Elective courses

Elective courses autumn semester 2024

Optional BFA level course (mandatory for BFA2)

Economics and Law for Artists

Antal hp/Credits: 7,5
Lärare/Teacher: Katarina Renman Claesson
Datum/Dates: 4-6.9, 9-11.9, 16-18.9  
Tid/Time: 10-15, lunch 12.00-13.00  
Undantag/Exceptions: 5.9 and 6.9  (6.9 online) at 10.00-12.00, 18.9 at 10.00-12.00 
Undervisningsform/Form: Lectures and Seminars  
Språk/Language: Svenska och engelska/Swedish and English  
Antal studenter/Number of students: Unlimited and mandatory for BFA2 students

Course description:

The aim of the course is to provide theoretical knowledge and practical skills in economy and law that are important for students in the artistic process and the practice of art as well as in the role as small business owners.   

The purpose is to prepare students for questions about economy and law that they may encounter after their studies. Not least, students should get insight into when it may be necessary to consult legal and / or financial expertise.  

After completing the course, the students are to:

• Have a basic understanding of economic and legal issues. They are to understand fundamental concepts and understand the impact economic and legal issues may have on their future activities.
• Understand the impact that intellectual property rights may have both on their own protection and their possibilities to be inspired by others.
• Have an understanding for the effect of different types of agreements, including how agreements can be a part of the creative process.
• Understand the difference between different kinds of associations and different basics regarding economy (budget, VAT etc.) in a small firm.

Optional BFA level course

ANALOG PHOTOGRAPHY AND BEYOND, an investigation into photographic materiality

Antal hp/Credits: 9  
Lärare/Teachers: Maria Hedlund and Johan Österholm  
Datum/Dates: Dates: 23-27.9 & 14-18.10  
Tid/Time: 10.00-16.00, lunch 12.00-13.00  
Undantag/Exceptions: No teaching 25.9 between 13.00-16.00, 16.10 between 13.00-15.00  
Språk/Language: Svenska och engelska/Swedish and English  
Undervisningsform/Form: Artistic creation course  
Antal studenter/Number of students: 6

Course description:  

In an era marked by dematerialized digital photography and artificial imagery, we aim to rekindle an appreciation for the tactile and tangible qualities of photographic art in the extended sense, with attention given to the overlaps between sculpture and photography.  

The aim of the course is to give the students deeper understanding of how different photographic processes and materialities can be harnessed for their own individual practices.   

The first week will focus on technical tutorials of cameras, medium and large format, film development, darkroom work and studio equipment. All adapted to the participant’s level of knowledge and needs.  

The second week consists of independent work.  

These two weeks should be seen as a preparation for the third.  

The third week will provide students with an in-depth exploration of the physical and material aspects of photography, going beyond the traditional understanding of the medium.    

Beginning with a theoretical part, we present a brief historical overview on how photographic materials have evolved, and their influence on contemporary practice.  

We will focus on understanding the interplay between materiality and conceptual intent, highlighting and analyzing artists and artworks that have extended the definition by stretching the types of photosensitive materials and conceptual content used within their artistic practices.     

Following with a practical part, where the students experiment with a variety of materials and techniques, such as photographic emulsions applied to different materials/objects to create unique photographic works. This part includes work in the dark room and computer room. The students will learn how to prepare analog and/or digital negatives according to their needs and experiment with different coating techniques to prepare their own photosensitive material and learn how to expose and develop these.  

Examination: A group-discussion, going through visual results and gained technical knowledge.

Optional MFA level course

The Composite Image!  

Antal hp/Credits: 15  
Lärare/Teachers: Joachim Koester, Sophie Ljungblom, Joakim Sandqvist and Maia Torp Neergaard  
Datum/Dates: 7 - 11.10 + own work for students during fall semester NOTE: new dates for the course
Tid/Time: 10-16 (lunch 12-13)  
Undervisningsform/Form: Artistic creation course  
Språk/Language: Svenska(Nordiska språk och engelska/Swedish/Nordic languages and English  
Antal studenter/Number of students: 20

Course description:  

The course “The Composite Image” is meant to inspire the participants to develop new ways of interacting with images when working with lens-based media.   

