Admission requirements
The following courses need to be passed:
Freshman's Class / Academic Skills I
Academic Skills II
One BA2 Seminar
Description
The city is a site of curation – both as a space for public artworks, performances and other creative interventions, but also as a complex entity that is designed, planned, regulated, adapted, reimagined and transgressed. In other words the city itself can be seen as a ‘total work of art,’ however contested and fragmented. In this course we will discuss various experiences of urbanization, in different time periods, by focusing on one physical sense at a time. We will discuss the effects of seeing the city, listening to it, smelling it, touching it and tasting it. These five different perspectives allow us to pay special attention to the details of these experiences and go beyond our everyday superficial ‘sensing’ of the cities around us. In studying the ways in which people throughout history have experienced their cities, we will look at artworks which represent, or reflect on, these sensual experiences, exploring the strategies artists have used to capture and reproduce sensory observations, going from Early Modern paintings of the senses as allegories, to artistic audio walks through cities, to contemporary artworks reproducing smellscapes.
Each of the senses will be discussed in a lecture and an accompanying seminar session. For each of the seminar sessions, the students will perform an individual assignment in the city; they will for instance record soundscapes, keep a smell diary, and sample the various surface textures of the city. Each of these explorations is then discussed in the context of the assigned readings and the lecture material. These research findings will be collected and submitted as an individual portfolio. In addition, students will submit a final essay relating an artistic case study of their own choosing to one of the theoretical frameworks explored in the course.
Course objectives
By the end of the course students will have learned:
how to engage with real-world issues and practices through the lenses of Arts, Media and Society (thereby furthering their societal awareness);
several methods for studying and interpreting the built environment, thereby expanding their analytical skills;
to draw parallels between the present-day city and those of the past, thereby bridging historical and contemporary notions of the city;
techniques for recording ‘evidence’ and collecting data (using both analogue and digital means) through fieldwork excursions in the city;
how to use material gathered during fieldwork as the basis for critical reflection and further research;
how to use methods to critically analyse their own experiences and positionality in relation to concepts and theories;
how to work together to formualte a research question, select a case study, and collaborate on the writing of a final essay.
Timetable
Please note: for the final schedule refer to Collegeroosters / Timetable BA Arts, Media and Society on the Arts, Media and Society (BA) website.
Mode of instruction
- Seminars
Assessment method
Assessment
Individual Research Portfolio (50%).
Final essay (50%).
Weighing
The average of both assessments must be at least a 5.5 (which is rounded off to a 6.0), in order to pass the course. Grades below 5.0 for either of the assessments are not permitted. A grade between 5.0 and 5.5 for one of the assessments can be compensated by the other grade; A grade below 5.0 always requires a resit.
Resit
In case one (or both) of the assignments receive a grade below 5.0, a resit is possible, in the form of an essay (instructions identical as for the initial essay, with the exception that a new case study and theoretical framework need to be selected). This resit is for the course as a whole and the grade for this assignment comes to replace the two partial grades of the other assignments. The resit grade is therefore automatically the final grade for the course.
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
Literature will be announced on Brightspace.
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website
Registration À la carte education, Contract teaching and Exchange
Information for those interested in taking this course in context of À la carte education (without taking examinations), eg. about costs, registration and conditions.
Information for those interested in taking this course in context of Contract teaching (with taking examinations), eg. about costs, registration and conditions.
For the registration of exchange students contact Humanities International Office.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Student administration Arsenaal
Remarks
Not applicable.