Esslinger's Classes at Kenyon College
  • Introduction
    • Position Announcement
  • Digital Imaging
    • Abstract Formalism
    • Experimental Collage >
      • Skill Sets
    • Altered Portraits
    • Magic Realism 21 >
      • Altered Scapes
      • Digital Experimentation
      • Fictitious Advertising
    • Exhibition Design
    • Soundscape
    • Gesture >
      • Aesthetics of the Ordinary
    • Final Projects
  • Video
    • Stop-Motion Animation >
      • STOP MOTION FESTIVAL 2020
    • Exp. Film and Video >
      • Lyrical Juxtapositions
      • Artist Presentation
      • Abstract Montage
      • AppropriationSocialComment
      • Extended Experimental
      • Expanded Cinema
  • Installation
  • Advanced Studio
  • Links
    • Artists and Info >
      • Miscellaneous
      • assignment presentations
      • Creative preparations
      • Video
      • Experimental Film
      • Sound
      • Animation
      • Photo
      • Cinemagraphs
      • New Media >
        • Notes New Media
      • Installation
      • Design/Anti
      • Web based
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      • Student Presentations >
        • student research video artists
        • Student Presentations Installation
        • Themes of Contemporary Art
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    • Manuals >
      • Scanning
      • Lightroom
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      • Premiere Pro CC >
        • New Premiere Pro Video Tutorials
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        • InDesign Video Tutorials
      • Fonts
      • Animation
      • New Media Programs >
        • manuals from others
      • Audio
      • Lighting
      • Cameras+Equipment
      • Sculptural Processes
      • AHistoryofArtandTechnology for Digital Imaging
      • A History of Art andTechnology for Video and Film
      • professional presentations
      • Rome Home >
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          • Questions Venice
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​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 investigate 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 2021(downloadable)
​Syllabus Web version

Digital Imaging Tentative Schedule Spring 2021 



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 Collages

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. Magic Realism

​Promoting your work through posters and catalogs, writing an artist's statement, skills in basic InDesign
5. Exhibition Publicity  (possible but not absolute in 2021)

NOT 2021
Alternative to Exhbition 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 (not in 2021)

​
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 in 2021)

Not in 2021
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.

8. Gesture (alternate for 2021)

​Not in 2021:

​
8. Aesthetics of the Ordinary  (alternate)

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 for 2021)
​

Links to Tutorials for assignments on this site and others! Use them*:
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 

​Electronic Mirror (an occasional extra assignment)
Cheryl Donegan  head .
Bruce Nauman (stomping in the studio)
WilliamWegman ( early videos)
      deodorant: 
      massage chair:
      stomach song