Rich Della Costa
Media Literacy for Teachers

Nathan Lyons

Keith Johnson
Photography in the Cultural Landscape

Dinorah de Jesus Rodriguez
Hand-Crafted 16mm Film

Nathan Lyons
Image, Sequence, Series

Joan Lyons
Artists' Books:
Narrative/Text/ Image

July 25–
July 29

Christine Shank
The Art of the Installation

Actively explore two engaging media, which are in the forefront of contemporary art. Have the best of all possible worlds in this intensive interdisciplinary class that helps you create a personal vocabulary dealing with both photography and drawing in their broadest definition. A variety of demonstrations of both traditional and unorthodox techniques will be presented and discussions of materials and surfaces will be ongoing. Individual and group critiques will focus on enriching the personal vocabulary while discussing form and content as related to contemporary issues. Whether your definition of drawing is more traditional or would extend itself to the build up of so many thumb prints and or the line made by the debris washed up on the edge of the beach and likewise whether your definition of photography is more traditional or would extend itself to drawing in space with light or painting with light sensitive chemistry, you will gain much from our exploration of photography and drawing. Many materials and surfaces both traditional and unorthodox will be explored for drawings with many techniques demonstrated. Many photographic techniques will be demonstrated from transfers to antique processes with an emphasis on both choosing compatible processes and surfaces (from paper to fabric to wood) that will work for both photography and drawing.

Anna Strickland teaches at Rhode Island School of Design and has taught at Wellesley College, the Boston Museum School and the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, and at SPEOS in Paris. Her work is exhibited internationally. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony and has just completed a residency at Anderson Ranch Arts Center.

In an age of constant media bombardment, children are exposed to ever increasing levels of image, sound and other sensory stimulation.  Evidence from the many studies conducted on the effects of mass media on children over the past fifty years indicate that children learn from this pervasive presence in both positive and negative ways.  It is no mystery to many parents and teachers that learning has become difficult for many students without the accompanying presence of media.  Teachers need to understand the language of the moving image and other media, students’ awareness of and intuitive use of media and how media can be effectively incorporated into the classroom to positively enhance the learning experience.  With a focus on student learning styles, behavior and effective learning outcomes, this course introduces primary and secondary teachers to the history of the moving image in film and video, computer games and popular music.  Current Rap and Hip Hop forms are also explored and integrated into an overall strategy to assist students in critical thinking, making educated choices and understanding production processes used in various forms of media.  Participants in this workshop will view films and videos from the extensive Visual Studies archive, learn about film and video production techniques, analyze music styles and lyrics and plan a strategy to use these materials and skills in their classrooms.

Rich Della Costa has taught 16mm film production at the Visual Studies Workshop since 1987 and also teaches media and communications at the Edison Occupational and Technical High School in Rochester, NY.  He holds a Masters degree in secondary education with a concentration on media literacy.  He has been a film and video producer for twenty years, eleven of those years in Washington, DC producing training and recruitment films for the Peace Corps.  He has lived and worked in India and Guatemala and currently resides on the family farm west of Rochester.

Video artists have historically used the medium to claim voice and suggest alternative ways of seeing.  Video is an effective tool for making images that can challenge dominant paradigms and suggest new lenses through which a scenario can be viewed.  Video has a push-pull relationship between “high” and “pop” culture.  It is a reproducible, accessible medium.  It is time based, so it requires the viewer to make a commitment.  Video can stand alone or be part of a larger work of art.  It is a form of expression that allows the maker to creatively represent ideas narratively or experimentally.  The purpose of this class is to combine theory and practice so that the artist can locate video as an artistic medium while learning how to make video.  The class will combine practice with theory/history. About half of the class will consist of instruction in video production (camera work and editing).  Students who are new to video, basic instruction will be available.  Students who have experience with video will have the opportunity to expand their techniques.  The class will also include screening of video work by artists and the active discussion of readings that will help students to understand issues such as voice, representation and the use of video as activist.

Erica Eaton is a video/installation artist whose work has been exhibited in the Untied Stated and abroad.  Eaton received her PhD and MFA from UB.  She has taught video production and theory courses at UB.  She is the founder and co-director of an international artists and activists group, the Evolutionary Girls Club. 