The course promotes a collage-like-approach to video and film making. In other words, different media layered on top of each other, or crammed together, in images or scenes, or at the very least in the same video. Our method will be one of relentlessly experimenting.   

To take the material that make up our images and transform this into multi layered sites and scenes.  

We will start by generating a collective archive of film fragments (a bit like the stock images and videos you can find online) that each student can pick and choose from for her individual film. We’ll work in groups and bring lights and equipment to an off-school location and film for three days.   

Additionally, each student will be encouraged to make a self-developed 16mm film. The school will provide the film stock. This material is also meant be thrown into the “mix,” but on an individual basis.  

After the first week of meeting and working collectively, the students will work on their individual films, though using guidelines (or rules) to be followed. We will encourage students to use images that belong to different times and places simultaneously – to use the found images, music, sound, text, animation, 16mm film, and the scenes and narrative fragments we have generated, in a collage-like way.   

At the end of the semester - after experimenting, testing and trying out previously uncharted ways of working and making images - all student films will be screened at as part of an event at Panora.  

After this initial week, the course will take the form of individual meetings with the teachers and also a group session where each student presents their work and receive feedback. (To finish an individual film is obligatory to get credit for the course).

Optional MFA level course

Det Omedvetna (The Unconscious)

Antal hp/Credits: 9    
Lärare/Teacher: Gertrud Sandqvist  
Datum/Dates: 16.10, 23.10, 30.10, 6.11,13.11, 20.11  
Tid/Time: 13-15  
Undervisningsform/Form: seminars and written text    
Språk/Language: Svenska och engelska/Swedish and English     
Antal studenter/Number of students: Unlimited

Course description:   

The concept of the Unconscious is associated with Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis. But Freud was in fact making use of an idea more than a hundred years old.  

The notion of the Unconscious emerged during the Enlightenment in the mid-18th century. Freud borrowed it from philosopher Friedrich Schelling’s transcendentalism, but he was only one of many. For Romantic and Gothic artists, the Unconscious was a bottomless ocean, filled with ingenuity – and angst.  

We will go through the different guises of the Unconscious, from the 18th century via Freud and Lacan up to our own time.   

The course includes a written assignment.  

Learning outcomes: 

1. Understanding and knowledge of an important concept in art theory.   
2. Reading and evaluation of different types of written sources.   
3. Ability to independently analyse and describe concepts from philosophy and psychoanalysis and use them in their own work.  

Assessment : Active participation in seminars, written texts  

Examination: Active participation in seminars. Written text.

Optional BFA level course

Svetskurs/Welding course  

Antal hp/Credits: 0  
Lärare/Teacher: Ariel Alaniz  
Datum/Dates: 7-18.10  
Undervisningsform/Form: Workshop, technical course in welding.  
Tid/Time: 10-16 (lunch 12-13)  
Språk/Language: Svenska och engelska/Swedish and English  
Antal studenter/Number of students: 6

Course description:

Through this course you gain knowledge about different welding techniques such as mig- and gas-welding as well as information about the security regulations for the different techniques. After the course you will receive a “driver’s license” that allows you to work on your own with the welding equipment.

Optional BFA level course

DOING THINGS WITH WORDS

Antal hp/Credits: 6  
Lärare/Teachers: Michael Portnoy  
Datum/Dates: 21.10 – 1.11  
Tid/Time: 10-16 (lunch 12-13)  
Undervisningsform/Form:  Artistic creation course    
Språk/Language: English    
Antal studenter/Number of students: 20

Course description:

The focus of this practice-based course is experimental creative writing. We’ll be looking at a diverse selection of short fiction and experimental texts from authors such as Richard Kostelanetz, Sheila Heti, Raymond Queneau, M. NourbeSe Philip, Lucy Corin, Edouard Levé, Claudia Rankine, R.A Lafferty, Padgett Powell, Greg Bordowitz, Lucy Corin, Daniil Kharms, Lydia Davis, Lucy Ives, László Krasznahorkai, Jamaica Kincaid and Olga Ravn, among others, as well as visual and performance artists who have innovative approaches towards language.   

