Course Code: VADA 158
Academic Year: 2025-2026
Contemporary visual and digital artists have unprecedented access to a growing range of media. This course will introduce students to diverse material investigations from both historical and emerging processes. Materiality will be explored in terms of its formal attributes and within debates on today's culture of excess. The cultural implications of working in various materials will also be questioned as regional techniques are introduced and explored. Material investigations may include, but are not limited to, the traditional processes, such as pigment preparation, gilding, manuscript painting and fresco, while other experiments may engage the readymade, earth art and installation. Finally, students will be challenged to integrate the material with the virtual to explore how new digital technologies shape and shift the way we experience life on the ground. Safe and sustainable practices will be strongly promoted through each exercise.