Knowing the techniques and skills to make a book of your own is one thing -  tapping into your creativity to make a book is yet another. This workshop offers an intuitive approach to producing artist’s books that incorporate text and images. Lectures are designed for individuals who seek a creative and advanced concentration in applying theoretical concerns and technical methodologies to the production of artist's books. Using autobiographic issues as inspiration, participants will create bookworks using text and/or personal images made at, or brought to, the workshop. Classes will include discussions and creative writing exercises designed to elicit creative insights. Slide presentations and original works will provide an overview of artist’s working in the field. Participants will gain an understanding of the diversity of issues, alternative methods, and materials used to construct unique limited editions, sculptural book objects, as well as room size installations.  Discussions addressing issues of content, design, structure, imaging techniques and materials will empower participants to create bookworks that balance form with content in a deeply symbolic way.

Susan kae Grant teaches workshops at the International Center of Photography in New York City and heads the Photography and Books Arts program at Texas Woman’s University. Since 1976 she has produced 12 limited edition books, conducted workshops, lectured and exhibited her work internationally. Her recent installation and exhibition, “Night Journey” is the culmination of research gathered through REM sleep awakenings and interrogations conducted at the Southwestern Medical Center Sleep Laboratory in collaboration with Dr. John Herman.

Kinetic texts such as web Flash animations are at least as important to the visual experience of language as typography. In today's media culture, putting words in motion goes beyond static text in unleashing the creative possibilities of language for bookworks, audio-visual communication, performance-installation works and net art. Participants in this workshop will survey eye-opening options for putting text-in-motion, visual art, experimental writing and visual literature. Hands-on practical options using Macromedia Flash and other web development tools will interface with historical examples and communication theory. In addition to animated text on the Web, we will look at projections of symbols in early proto-cinematic devices, the modernist experiments of Italian Futurism and Bob Brown, and contemporary hypertext. These historical examples are viewed in relation to everyday phenomena such as the typewriter, animated text in cinema, billboards, LED message boards, web pages and so on. Though the practical focus is on Flash and web-based text, we will survey other new media options for working with kinetic text including video (Aftereffects), computer animation (3ds Max), interactive multimedia (Director) and LED message boards. Our streaming text will demonstrate a new kind of literacy where how we read is inseparable from how we move. This workshop assumes basic knowledge of computer graphics and is open media artists, designers, experimental writers or anyone interested in visual literature.

Chris Burnett is the Director of the Visual Studies Workshop. His books and computer interactive works have been shown nationally and internationally in a variety of exhibitions realizing critical as well as aesthetic possibilities for computer generated artwork. His critical essays on photography and computer media have appeared in a variety of journals. Recent work, supported by a grant from Creative Capital investigates how language can directly generate form in a virtual environment.

Ambrotypes, from the greek word ambrotos, meaning immortal, is an early type of photograph made by a thin negative on glass that, when backed by a dark surface, appears as a positive. The wet-plate collodion process was popular in the mid to late 1800’s, and is experiencing a revival, due to respected historians, modern masters and artists, France Scully Osterman and Mark Osterman, as well as the work of artists like Sally Mann, Louis Gonzalez Palma and Jody Ake. During the course of this week, we will learn the basics of the wet-plate collodion process, making one-of-a-kind in camera ambrotypes.  Everything from cutting and cleaning glass, mixing chemicals, making our own film and images, burnishing and hand-coloring to varnishing and housing will be covered. We will also make “bug box” cameras for participants to keep as well as discuss modifications to existing cameras for use with wet plates.

Heather Wetzel is a graduate of Visual Studies Workshop. She has spent the past two years studying and working with France Scully Osterman and Mark Osterman.  She teaches Historic Photographic Processes in the graduate program at VSW and is currently employed at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film.

Documentaries have become more popular due to recent technological and social changes that have impacted the form itself. This one week workshop will provide an introduction to the documentary form, the basics of shooting, a day or so to shoot a short digital video, the opportunity to hone interview skills, evaluation of your footage in preparation for editing and an introduction to Final Cut Pro editing software. Besides discussing your video, we will screen both contemporary and historic documentaries. From pre-production through post production, the documentary form will be questioned, evaluated and experienced. Suggested text: Directing the Documentary, Michael Rabiger

Wendy Smith teaches at Nazareth College and has been making documentaries since the 1970's in France and the USA. Currently Wendy is producing an experimental documentary on the way identity is negotiated across cultural and political boundaries. This piece, Dwelling in Displacement, will be Part III of her trilogy on memory, identity, and home.