The core of the course is the engagement in daily writing which follows from different formal and conceptual prompts.   

Through practice and discussion, we’ll do things with words both on the page and in the mouth in order to build a toolbox of techniques which can be drawn upon when incorporating text into one's work. The course will culminate in a PDF produced by the class including a selection of the writing created as well as prompts devised by the students designed to inspire future prose stylists.

Optional BFA level course

“Thinking sculpture”  

Antal hp/Credits: 5  
Lärare/Teacher: Gabriel Karlsson  
Datum/Dates: 4-8. 11 + 1 day of studio visits  
Tid/Time: 10.00-16.00 (lunch 12-13)  
Undervisningsform/Form: Seminar     
Språk/Language: Svenska och engelska/Swedish and English     
Antal studenter/Number of students: 7

Course description:

How can we think sculpture? Is it possible to treat sculpture as a subject? What thoughts are inscribed into sculpture and what does it tell us about the world it inhabits?  

Over the course of a slow discussion, we explore in groups how close reading and “close observing” can be used in the understanding of sculpture and in sculptural processes. The course is based on spatial experiments where we install and look at objects together. Using poetry and short textual extracts, we explore the similarities and differences between “reading” and “observing”. We treat text and object side by side and examine how different media can create cross-constructions and thereby new meanings in a piece.  

The course presents methods for a common practice of observation, and using theoretical frameworks we move from the general to the specific to approach the multiple nature of things. By mapping inherent information, the superficial and the hidden, we discuss how this can be used as a tool in thinking about sculpture.    

Learning outcomes:  

The course aims to explore and create common methods and tools for looking at sculpture, starting with form, material and gesture – structure, word and syllable. It is intended to provide a deeper understanding of how close reading can be used both as a method in the viewing of sculpture and practically in individual artistic practice.  

Place: Project room. Course design: Seminar format. The course is discussion-based and participants steer the direction of the course together in large and small groups. Students must attend the week’s seminars in person.  

Assessment: Active participation and individual presentation.

Optional BFA level course

POLYPHONIC PLOTS  

Antal hp/Credits: 9  
Lärare/Teacher: Tamar Guimaraes  
Datum/Dates: 11-15. 11 + 2-7.12  
Tid/Time: 10-16 (lunch 12-13)  
Undervisningsform/Form: Artistic creation course    
Språk/Language: English     
Antal studenter/Number of students: 15      

Course description:

I am proposing a workshop focusing on aspects of film form from a conceptual and  processual standpoint.  

On the one hand, we will consider the task of film dramaturgy in the light of  contemporary readings of Brechtian representational principles calling for a dialectical  dramaturgical structure which is also a polyphonic structure.   

And on the other hand we will consider (and practice) sound and rhythm in film editing.  

The workshop will entail collective readings during the first week, when we will discuss  key concepts of Brechtian dramaturgy, its aims and contemporary interpretations. We will  also reflect on film sound using Michel Chion’s concepts of sound perspective, synchresis, sonic fidelity and its subversions. Screenings of case study films will be part and parcel of our conversations.  

In the second week course participants engage with self directed work. My suggestion is  to produce from 5 or 10 pieces, which are from 1 to 3 minutes long - or the length of a cinematic trailer - focusing on rhythm and sound.  

The third week will be dedicated to group presentation and discussion of these exercises as well as to individual studio visits. Time allowing, we will engage in reading and discussing the essay film form.  

Students are expected to read the primary texts in the course literature prior to the beginning of the workshop. Secondary texts are suggested as companion texts for future reference.

Optional MFA level course    

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF AFFECTS  

Antal hp/Credits: 9  
Lärare/Teacher: Alejandro Cesarco    
Datum/Dates: 18-29.11   
Tid/Time:  10-13
Undantag Exceptions: 10.00 – 12.00 on 19-21 November,  no teaching, 21.11 and 26.11
Undervisningsform/Form: Workshop     
Språk/Language: English    
Antal studenter/Number of students: 12      

Course Description and Learning Outcomes: 

This intensive two-week seminar meets five times a week for three hours each day. It will serve as an introduction to affect theory and a more focused engagement with the work of Lauren Berlant, perhaps most well-known for their theory of “cruel optimism’. The course will explore the affective turn in the humanities, social sciences and art.   

