Admission requirements
Required course(s):
- What is Culture?
Description
There are vast networks overhead and underfoot, wires and conduits running through walls, waves conducted through the air, and signals linking our personal devices to satellites in orbit. This is infrastructure, a set of largescale systems that support and stimulate most of our daily activities. Not only do these surfaces, tubes, tracks, and webs shape our individual experience, they also make interpersonal interactions possible. Given the omnipresence of such systems, one could argue that infrastructure forms the very substrate of culture. Yet most of the time it is taken for granted. Perennially underfunded, infrastructure goes largely unnoticed until it breaks down, or succumbs to catastrophic disaster. This fundamental lack of visibility is built into the word itself (since the Latin prefix infra- points to those structures hidden “below,” “beneath,” or “within”).
Recently, artists and activists have been working to redirect attention towards infrastructure and the crucial role it plays in contemporary society. As noted by architectural historian Mabel O. Wilson, protest movements like Black Lives Matter have shifted their focus from the occupation of space (think of sit-ins and rallies) to actions that disrupt infrastructures and block movement through systems. This growing awareness of the power that flows through widely distributed material networks is also shared by certain artists who have used infrastructure to make art. Instead of crafting objects for display in a gallery, or designing installations for a specific site, some artists have experimented with projects that inhabit the distributed networks themselves.
While this approach to artmaking undoubtedly stems from the contemporary situation, its basic techniques and critical investments have developed over centuries. Part of the work in this course involves a careful examination of that history. Modern institutions and industrial infrastructures have been linked from the start. The museum evolved in tandem with plumbing, the railroad, and the telegraph. By the mid-twentieth century, artists began to recognize these connections. Some appropriated the aesthetics of administration (a by-product of infrastructural systems) to make conceptual works of art. These projects, later categorized by historians and critics as examples of “institutional critique,” aimed to expose the power structures of institutions and their accompanying financial mechanisms. The artworks explored in this course build on this legacy, but broaden the critical project, as they move beyond the gallery to engage in forms of “infrastructural critique.”
In order to facilitate our study of the relationships that connect art, infrastructure and culture, the course content will be divided into five categories:
Transportation
Communication
Water Management
Energy Management
Waste Management
We will critically examine each of these categories through a combination of thematic lectures, course readings, student presentations, and the collective close reading of selected artworks.
Course Objectives
After successful completion of this course, students are able to:
Discuss infrastructural developments and the role they play in shaping culture.
Describe art practices that engage with infrastructure and use systems as sites of creative intervention.
Visualize infrastructural systems which pose specific challenges in terms of representation, since they are both omnipresent and often hidden.
Utilize an expanded set of conceptual tools for the critical analysis of artworks and cultural institutions.
Write with an expanded vocabulary using key terms and concepts from urban design, art history and digital studies.
Timetable
Timetables for courses offered at Leiden University College in 2021-2022 will be published on this page of the e-Prospectus.
Mode of instruction
The course will be taught through lectures and seminars. Students will discuss assigned readings and engage in close analysis of artworks and case studies. Students will present on assigned topics and eventually develop an individual project in the form of a research paper. Attendance at class meetings is compulsory for all students.
Assessment Method
Presentation (on an assigned topic) – 15%
Class Participation (engage in discussion, pose questions, critically evaluate the course materials) – 15%
Infrastructure Visualization Exercise – 30%
Individual Research Paper (on a topic developed in consultation with the instructor) – 40%
Reading list
Registration
Courses offered at Leiden University College (LUC) are usually only open to LUC students and LUC exchange students. Leiden University students who participate in one of the university’s Honours tracks or programmes may register for one LUC course, if availability permits. Registration is coordinated by the Education Coordinator, course.administration@luc.leidenuniv.nl.
Contact
Dr. Steven Lauritano
s.m.lauritano@hum.leidenuniv.nl