This workshop will give the ambitious and curious art instructor the low-down on integrating the ever-popular and rapidly-recognized comic and sequential art medium into their classroom.  The course will be divided into three areas: materials, drawing techniques, and themes.  While exploring these areas of emphasis, instructors will be taught how to encourage their students to begin to develop their own style and voice through drawing and varied panel layout techniques.  We will also examine the evolution of the comic book, how the comic book is referenced in contemporary society, and appropriate grant writing procedures for the comic book industry to pass on to their aspiring students.  In addition, the entire class (including the instructor) will work to create a short, original comic book anthology based on a theme determined on the first day of class.  Anyone with the slightest interest in comics and comic books will enjoy the fast-paced, highly informative atmosphere of this class.  Workshop participants will be exposed to a massive variety of professional comic work including humor, super-hero, romance, sci-fi, foreign, and adult genres within the medium.  Multiple comic book and comic strip exercises will be demonstrated and worked on during workshop hours.  No previous experience with comics & sequential art is necessary for this class.

Franzie Weldgen taught art for six years at the University of Arizona and currently teaches drawing at Rochester Institute of Technology.  He has been drawing comics since he was four years old and produced his first on-going series, AT THE MOVIES WITH EITHLE AND ECKLE (a parody of two long-time, well-known movie critics) at the age of eleven.  Currently, Franzie balances his art duties between large-format black light paintings on canvas and slowly working on the completion of a four hundred page comic book entitled: HOW TO DRAW AN ELEPHANT.  Franzie's comic work resides in permanent collections worldwide including The Tucson Museum of Art in Arizona, The Katszu in Amsterdam, and most recently, the Smithsonian in Washington, DC.

Frank Petronio's webpage

Frank Petronio will guide students through the myriad options for making images using digital cameras, scanners and inkjet printers. Working primarily with Adobe Photoshop software in the VSW Macintosh computer lab, this hands-on workshop will show you how to create high-quality, consistent and Archival inkjet prints from scanned film and popular under $1000 digital cameras. We will show artists how to document and organize their digital images; help photographers adapt their technique to incorporate digital technologies; and help people master their digicams and build their own digital darkroom.

Participants should have basic Mac skills and photography experience. If you have equipment, bring it: digital cameras, laptop, inkjet printer and images to scan. We will be photographing for a period every day. A limited amount of inkjet media and inks will be provided, including access to a large format Epson printer, but be prepared to buy an additional ink cartridge and paper.

Frank Petronio has worked as professional photographer and graphic designer for over 18 years. He became involved with digital imaging in the late 1980s and pioneered the use of Iris printers to make large format fine art prints. Frank also operated a scanning and color proofing business which created digital images for national advertising campaigns and some of the first websites. A graduate of the University of Oregon, Frank has taught workshops at the Center for Creative Imaging, the International Center for Photography and the Palm Beach Photo Workshops.

Learn to think of 16mm motion picture film as a canvas. This intensive and creative workshop guides students through various manual techniques used to create hand-crafted effects and frame-by-frame animations in 16mm film. Students will be supplied with stock 16mm film and experiment using scratching tools, ink, dyes and chemicals to manipulate the footage. Through lectures, screenings and practice students will work together to create and edit a group project during the course of this one-week intensive. If you have 16mm film you would like to use please bring it to class.

Dinorah de Jesus Rodriguez has been working in hand-crafted 16mm film since the 1970's. Her film, video and installation work now incorporates manual techniques with digital video production. Known largely for her various interdisciplinary collaborations, Dinorah has won several awards for her experimental pieces and continues to exhibit nationally and internationally in both film festivals and fine art venues. She is currently an Artist in Residence at the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach.

www.webpages@atlanticbb.net/~solisland

Books are a democratic intersection for a variety of art disciplines: photographers, printmakers, painters, calligraphers, filmmakers and conceptual artists are among those who find the book an appropriate vessel for their ideas. A common thread in this diverse fold is the form and structure of the book itself. Innovative forms have expanded the notion of what a book is; an understanding of structure supports the concept of a book and integrates the physical with the cerebral. This workshop will introduce participants to basic techniques and materials of bookbinding with an emphasis on how the process informs the product.Simple pamphlet bindings, unusual folds, exposed sewings, concertina pleats and other supports introduce a tradition of binding that provides opportunities for innovation and variation. Participants will be encouraged to work with visual ideas as well as constructing blank books as models for reference. Field trips to local artists book collections will expose participants to primary sources of bookworks by artists.

Scott McCarney is an artist, designer and teacher living in Rochester who has been making one-of-a-kind, small edition and production books as well as sculptural bookworks for twenty-five years. His work is widely exhibited and can be found in many local (VSW; RIT), national (NYPL; SFMoMA) and international (Victoria & Albert; István Király Múseum) collections. His most recent book, “C(a[e{I}o]u)P” was published by Visual Studies Workshop Press earlier this year.

