Undergraduate Courses

1A Visual Literacy (5)
An introductory survey of visual culture, encompassing art and film theory and practice, digital technologies, television, advertising and print media, with a special focus on current interdisciplinary methodologies.

1C Introduction to Contemporary Art (2)
Symposium format course presents contemporary artists’ creative projects in relation to recent developments in art and cross-disciplinary practices. Lectures by UCSB’s Art Department faculty and also distinguished guests invited to expand on art, theory and cultural production.

7A The Intersections of Art and Life (5)
Explores art in relation to time-based activity and integration with everyday life. Conceptual introduction to authorship, authenticity, and narrative through exercises and examples of performance, video, film, book, arts, sound, digital media, and interactive/chance derived work.

7B Image Studies (5)
The study of visual perception and image-making across visual art disciplines, both material and digital. Studio assignments are combined with related critical theory, historical practice, current strategies, and new evolutions.

7C Introduction to Contemporary Practice II: Spatial Studies (5)
The study of spatial arts in all forms, including material, interactive and dynamic digital. Studio assignments are combined with related critical theory, historical practice, current strategies and new evolutions.

7D Introduction to Contemporary Practice III: Art, Science and Technologies (5)
The study of the foundations of digital and technological arts in all forms, including the history, theory and practice of optical, kinetic, interactive, interdisciplinary and systems-oriented art. Lectures and assignments introduce concepts, methods, movements and practitioners that have shaped the fields.

10 Lower-Division Painting (4)
Lectures, demonstrations, and projects designed to provide a strong foundation in fundamental 2D image making. Various media to include acrylic, oil, and experimental processes.

12 Lower-Division Sculpture (4)
Introduction to the challenges, strategies, and techniques of 3D artmaking within the expanding fields of traditional and contemporary sculpture.

14 Lower-Division Print (4)
Introduction to making prints. Emphasis on technical fundamentals and conceptual aspects of graphic arts. “Print” incorporates hand produced, mechanically or photographically reproduced, and electronically replicated media.

18 Lower-Division Drawing (4)
Introductory to two-dimensional representation with various drawing media, including structural and symbolic implications of human form. Emphasis on organization of vision and thought in terms of drawing techniques and materials.

19 Lower-Division Photography (4)
Examines photography as a means of artistic expression. Conceptually-based projects explore how we view, interpret, and manipulate visual information. Lectures cover major historical and contemporary artists. Lab work in digital.

22 Introduction to Computer Programming in the Arts (4)
Using a project-based approach, the basic components of web development and computer programming are explored in different markup and programming languages such as HTML/CSS, JavaScript, and Processing. The class is intended to create a general understanding of computer programming, its use and cultural implications, as well as provide a foundation for utilizing programming in a wide range of projects, from traditional to new media.

32 Introduction to Digital Video (4)
Introduction to digital video production including camera work, editing, sound, and distribution platforms. Conceptual and technical concerns relevant to video in the evolving theater of contemporary art and culture.

100 Intermediate Painting (4)
Various projects designed to assist the understanding and development of intermediate painting practices. Supplemented with slide lectures, library research, and class critique. Additional self-directed projects, sketch books, experimentation, independent research, and self-motivation are encouraged.

101 Advanced Painting (4)
Special studies in painting utilizing particular faculty interests and/or special departmental facilities. Exact nature of course is specified in the Department of Art syllabus. Integration of non-painting media (i.e. installation pertaining to current painting issues, digital media, and photography).

102AA-ZZ Super Course – Digital Medial Toolbox: Concepts and Skills (4)
A project based course with an emphasis on technical skills within the digital media arts context. Topics may include telecommunications, wireless, database aesthetics, networks, interactivity, digital #D, virtual reality, immersive environments, algorithmic aesthetics, visualization, media theory and others. Topic to be determined by instructor.

102MM Digital Project: Mobile Media (4)
In this class we will make mobile app art projects for smartphones and tablets using HTML/CSS, JavaScript and Perl. Through the conceptualization and creation of these projects, we investigate social and locative media, ubiquity, the possibilities and limits of apps as art and the cultural implications of the increased uses of mobile apps. Students will also learn basic programming skills that can be applied towards learning and using other computer languages for a wide range of purposes.

102MU Digital Projects: Mashups (4)
The web is brimming with continuously updated data about anything from weather, tsunamis, and earthquakes to UFO sightings, animal migration, sports, population, and the stock market, as well as user-generated information at social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. “Mashups” are applications that combine this data into something new and interesting. In the class we make mashup art using HTML5/CSS, JavaScript and Perl, that combine and manipulate real time data while investigating our world of data.

105AA-ZZ Super Course – Intermediate Spatial Practices (4)
Designed to develop student knowledge and proficiency of material and method, cultivating both manual and conceptual skill-levels in three-dimensional practices. Course focus varies by quarter, but includes a variety of approaches to material practices and engages students in the role of spatial awareness and production within contemporary art.

