Alex Karenina Kostiw

This is a 0 credit study trip placeholder course. Specific credit courses will be applied to your enrollment for the term based on your Study Trip Preregistration information.

Stories are a fundamental way that we share and understand information to make meaning. Storytelling, then, is in part an investigation of 'truths' of various realities that shape how we see the world. The intersection of content, internal narrative structure, and physical form, storytelling can illuminate 'truths' in ways that cause us to more deeply examine our perceptions, ideas, and beliefs. This course focuses on notions of truth in expression: how a fictional approach can express emotional truths; how multiple and contradictory views of a situation can reveal a truth; and how perceptions and beliefs can be called into question through story construction.

A selection of readings and works, as well as visits to the Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection, will provide examples of traditional vs. nontraditional, linear vs. nonlinear, and fiction vs. nonfiction narratives. Together with exercises in paper-based forms, they are starting points for exploring physical structures, methods, and devices of narrative discourse.

The course treats the book form in broad terms: sequencing that reveals content or meaning over time. In 3-4 projects, students will develop their own content, work within project parameters to construct stories through image and/or text, and experiment with possibilities in narrative structure and form, whether paper-based or in other media.

This studio course surveys cross-disciplinary approaches to publishing, encouraging students to explore the role of publications in their creative practices. Self-publishing and independent publishing models will be studied as ways to express ideas, share stories, and form community. The course will cover periodical, serial, and standalone formats, such as journals, chapbooks, and zines; varied design and production methods, including DIY, bookbinding, and printing techniques; and distribution platforms and strategies, including book/zine fairs. Readings will include publishing manifestos and projects by artists, designers, writers, and small presses, as well as visits to the Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection. Students will produce 2-3 self-directed, editioned projects that could serve as foundations for or further developments of their publishing practices. Pre-req: Viscom 3011 Intermediate Type or Viscom 3001 Intermediate Graphic Design, or instructor consent.

This critique seminar frames the definition and structure of comics through a wide interdisciplinary lens. As a means of visual communication, comics adapts and configures elements of a variety of disciplines to produce a multimodal reading experience. Students will examine how comics are constructed and develop discourse on what constitutes comics through conceptual investigation and comparative studies. By experimenting with comics beyond the page, students will deepen and expand their understanding of comics and its vast possibilities.
We will explore art and design works in relation to comics as points of departure for students¿ research. This may include Lilli Carre¿s animations and artist¿s books; Seth¿s Dominion; the Chicago Imagists¿ paintings and sculptures; Lorna Simpson¿s series of photographs with text; Dadaist posters; 20th-century Japanese woodblock prints; experimental films, such as La Jete; pictographic writing systems, such as Mayan script; comics exhibition design at the MCA; and works in the Joan Flasch Artist¿s Book Collection.
Students can expect to synthesize their research into interdisciplinary approaches to comics generating 3-4 outcomes. The coursework builds skills and methodologies to prepare students for dynamic professional practices.

Stories are a fundamental way that we share and understand information to make meaning. Storytelling, then, is in part an investigation of 'truths'--of various realities that shape how we see the world. The intersection of content, internal narrative structure, and physical form, storytelling can illuminate 'truths' in ways that cause us to more deeply examine our perceptions, ideas, and beliefs. This course focuses on notions of truth in expression: how a fictional approach can express emotional truths; how multiple and contradictory views of a situation can reveal a truth; and how perceptions and beliefs can be called into question through story construction.
A selection of readings and works, as well as visits to the Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection, will provide examples of traditional vs. nontraditional, linear vs. nonlinear, and fiction vs. nonfiction narratives. Together with exercises in paper-based forms, they are starting points for exploring physical structures, methods, and devices of narrative discourse.
In 3-4 projects, students will develop their own narrative content, construct stories through image and/or text, and experiment with possibilities in narrative structure and form, whether paper-based or in other media. Graduate seminar students will additionally investigate works in a variety of narrative traditions that connect with their practices and lead critical discussions of their research.

This critique seminar explores conceptual and structural configurations of personal and public cultural space. Constructing discourses about social, cultural and political phenomena, students derive content and voice to produce process artifacts that may range from a communications tool (a singular, interactive element) to a communications scenario (a system of urban or media elements). Two projects are given, each using a distinct methodology. Beginning with a focus on personal cultural space, students investigate the influence of mediated messages on the construction of identity using a generative matrix, pairing symbol systems with functions of communication. The semester continues with a focus on public cultural space, as students examine the dynamics of a chosen community using the process of dialogical mapping, developing diagrams that clarify rhetorical and metaphoric relationships within a community. Each methodology introduced in this seminar is inferred from linguistic analysis, intended to reveal and cultivate the complexities within each student's work.

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.