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Experimental and Alternative Media Art – History of Avant-Garde Film
135 001 | CCN: 24770
Jeffrey A Skoller
Location: Dwinelle 142
Date and Time: TU, TH 3:30pm - 4:59pm
4 Units
“Beauty will be convulsive or will not be at all!”–Andre Breton
This class approaches the idea of Avant-Garde film as filmmaking without a safety net; a risk taking approach to creative expression that emphasizes filmmaking as exploration and invention rather than as product and professional mastery. The course studies the rich and varied history of film made by visual artists who are experimenting with the poetic, perceptual and material elements of film, video, and other expanded forms of moving image media. We look at the ways film and media makers have created new cinematic forms that challenge the dominant mainstream cinema and its often narrow conceptions of story and representation—especially of race, gender and sexuality in order to more freely express their own lives and place in the world.
Through weekly screenings, the reading of word texts, talking to visiting artists, discussing and writing about the films as well as making short creative artworks, we move back and forth between historical and contemporary practices, sampling from the garden of underground, personal, poetic, queer, surrealist cinemas, feminist, and activist video art, found films, love films and blow-your-mind-films!
Includes required screenings Weds evenings at the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive.