PROJECT BRIEF FOR VISUAL CULTURE 200
Term 2 –Artist Research Essay
(DUE DATE: Friday 4 June 2021)
Project Mark breakdown:
Essay: Introduction – 10% | About the designer – 20% | Theoretical background – 20% | Visual Analysis – 30% | Conclusion – 10% | Technical requirements – 10%
1 Project overview:
For the essay, the theoretical focus is on counter-culture, Marxism and anti-capitalist critique. Choose a 20th or 21st century artist whose principles and style you admire and /or that reflect your own principles and style. Important to note that this chosen artist must self-identify as a counter-culture artist and their work must testify of this. Find three examples of their work to discuss which represent their message, concepts and cause. End the essay with a conclusion in which you state why this cause is important to you as an artist. Note that your chosen artist may not be one of the examples discussed in class throughout term two.
A properly formatted and academically written essay of between 1200 and 1500 words is required. This word count does not include the title page, table of contents, list of figures, or list of sources.
Only electronic submissions are permitted, via CANVAS . At least 3 scholarly sources must be included in the List of Sources in order for the essay to provide sufficient detail concerning the history, context, and counter culture ideology/philosophy of the chosen artist. For all penalties that can be applied to your essay, please see section 5, headed “Penalties”, below.
2 General guidelines:
2.1 .1 This Academic Essay must be between 1200 and 1500 words in length. This excludes your Title Page, Table of Contents, List of Figures, and List of Sources. Students will be penalised for essays with word counts that are outside these limits.
2.1.2 The essay should include these 5 main elements:
(i) An introduction: Here you outline the course that your essay is going to take (i.e. what each part of it is about) and in one to two sentences introduce your chosen artists (but not in detail as that will only happen in the second section); you state your opinion on the subject in question; and highlight important theories and / or examples that are relevant to your artists.
(ii) About the artist: Here you provide an overview of the career, agenda, aims, practice and philosophy/ideology of the artist being researched. This section should comprise of between 2-4 paragraphs.
(iii) Theoretical background: Here you must present information about the terms and concepts relevant to your artist’s philosophy/ideology. This section should comprise 3-4 paragraphs, and 3-4 relevant terms. I.e. if your artist identifies as a second wave feminist you must include at least one paragraph discussing the principles of second wave feminism.
(iv) Visual Analysis: Here must you identify three visual examples of your chosen artist’s work which, in your opinion, illustrates most clearly their ideology/ philosophy /message. Beneath each visual example you must discuss the piece of work, consisting of a contextualisation of the work, explaining why the work is so noteworthy, and highlighting the anti-establishment aspects present in the work. Each of the three visual analysis sections must be at least 150 words long.
(v) A conclusion: Here you summarise your essay’s contents, briefly restate your artist’s disposition in terms of their anti-establishment disposition, reemphasise any important evidence and / or examples that might back up your point of view. And lastly indicate how this artist has influenced you, either in terms of the work you’d like to make, or your personal philosophy about life.
2.1.3 Images for Visual Examples: NB: Your images must be properly captioned and listed in a separate List of Figures. Their complete bibliographical information should also appear in the List of Sources.
2.1.4 A minimum of 3 scholarly / academic sources must be used in this essay. This does not include citations for your required images.
2.1.5 Please place the overall word count for your essay in the bottom right corner of your title page.
2.1.6 Format your title page, List of Figures, and List of Sources as shown in the 2021 Open Window Reference, Format, and Style Guide (available on Google Classroom).
2.1.7 All students must have submitted their Research Essay by midnight on 4 June 2021.
3 Assessment
The Artist Research Essay will be assessed using the following categories:
Essay: Introduction – 10% | About the designer – 20% | Theoretical background – 20% | Visual Analysis – 30% | Conclusion – 10% | Technical requirements – 10%
Please see the attached mark rubric for further details concerning the specifics of this mark breakdown.
4 Submission
The finalised document must be submitted by MIDNIGHT ON Friday 4 June 2021. Submit in PDF format via CANVAS for VC 200, using the link for the “Academic Essay”.
5 Penalties
Your work will be marked to a maximum of 50% should it be submitted after the due date. This penalty will be imposed for up to 48 hours (i.e. 2 days, including weekends and holidays). Once your assignment is overdue by more than 48 hours, feedback will still be provided, but you will receive a mark of zero.
Students will be penalised 5 % for every 50 words that they exceed the 1500 word limit. Students failing to meet the 1200 word minimum will be penalised 5% for every 50 words they are below this requirement.
Given that a minimum of 3 academic sources (excluding image citations) is required, students will be penalised 5 % for each source that is lacking. As a minimum of 3 images is also required, students will be penalised 5% for each image that is lacking.
6 Plagiarism
Plagiarism in academic work is not tolerated at Open Window. Ensure that you submit the required Plagiarism Declaration with your assignment. In VC 200 you may submit the Declaration either in hardcopy or electronically as a scanned part of your assignment. The Plagiarism Declaration is a legally binding document. This means that you will be held accountable for your actions should you be found to have plagiarised. Note that in academic work, plagiarism can be anything from not supplying an in-text citation for a source you used, to not including a book or article in your List of Sources, even though you used it, to copying sections out of a text (or from a website) word-for-word without giving credit to the source of the information. Including 4 consecutive words from a source text (whether it be a website, book, article, or another student’s writing) is also considered an act of plagiarism unless the text is correctly cited.
You will need to write an essay ,For your research essay the theoretical focus is on counterculture and anti-capitalist critique.
1.Choose a movement or designer whose (counter-culture) principles and style you admire and /or that reflect your own principles and style.
2. Find three examples of their work that encapsulates and represents their message, concept or cause in the most exemplary way.
4. Analyse and discuss each of these three works and why they should be considered exemplary of the artist’s counter-culture ethos.
5.End the essay with a conclusion in which you state why this cause is important to you as a designer.
The people you CANNOT write about is Tibor Kalman, Stefan Sagmeister, Barbara Krugers, Banksy, Thami Mnyele, Steve Biko, George Maciunas, Marchel Ducamp, John Cage, Allan Kaprow, Yoko Ono, Joseph Beuys, Marina Abramovic, Guy Debord, Nelson Mandela and Mike Hamlyn
You will need to get 3 images of the chosen person’s work and write about is more info on this is in the brief above.
Thank you
