Documentary Prod: The Virtual Field

This project-based class will investigate a wide range of themes and possibilities suggested by the particularities of our hyper-connected world in relation to documentary production, including, but not limited to identity, virtuality, privacy, security, fragility, collaboration and storytelling. Our lived reality is deeply entangled in experiences had through images on screens, and the line between what happens on and off the screen has become increasingly blurred. As our world feels more and more like both a video game and a reality television show, can we analyze the effects that these online environments have on our movements in physical space, our notions of reality, and our mental wellbeing? We will look critically at a variety of apps and platforms and work both with and against them to engage with the formal, aesthetic, political, social and economic issues that they suggest. We will study a wide range of artists' responses to these phenomenon and students will create individual projects designed to bring these issues into sharper focus.