We will think through how affect is enacted—its capacity to act and be acted upon— by analyzing some of the intensities of feelings that fill life and form it.   Affect transverses relations between bodies, and thus intersects with race, disability, gender, and sexuality. Some of the questions we will ask ourselves are: How can an engagement with affect enrich our understanding of contemporary systems of power? How can an engagement with affect help us transform our world or at very least our work? And how can thinking through affect help us understand our roles as artists and the type of works that we make?   

We will circle around different definitions of affect to then focus on Berlant. We will complement their work with texts by Brian Massumi, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Sianne Ngai, Sara Ahmed and Kathleen Stewart. Assesment: In advance of each seminar, each student will prepare a short written provocation or question to pose to the class. This is a short paragraph that speaks to a moment in the text that you want to affirm or put in doubt. This informal writing will help us guide our conversations around each reading.   

Towards the end of the seminar students will present an object (their own work, that of someone else’s, a text, a person) and analyze their particular attachment to it through the lenses and concepts of affect outlined in class. Assessment of the course consists of active participation in class and presentation of your individual project.

Elective courses spring semester 2024

The horror, the horror says Mr. Kurtz

MFA-level

How does Europe and USA deal with the legacy of colonialism- and other atrocities? With guilt could be one answer. For how many generations? Is the guilt collective or individual? And then what?

We’ll read some central texts on and from colonialism and postcolonialism. Is there a beyond post-colonialism? We’ll invite artists and scholars who are working with the guilt-ridden questions about guilt and justice – not only in Congo but in Germany, in Israel-Palestine, in Sápmi, in Greenland only to mention a few. As participant in the course, you will write a text as the conclusion of the course.

Confirmed guest speakers: Sven Augustijnen, Elvin Landaeus Csizmadia, Sanimir Resic, Mathias Danbolt, Julia Wilen

Credits: 15 
Teachers: Gertrud Sandqvist & Maj Hasager & 6 guests
Dates: 17/1, 24/1, 31/1, 7/2, 21/2, 28/2, 6/3, 13/3, 10/4 
Hours: 10.00-12.00 all days except 24/1 15-17, 28/2 10.00-15.00, Lecture room, Mazetti
Form: : Seminar
Language: English
Number of students: Unlimited

Analyzing your own artistic work

MFA-level

The aim is to provide the students with deepened knowledge and insight in both the artistic field which their work will be a part of and the history of how that field has developed. To integrate analytical knowledge into their own artistic work, both in the spoken and the written language, will be given special attention. 

The course aim is to enhance the students’ ability to formulate and show a well-motivated artistic wholeness. The goal is that the students shall develop a deepened understanding of artistic work.

The course offers a model for analysing your own work and training in analysing images. Students analyse works by other students, and to listen when their own work is analysed by the others. The course serves as an introduction to the analytical component of the MFA exam.

The course offers close analysis of the students’ own work in group seminars. The method is simple. It aims at giving students tools for thorough analysis of individual works and an understanding of how viewers understand their work. If it is relevant and if the participants wish, we will also read image theory that might be applicable to the students’ work.

Credits: 7,5
Teacher:  Gertrud Sandqvist
Dates: 30 January– 5 March 2024
Hours: Tisdagar 10.00 -12.00. Project room 1, Båghallarna
Form: Seminar
Language: English
Number of students: 6

Welding

BFA-level

Through this course you gain knowledge about different welding techniques such as mig- and gas-welding as well as information about the security regulations for the different techniques. After the course you will receive a “driver’s license” that allows you to work on your own with the welding equipment. 

Credits: No credits
Teacher: Ariel Alaniz 
Dates: 15 - 26 January, Båghallarma
Hours 10.00 – 16.00
Form: Workshop
Language: Swedish and english
Number of students: 6

A two-day course in analogue photography

BFA-level

Going through cameras, studio-equipment, film-developing and printing. Introduction and advanced, the content is individually adapted as needed.

