The final topic is Personal Collections displayed as artwork. I wasn't alone in struggling a bit with the topic and the artists involved. I found the readings and the videos a bit fatuous although I did enjoy discovering Joseph Cornell and that there was somebody called Ole Worm. A real down-side to the videos is their lack of images, one assumes for copyright reasons. This means that 4 minutes into a 10 minute video, I have had no example of the artist's work, just someone reading out a script to a photo of the artist. Then you get maybe three images of their work and some analysis of it but if you aren't familiar with the artist, that just doesn't make for helpful viewing. I imagine in a face-to-face art class, it would be image after image after image. Some students assume we are meant to be Googling as we go. I find myself turning to Pinterest to check out the artists.
Every week they tell us to "challenge ourselves" with the assignment. I'm still not sure I know what that means or how to do it. What would be useful is to have an artist explaining their work process and how they push themselves in this way. Still, I managed to do the assignment this week - albeit badly - and that should qualify me for the "studio track" completion, fingers crossed.
As the end approaches, there is a real sense of communities forming that may go on after the course: a G+ group and a Facebook group. Other courses have been suggested on art and poetry and I've signed up. My MOOC experience has been positive - definitely willing to give some more a go.
No comments:
Post a Comment