105PP – Intermediate Spatial Practices: Public Practice (4)
Designed to develop student knowledge and proficiency of material and method, cultivating both manual and conceptual skill-levels in three- dimensional practices. Course focus varies by quarter, but includes a variety of approaches to materials and concepts in Public Practice.

105KY – Intermediate Spatial Practices: Kim Yasuda (4)
Designed to develop student knowledge and proficiency of material and method, cultivating manual, conceptual and collaborative skill-levels in both the studio and public realm. Course focus varies by quarter and includes a range of approaches to an engaged spatial practice within contemporary art and its related fields.

105TD – Intermediate Spatial Practices: Physical and Virtual (4)
Designed to develop student knowledge and proficiency of material and method, cultivating both manual and conceptual skill-levels in three-dimensional practices. Course focus varies by quarter, but combines ‘hands on’ physical practice with digital practices, tools and methods. No previous digital skills required.

106AA-ZZ – Advanced Spatial Practices (4)
Advanced study and investigation of new forms and spatial practices. Individual and group projects may encompass formal and collaborative research as well as multi-disciplinary production that engages new and exploratory practices, such as interactive and performative media, public art, social design at the intersection of architecture, urbanism and contemporary art. Course content detailed in syllabus each quarter.

106W Introduction to 2D/3D Visualizations in Architecture (4)
Develops skills in reading, interpreting, and visualizing 3D objects and spaces by offering exercises in sketching, perspective, orthographic projections, isometric drawings, and manual rendering practices. Relevant for those interested in history of architecture, sculpture, and such spatial practices as installations and public art.

106FA – Advanced Spatial Practices: Friday Academy (4)
106FA is an open, interdisciplinary, project-based instructional environment designed to explore experimental curricula relevant to a publicly-engaged art practice. Straying from the traditional studio/classroom arts training models, FA offers locally embedded, multi-quarter, off-site research in real-world settings, encouraging flexible programs in response to immediate social and environmental concerns. FA draws from an interdisciplinary team of students, faculty and community scholars to work in partnership with one another.

106PP – Advanced Spatial Practices: Public Practice (4)
Advanced study of new forms and spatial practices within Public Practices. Individual projects may encompass formal sculptural practices as well as investigations that engage new technologies and alternative practices such as interactive media, the intersection of architecture and contemporary art, and site-specificity. Course content detailed in syllabus each quarter.

110 Intermediate Print (4)
Continued refinement of skills in service of ink and digital print production. Emphasis on the intermedia aspects of image and text and the sequential use of pictorial information. Areas of specific focus to include electronic multiples, relief printing, and artists’ books.

111PP – Public Practice Arts: Digital Intermedia (4)
The use of digital and hybrid media to create site-responsive public projects including unsanctioned, permission based, and speculative works. The investigation of the evolving nature and use of public space and its interrelations of individual, social, architectural/built, and infrastructure conditions. Projects will be executed both on and off campus.

112 Artists’ Books (4)
An investigation of the book as an art form. Based on conventional media, artists’ books encompass a variety of methods, techniques, and ideas. Assigned and self-directed projects using traditional and innovative practices, combining reading with pictorial and tactile experience.

113 Experimental Video and Animation (4)
The development of independent, innovative projects that utilize digital video and/or post-production and hybrid means to create video-works for screens and surfaces, including projection, installation, distributed platforms. Projects may employ a variety of strategies and methodologies in concept, production, and presentation. Broad exposure to contemporary and pioneering video/film, with an emphasis on experimentation in substance and form.

117 Intermediate Drawing (4)
Continuing investigation into the challenges of two-dimensional representation. Course focus to depend on instructor, but may include structural and symbolic implications of the human form, historical and contemporary strategies of visual analysis, and exploration into experimental media.

118 Advanced Drawing (4)
Special studies in drawing utilizing particular faculty interests and/or departmental facilities.

120AA-ZZ Super Course – Intermediate Photography (4)
Continued refinement of traditional photographic technique, and development of photography as an artmaking tool. Course to range by instructor, but may include photo narrative, journalism, fashion, artists’ books, desktop publishing, web design, time-based work, and intermedia collaborations.

120EL – Intermediate Photography: Environment & Landscape (4)
Individual photographic projects organized and conceptualized by students. Proposal for research and development of design and production of body of work with a focus on the environment and landscape.

120PV – Intermediate Photography: Personal Vision (4)
Continued refinement of traditional photographic technique, and development of photography as an art-making tool. Course to range by instructor, but may include photo narrative, journalism, fashion, artists’ books, desktop publishing, web design, time-based work, and intermedia collaborations.

120SE – Intermediate Photography: Social Engagement (4)
Building on the tools of lower division photo and the skills learned in Art 120, SE links social issues such as mass incarceration, poverty, LGBTQ rights, racism, environmental justice and give you the framework to photograph, layout, write, research, publish, post and impact a broad audience about the issues that are keeping you up at night. This is ART for engagement rather than the galleries or privileged walls.

122AA-ZZ Super Course – Advanced Topics in Digital Media (4)
An advanced project based course in digital media arts. Students are expected to have relevant conceptual, aesthetic, and technological grounding in digital media. Topic to be determined by instructor.