Designing an effective web page requires an investigation into the design and the display of visual information on the internet. How does the interface and navigation effect accessibility to information? What does interactivity mean on the Web? What kind of new communities are being created? What are the current trends and issues in web design? This workshop will examine effective web sites and the tools needed to create them. We will cover the basics of HTML mark-up and the design of more complex page and site layouts that contain static graphics and images, animated graphics, Dynamic HTML and JavaScript. The goal will be to produce web pages that are low in bandwidth and display well on current browsers. Come prepared with ideas and examples of web sites you think work best. Bring text, stories, images (digitized or ready to scan), photos, an empty zip disk and a notebook to the class.

Tracy Rudzitis has been working as a web developer and designer since the early days of the web. Since 1995 she has worked for Starwave, ABCNews.com, Real Networks, Microsoft, and on numerous advertising accounts as a site designer and developer. She currently teaches middle school and high school technology classes at an alternative public high school in Manhattan.

This workshop will explore narrative and non-narrative visual structures. Learn how an understanding of Sequence and Series can help in the development of one's own working method. It will also address project-based concerns that relate to exhibition and book design. Participants should come prepared to photograph and make contact sheets on a daily basis.

Nathan Lyons, founder and director emeritus of the Visual Studies Workshop, has curated and been included in numerous exhibitions over the past forty-five years. He is the author and editor of many books, including two sequences of his own photographic work, Notations in Passing and Riding First Class on the Titanic. He has recently had solo exhibitions at the Addison Museum of American Art, the George Eastman House, The Houston Center for Photography, the International Center for Photography and the Howard Greenberg Gallery in NYC. Lyons recently completed a third book, entitled After 9/11, published by Yale University Art Gallery. Lyons was the recipient of the Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement from the International Center for Photography and an Honorary Doctorate from the Rhode Island School of Design.

The course is designed to give students a practical, hands-on experience with 16mm film and digital video production equipment with an emphasis on independent and experimental film.  The course will cover pre-production (script writing, treatment writing, storyboards, shooting scripts, location scouting, shooting schedules), production (using analog and digital video cameras, 16mm cameras, light meters, lighting design,  location shoots, working with actors), and post-production (pace and rhythm in the edit, analog off-line editing, digital systems, cutting film).  Examples of short films and videos from the extensive Visual Studies Workshop archives will punctuate the course throughout the week, exposing students to a variety of film and video artists’ styles and methods. Students will be provided with all equipment, but are expected to bring Mini-DV tapes with them to the workshop.

Rich Della Costa has taught 16mm film production at the Visual Studies Workshop since 1987 and also teaches media and communications at the Edison Occupational and Technical High School in Rochester, NY.  He holds a Masters degree in secondary education with a concentration on media literacy.  He has been a film and video producer for twenty years, eleven of those years in Washington, DC producing training and recruitment films for the Peace Corps.  He has lived and worked in India and Guatemala and currently resides on the family farm west of Rochester.

Artists’ books, functioning as both personal and public site, have become an important venue for new narratives that weave text and image within a physical structure to tell a story. How can the form and structure of a book intensify its content? Using materials you bring and/or generate on site, we will work on a series of exercises concerned with integrating multiple notational systems into book structures. While exploring a variety of book bindings, photographing for the "page" and developing text, you will produce several book mock-ups. A number of artists’ books will be shown and discussed, with emphasis on how book artists have incorporated sequential and narrative structures into bookworks.   Participants should have a toolkit with sissors, small steel ruler, X-acto or snap-off blade knife, glue stick, small Sobo or Elmers glue, drawing matrials, a self-healing cutting board (or a piece of cardboard to cut on. Bring a camera if you have one. While we will be generating new materials on-site during the week, you might wish to bring images, collage materials and writing samples to incorporate into your work. Basic text and cover papers will be provided, but if you want to work with special colored, decorative or rag papers for text, endsheets or covers bring them along.

Joan Lyons, the founding Coordinator of Visual Studies Workshop Press, has worked with artists and independent publishers on over 400 book projects since 1972. She taught in the M.F.A. Program in Visual Studies at VSW. Lyons works in a variety of media including photography, print, photo-quilts, moving between computer-basedwork and more hands-on media. She has produced a score of her own bookworks, recently focusing on digital editions.

