Esslinger's Classes at Kenyon College
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    • Abstract Formalism
    • Experimental Collage >
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ARTS 107 

​Digital Imaging is a broad term for using digital tools to engage in aesthetic and conceptual practices in contemporary art.  In this class personal studio projects allow investigation of a variety of subjects such as: the role of digital media in the history of artistic practice, the relationship of the arts to popular culture, the aesthetics of abstraction, the development of metaphor, new versions of magic-realism and the effects of social issues on the creation and interpretation of art work.  Students come to understand the fundamentals of composition and develop technical skills with still-image and video-production tools.  Through theory and practice, effective art criticism skills are developed, allowing for creative group interactions and defining of a personal aesthetic vision.  Presentations by the professor are supplemented by student readings about contemporary artists and issues.  

Syllabus and Schedule
​

Digital Imaging Syllabus Spring 2023 (downloadable)
Digital Imaging Tentative Schedule Spring 2023
​
Assignment Descriptions:
(not all assignments apply to all semesters)
​

STILL IMAGING:
Beginnings: Developing a visual vocabulary, ideas about composition and skills in LightRoom and Photoshop. Art Historical abstractions reviewed.
1. Abstract Formalism
​
2. Experimental Collage

Core Still Imaging: Developing ideas of self and place, advanced compositing in Photoshop, Art historical references: Dada, Surrealism, Postmodernism, etc
3. The Altered Portrait
4. The Altered Scape
​(alternate Personal maps)


​Promoting your work through posters and catalogs, writing an artist's statement, skills in basic InDesign
5. Exhibition Publicity  

​TIME-BASED MEDIA
introduction to time-based media through sound, using field, foley and tonal sounds in a unified way (can be thematic) An intro to editing in Premiere Pro. 
7. SoundScapes (foundation for time based processes)
8. Aesthetics of the Ordinary 2021
​
8. Gesture (Signifying Actions) 2022

Final Project:
Building on everything you have learned but this time starting with TEXT that helps you focus your idea first, then developing visual and audio elements in any sequence.
9. Alternative Narratives ( final project )
​

Links to Tutorials for assignments on this site and others! 

Design/Composition Principles and Elements

History of Art and Technology
Cameras
LIGHTROOM
    Lightroom Video Tutorials
​    Lightroom PDF QuickStart
    Lightroom Extensive PDF
Photoshop Tutorials*
InDesign Quickstart
Audio Tutorials
Premiere Pro CC 2015+
Video Shot List
​

​
​samples of student work from Digital Imaging in the Visual Arts:
click on specific assignments below for more


Examples:

Images from Digital Collages/Formalism


Images from Altered Portraits and Scapes: Magic Semi-Realism

Images from Fictitious Advertising and Catalog Design

Cinemagraph examples from internet under Links
​
VIdeo from the Electronic Mirror

Video from Aesthetics of the Ordinary

Video from Gesture AKA Signifying Actions

Video from Narrative Assignments



Extras: 
Evocative Writing, Word Painting/ perhaps a basis for Alternative Narratives 
Bruno Shultz chapter: Birds
Nicole Krauss:The Age of Silence: Gesture from the History of Love 
​Anthony Doerr: About Grace 

​

Extra or Alternate Assignments

Alternative to Exhibition Publicity : inventing a product that can be created in Photoshop and advertised with InDesign. 
​
5. Fictitious Advertising
An extra project if there is time: being creative with the software you have learned. What can you imagine with these tools that is related to their characteristics and process rather than traditional image making?
6. Digital Experimentation  
7. Electonic Mirror: alternative intro project (early video art examples)
Initial Video project(s) building on top of soundscapes.  Coming at your idea through the backdoor of listening to your soundscapes. Learning to edit to sound.>>
​
​Not in 2021:
​Electronic Mirror examples (an occasional extra assignment)
Cheryl Donegan  head .
Bruce Nauman (stomping in the studio)
WilliamWegman ( early videos)
      deodorant: 
      massage chair:
      stomach song 
​8. Aesthetics of the Ordinary  (alternate)​
​


Digital Media Professional certain examples

Mass (currents new media festival 2021)
​Computer 1.0. Victoria Manganiello Weaving