Teacher: Maria Hedlund
Dates: To be set individually
Hours: Based on needs
Form: Workshop
Language: Swedish and English

Form a form that forms a form: Experimental casting course

BFA-level 

”Haphazardly. Tentatively. Seek a form. Form a form that forms a form.” 
From It by Inger Christensen 

The craft of mouldmaking and casting can be traced far back in time and has been used in many ways; from shaping ceramic vessels to the production of industrial components, from the meticulous systematization of animals/plants to the mapping of archaeological sites, from the manufacturing of church bells to the endless reproduction of everyday objects. Casting has also had an important function in art history as a tool for creating, reproducing and transferring information from one material to another. I see mouldmaking as a kind of meditation that gives the opportunity to approach something from a new perspective, via a material process. By giving something time and attention, a relationship arises where material and object begin to dictate their own will. The process of working with a material thus generates new ways of thinking and seeing; material and object, form and content seem to be concepts closely connected to each other.

In this experimental casting course, we explore new materials and experiment with the limits of how specific materials can and cannot be used. We use traditional casting techniques but try to expand their use to find new ways forward. 

The purpose of the course is to individually explore one or some specifically selected materials and, via practical and theoretical research, get an understanding of the inner logic of the material/s and how this can be used as a conceptual framework. In addition to basic materials such as clay, gypsum, silicone and wax, the course provides, among other things, jesmonite, pigment, paraffin, latex, porcelain casting slip, molding sand.

Credits: 6
Teacher: Gabriel Karlsson
Dates: 19 February -1 March, Båghallarna
Hours:  10.00 – 16.00
Form: Workshop 
Language: Swedish and English
Number of students:  8-10

What is Material?

BFA-level

This five-day block seminar asks questions about the properties and boundaries of things, examines environmental contingencies, and considers the role of perception in constructing meaning, all as ways to identify what the “material” of an artistic practice may be.

We will begin by examining attention and perception as changing entities, affected by time, place, social context and technology. We will consider the role of ‘everyday matter’ in artworks which use existing objects to reorient subjective experience towards a broader public sphere. We will focus primarily on artists and exhibition-making from the last 30 years in which found-objects, debris, or diaristic practices are engaged as artistic material. These will include Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Isa Genzken, Laurie Parsons, Jason Dodge, Moyra Davey, James Richards, Klara Lidén, Mark Leckey and others. Together we will read short texts by writers and philosophers including Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Georges Perec, Valentina Desideri, Eileen Myles, and Jane Bennett.

Through our analysis we will develop vocabularies, fine-tune attention and identify our own material interests, thereby linking the practicalities of studio work with broader histories of art and theories of ideas.

Reading List

• Maurice Merleau-Ponty, “The Theory of the Body is Already a Theory of Perception” in Phenomenology of Perception, 1962

• Georges Perec, “Notes Concerning the Objects that are on my Work-table” in Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, 1976

• Valentina Desideri, “Notes on Reading” in Jason Dodge, Ready to get bleeding, 2016

• Eileen Myles, For Now, 2020

• Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter. A Political Ecology of Things, 2010

Credits: 3
Teacher: Kirsty Bell
Dates: 11-15 March
Hours: 10.00 -16.00
Form: Seminar
Language: English
Number of students: 25

Sketching for a public art project

BFA-level 

In this course you will learn about the process of a public art commission and how to make a sketch for a public artwork. The course will be structured like a sketching process for a public commission. You will develop your own sketch for a public artwork.

The context of this project could be either something you come up with, a place that you think would be interesting to make a public artwork for, or you can choose to get a context decided for you.

At the beginning of the course, we will go through the process of how a public commission work. We will look at the economics and legal terms that must be met when you make a public artwork. You will meet different commissioners and consultants for public art that will present their work. We will also read a little bit about the history of public art and look at some examples.

