Source & Archive

In this class, each student will create a
*sourcebook*--an archive of artistic inspirations.
Which texts, works, methods, memories or
experiences have served as the source of your
creative practice? Which artists and thinkers have
most influenced your work? What have you moved
toward or against? Your sourcebook, which may or
may not take the literal form of a print book,
will include your critical and creative
inspirations (in their entirety or as citations or
excerpts) along with critical/ creative
annotations. To help develop this sourcebook, we
will consider a range of sourcebooks by diverse
artists and writers. We will reckon with the
archive and its relationship to social
location--race, class, gender, sexuality. We will
negotiate different forms of materiality. (How can
we capture the ephemeral?) We will deeply consider
knowledge, information, and power in relation to
our own creativity. At the end of the term, will
display our sourcebooks in an in-class pop-up show
and place a collective class sourcebook reader in
the special collections of the CalArts library.