programming topics may include video, audio and/or still images with net based or physical installation based output. This class builds on students' previous experiences with digital media production and introduces programming to their tool pallet. Fundamentals of computer programming are presented, supplemented by historical readings and discussions of art theory dealing with the use of digital technologies in artistic context. Nine studio hours per week. May be repeated to a maximum of nine hours when identified under a different subtitle.
Prereq: A-S 200 or consent of instructor. (Co-taught with Jim Wade)
An intermediate level course that allows students to explore a variety of programming environments. Programming topics may include video, audio and/or still images with net based or physical installation based output. This class builds on students' previous experiences with digital media production and introduces programming to their tool pallet. Fundamentals of computer programming are presented, supplemented by historical readings and discussions of art theory dealing with the use of digital technologies in artistic context. Nine studio hours per week. May be repeated to a maximum of nine hours when identified under a different subtitle.
Prereq: A-S 200 or consent of instructor. (Co-taught with Robert Dickes)
A digital video class with emphasis placed on use of camera and postproduction editing and keyframing skills for an advanced student. Curriculum will focus on the required creation of a series of short original video works. Industry practices of shotlists, color correction and post-production, such as AfterEffects will be explored in depth. Video works for this course can be 2-D animation, projection, installation or screen based.
Investigate Berlin's infamous streets, east vs. west, districts, monuments, flea markets, people, museums, its architecture, its culture of outdoor cafes and restaurants, and its world-class art scene with the lens of a camera. Use a digital camera or phones to shoot both still images and possibly video to create a portfolio of images, printed as a zine.
Create a 21st-century travel journal through image, video and writing via social media. Students record their thoughts, images, food, interactions and experiences as a social media document of their time in Argentina. These experiences, poems, fragments of thought, images and video will be posted to a blog, and possibly facebook, and/or twitter. The class explores ideas of travel narratives such as being foreign, lost, discovery, outside and inside of a culture as well as notions of fantasy and projection. Smartphone or camera is required. No prior art or creative writing background required.
This will be a demanding course that will involve challenging readings and an experimental approach to artmaking. Readings and meditations will focus on aspects of death or dying. Projects are open media.
This course is being offered to provide an impression of psychoanalysis and investigate its relationship to critical theory. The goal of this class is to give students a working knowledge of psychological approaches to metaphor and to investigate psychological strategies such as transference, projection, superego, id, masochism, collective unconscious, alchemy, archetype, castration complex, etc. This will be an open media course that embraces an experimental approach to artmaking.
Students are expected to explore how installation, performance and interventions can demonstrate an idea, experience, implicate the viewer, address location specifically (and non-specifically) and shift an audience's perception of time and/or space. The class will introduce students to some of the concepts in the history of installation and current shifts in the definition of installation art and the emergence of actions and interventions.
A culminating course that allows digital media students to propose and create large-scale, in depth projects such as short films, video installations, a complete animation, a photographic series, a 3D printing installation, a web-based research project, etc. that require time and focus to produce. 3 credit hours, may be repeated up to 9 hours.
Prereq: Senior Standing, B.S. Digital Media and Design Majors.
A seminar especially for graduate students in the studio area, in all areas of concentration. Lectures, discussion and criticism will focus on current formal and aesthetic problems in the arts. Emphasis will be placed on the integration of concepts arising in the different fields in the visual arts. Required of M.F.A. candidates for three semesters. May be repeated to a total of twelve credits.
Prereq: Graduate standing in the department.