 

There has been an influx of vernacular and domestic objects introduced into the contemporary art scene.  Many times this has been married to a resurgence of process- based art. Considering the impact of feminist theory, corporeality, and poststructuralism, this workshop will investigate artists who have inspired new ways of thinking about public and private space, process and object, and the art object versus the art subject.  Class time will be divided between seminar discussions, slide lectures, screenings, and studio production. We will work on a series of exercises that consider how vernacular objects and repetition can create a discourse about gender, identity and the body. We will be developing and examining the role of methodology and process in the conceptualization of a large-scale piece.  Bring images, objects, writing and other materials you may wish to incorporate into your work.

Marni Shindelman is an Assistant Professor of art and an Associate of the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Rochester.  Her recent exhibitions include “Introducing” at the Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY “Lobster Bisque Tales” at the O’Connor Gallery of Art in Chicago, IL and The Space Gallery at Western Michigan State University in Kalamazoo, MI. Her work incorporates found hypertexts, medical myths and news events with icons of the banal, and ranges from printmaking to photographic imagery to sculpted soap and carpet.

Sarah E Webb is an artist and independent scholar currently residing in Rochester, NY. She co-edited the anthology,Singular Women: Writing the Artist (UC Press, 2003), and has curated two national exhibitions on the work of women: Stories from Her, and The Female Gaze: Women Look at Men. Her recent exhibitions include a solo show, “fat & blood (and how to make them),” at Kristen Frederickson Contemporary Art, New York, NY, and the group exhibition, “Maternal Metaphors” at the Rochester Contemporary, Rochester, NY. Webb’s work combines text with image and object as she explores the historical construction of femininity in Western Culture.

In this workshop participants will have the opportunity to create site-specific photographic based installations. This intensive and exciting 5-day workshop will focus on conception, problem solving, creation and documentation of installation art. In addition, participants will experiment with alternative techniques to incorporate photographic images into installations. Slide lectures, writing exercises, group and individual critiques will help to inspire students to take their artwork to the next level. On the Friday of the workshop participants will have an “opening” of the installations that they have created in the workshop. No previous experience in installation art is required.

Christine Shank is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Photography at The University of Connecticut. Shank graduated from Texas Woman’s University with an MFA in Photography and her photographic and installation artwork has been widely exhibited throughout the United States. She has lectured and taught workshops in Texas, Alaska and California. Most recently her photographic artwork has been included in Robert Hirsh’s book: Exploring Color Photography: From the Darkroom to the Digital Studio.

Participants in this fast-paced workshop will shoot and edit a short video using mini DV cameras and Final Cut Pro, a non-linear digital editing software package. The course covers the essentials of the workspace and tools of Final Cut Pro, from importing media to titles and effects. Basic sound recording and lighting, interview techniques, project organization and other concepts related to digital editing will also be addressed. Participants will work in teams and screen their final results at the end of the workshop. Students who have their own DV video cameras are encouraged to bring them.

Jo Heatwole has an MFA from the Visual Studies Workshop. Her video work includes two documentaries about agricultural issues: 330 Miles to Justice and Farm Tours. She has taught video production courses for SUNY Brockport/Visual Studies Workshop and the University of Rochester.

This workshop addresses all of the stages involved in book production. Participants will apply principles of sequencing, and image and text editing, to create a working maquette. They will then learn how to assemble and print their photographic book using Adobe Photoshop InDesign and QuarkXPress . By the end of the workshop participants will have a book that can be further editioned by being printed commercially, or at home on their desktop printer. This course is designed for those photographers who already have a collection of images and who would like to further amplify and extend the expressive content of their work. From a conceptual standpoint, the workshop will address the particular ability of the book (through the juxtaposition of images and text) to clarify content and extend meaning, and subsequently present this as a coherent and self-contextualizing object. No prior knowledge of either QuarkXPress or Photoshop is necessary, however, you should have basic computer skills. More important is to have as many images as possible (and ideally some text) and the desire to present your work in a way that amplifies and clarifies your intentions, not just to others, but also to yourself.

Douglas Holleley completed his Ph.D. at the University of Sydney,Australia, in 1997. His thesis, Luna Park: the Image of a Funfair, is an extensive book which examines a major amusement park in Sydney through historical research and photographs as well as the author’s own images. Holleley works extensively with Macintosh computers and digital cameras and has completed a score of digitally produced books combining photographs and text. Douglas’ work is a part of many collections throughout the US and abroad and he is the author and publisher of Digital Book Design and Publishing, a comprehensive textbook on computer bookmaking