NPF 555

In the past century, groups of artists have repeatedly called for new methods for the creation of artworks, to revitalize arts that had grown dreary, stale, and predictable. This course comprises workshops and seminars and explores the value of such proposals: means to be considered will be the use of aleatory methods, algorithmic procedures, interference structures (Schillinger methods), exquisite corpses (in words and pictures), practices based on the methods of dreams, and methods based on the deliberate rejection of all formations that can be rationally explained. Workshop projects utilizing these methods will be realized in different media. Seminars will explore both historical questions concerning the provenance of such practices and theoretical questions about the extent to which these practices have the potential their proponents claimed for them. A portion of the course will be given over to considering philosophical questions concerning the role of novelty in the arts.