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IVT105 /         

Context Assignment

 

By definition context is the condition in which any work of art exists. To varying degrees, the meaning of all artworks is affected by their contexts. Sometimes this is a passive condition: when an artwork is affected by its context but does not engage its context in a direct manner.

 

On the other hand, some artworks actively engage context as the primary way to make meaning and that is the goal of this assignment. Your challenge is to create a work whose meaning and message is created by an active (not passive) engagement of contextual conditions.

 

Site-Specificness/ Place

á       Where and how an artwork is displayed factors into its meaning

á       Direct response to existing natural or man made circumstance

 

Situationalism

á       Artwork directly engages with a natural or social event. (direct ÔengagementÕ might entail action, process, performance etc.)

á       The artwork is the result of an interaction with forces outside of the artists control

 

Audience Interactivity

á       Direct physical interaction (the art is an active experience that the audience has)

á       Audience contribution (the art is made in part or wholly by its audience)

á       Community activism (the art is a catalyst for social/community action)



Part 1: Project Proposal

 Write a brief description of your plans for your context project including:

  • What the project entails
  • An explanation of what the expressive intentions of the project is and how that meaning is achieved through contextual factors.
  • What sort of preplanning might be required including permissions

 

Submit: Email your proposal as an attached document titled yourlastname_contextproposal.docx

 

Part 2: Create a context based artwork

Submit: Photo document your artwork and create a brief power point presentation that includes an intro page outlining the conceptual parameters of the project. These conceptual parameters could be a bulleted list but should include a summary of the comments you make in your written analysis (see below).

 

Submit: Upload the Power Point files to the Google drive folder provided. Label this file  yourlastname_context.ppt

 

Part 3: Written Analysis (no less than three pages)

  • Briefly describe your project naming the contextual factors at play from the list above (no more than 1 page).
  • Address the specific way meaning arises from these contextual factors (one page)
  • Compare your experience of creating this contextual artwork to your experience creating more traditional discrete art object (one page). What are the differences between the two? What are the pros and cons of each?

 

Submit: Your 3 + pages of writing including one embedded image of the project and prefaced by this assignment page should be printed for your notebooks.