122CC – Advanced Digital Topics: Creative Cartography (4)
Historically, mapmaking was a privilege of the ones in power, and more recently a craft of trained professionals. Today, anyone can make and publish their personally annotated maps online. In this class we will investigate and participate in these new participatory mapmaking paradigms, making our own artistic and conceptual mapping projects using the Google Maps/Earth APIs, HTML5 and JavaScript. The class explores psychogeography, critical cartography, locative media, real time data, and social and mobile media.

122PC – Physical Computing as Textile (4)

This course explores experimental approaches to designing, prototyping, and building human-centered interactive systems to extend computation away from the screen and into the physical world. As a class, we will explore the history of computing, from its origins in weaving and textile production to modern electronic textiles. Students will explore soft sculpture, weaving, fiber arts, embroidery, circuit design, and integrating electronics with software through conductive thread, paint, and yarn.

123 Papermaking (4)
Introduction to historical and contemporary methods of handmade papermaking leading to innovative uses of handmade paper as an integral part of art forms.

125 Art Since 1950 (4)
Developments in American and European art since 1950 with an emphasis on the most recent decades. Focus ranges from the post-war impact of the New York School, Pop Art, Minimalism and Conceptualism to more recent, “postmodern” trends.

126 Introduction to Contemporary Theory (4)
A basic beginning survey of contemporary art, film and media theory, focusing specifically on: realism, formalism, semiotics, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, feminism, Marxism, gender/queer studies, post-structuralism, and broader issues of authorship, narratology, postmodernism and multiculturalism.

130 Visual Art As Culture (4)
Exploration of the visual arts in a wide range of socio-cultural and economic contexts. Topics include art’s changing institutional role in relation to the shifting parameters of ideology and the state apparatus, history, revolution, nationalism, Orientalism, multiculturalism, postmodernism, high and low culture and new technologies.

132 Intermediate Digital Video (4)
The making and use of video in contemporary art. Hands-on production and post production are combined with viewing, critique, and discussion topics, including cultural prominence and future trends. Single and multiple channel, installation, and integration with other media are all encouraged.

136 Personal Narrative (4)
Intensive writing based workshop designed for formulating and producing artwork based on one’s own personal experiences and histories. Experimentation and expansion into other artistic media are encouraged.

137 Spoken Word (4)
A workshop introduction to the use of voice as an artistic medium, with emphasis on personal monologue, and improvisation.

177 Art and Science of Aerospace Culture (4)
Interdisciplinary course/seminar/practice for artists, academics, engineers, and designers interested in exploring the technological, aesthetic, cultural, and political aspects of the space side of the aerospace complex. Design history, space complex aesthetics, cinema intersections, imaging/telecommunications, human spaceflight history, reduced/alternating gravity experimentation, space systems design/utilization.

185AA-ZZ
Special topics in art.

185AA – Artist Activists (4)
Related to Art 1C Thursday colloquium guest artists, focusing on activism through art. Tuesday we will explore the practical side of how to create projects that go beyond the gallery and focus on changing public policy through art, advocacy, social media, interventions, graphics, documentation, sculpture and raw passion.

185GL – Digital Project: Optical-Digital Culture & Practice (4)
A project based art course focused on image-processing as an experimental tool and as creative medium. Assignments will bridge technical experimentation with artistic and conceptual approaches to examine the nature of the computational image.

185IV – IV Open Lab (4)
IV OpenLab is an open, project-based, learning/research environment designed to encourage student and campus engagement in the Isla Vista community. Weekly Friday gatherings will take place in IV, hosting different campus and community members who will be present, discuss and provide feedback on the range of Isla Vista issues and opportunities. Students taking the course will be required to design outside research projects (individually or collaboratively) to present to the community groups at the end of the quarter.

192 Internship in Art (1-4)
Opportunities in applied learning related to visual art through local museums, art galleries, and other art related organizations or institutions. Students work under the direction of the faculty sponsor who maintains contact with the supervisor for whom the student is interning.

192ES Exhibition Studies – Internship in Art (1-2)
This internship provides pedagogical and practical support for students exhibiting work within the Art Building and other venues across campus such as Cheadle Hall and the University Library. Among other skills, the course will include intensive training in exhibition scheduling and curating, installation and display, the production of didactic supplements such as information sheets, wall texts and titles, methods of promotion as well as de-installation and art handling.

194 Special Group Studies (2-4)
A means of making special studies or meeting special curricular problems.

196 Honors Seminar (4)
Seminar designed to focus on criticism of current studio work. A total of 12 units in this course required to complete honors program. Completion of seminar units followed by public exhibition of work accomplished.

199 Independent Study (1-5)
Advanced study in a variety of media. To be determined by the professor and the student. Student must have upper-division standing and a minimum of a 3.0 grade-point-average.

199RA Independent Research Assistant (1-5)
Coursework shall consist of faculty supervised research assistance. Student must have upper-division standing.