Before we start up the sketching process, we will go to the Museum of Sketches and look at their collection of sketches for public art to get some examples of different ways to present a project. After this you will all start up your project. To do the sketches all participants will be given a sketching budget of 5000 SEK that will be provided through a collaboration with Konstnärscentrum Syd. This means that you will have to make an invoice either through your own company or some external service. You will be given some advice and help with this. Through the sketching process I will be the fictional art consultant of your project. We will have a startup meeting, a halfway meeting, and a meeting before the final presentation of your sketch. The final presentation of your sketches will be held as a short exhibition at Museum of Sketches that we will be installing together. In conjunction with the opening of this exhibition you will also give a short presentation about your sketch.

Credits: 12
Teacher: Joakim Sandqvist
Dates 16 February – 15 April 

The course starts 16 February the Museum of Sketches, Lund (10-15)
19 – 23 February, Lecture room, Mazetti
9 -11 April, (note: 11 April opening at the Museum of Sketches with presentation evening-time) 
Deinstallation 15 April at the Museum of Sketches, Lund
Outside the lecture hours the course encompass individual work with your project and individual tutorials.Hours:  10-17
Form: Workshop 
Language Swedish and English 
Number of students: 8-10

Documenting Your Artworks, Practical photography course

BFA/MFA-level

The aim of the course is to introduce photographical- and digital technique, and to give the appropriate knowledge to the participants for being able to make documentations of their own work.

Photo-studio

We will go through “general” camera settings, how to use a gray card, light settings on
flat and three-dimensional objects, discuss common obstacles and how to overcome
them. As a preparation for photographing installation views, we will discuss natural light
vs portable studio light and look at examples from both. We will also document work in
motion and reflective works.

Computer-room

We will look into how to get a good digital workflow: Calibrating screen. Photoshop
editing and RAW-file processing. Correcting exposure, white balance and lens distortion.
Merging images with different exposures and removing unwanted objects like dirt from
the floor and walls, emergency signs etc. Straightening lines. Creating a seamless
sequence of images.

Camera and light settings

”General” camera settings, how to use a gray card, common obstacles and how to
overcome them.

Photographing installation views and individual works

Natural light vs portable studio light - examples from both and how to document works in motion and reflective works, with examples.

Digital workflow

Calibrating screen, Photoshop editing and RAW-file processing. Correcting exposure, white balance and lens distortion. Merging images with different exposures, removing unwanted objects (dirt from floor and walls, emergency exit signs etc), straightening lines and creating a seamless sequence of images.

Credits: 6
Teachers: Youngjae Lih & Johan Österholm
Dates: 13 -17 May & 27 May – 2 June
Hours:  10.00 –16.00
Form: Workshop
Language: English  
Number of students: Mandatory for BFA2 & MFA1

Horizontal Images

BFA-level 

This one-week intensive seminar looks at a series of works from the history of moving images through a non-linear and non-historicizing approach that oversteps the often rigid categories of industrial filmmaking, artists' films, expanded cinema, YouTube clips, and more. 

The ambition is to look at these works, to highlight the different methods and ways of dissemination artists and filmmakers can employ, which exist in the space between the conventions of art institutions black boxes, the rituals of cinema, and the increasingly private viewing habits of social media and multi-national streaming services taking place in the domestic sphere.

The first three days of the course will consist of lectures, screenings, and group discussions,with each day organized around a specific thematic framework, encompassing:

• How different editing interfaces shape artistic languages (Sadie Benning, Kevin B. Lee, Mark Leckey, Peggy Awash)
• The impact of the transition in the cinema industry from analog to digital on the language of filmmaking (Michael Mann, Nick Pinkerton/Tsai Ming Liang,Ethnographic Sensory Lab).
• How personal narratives can be interwoven into non-narrative forms (Gunvor Nelson, Edward Owens, Moyra Davey, Mati Diop, Ed Atkins).
• The subversion of conventions in documentary filmmaking, transcending the traditional distinction between fiction and fact (Anders Edström & C.W. Winter, TrinhT. Minh-ha, Mati Diop).
• The examination of the roles of collectives and alternative structures in the production of moving image works (The Otolith Group, Black Audio Film Collective, Dziga Vertov Group)

In the final two days, the 'input' phase of the course will be paused to allow students to.prepare presentations for the last day. Proposed for Thursday, is to have two guest lectures from FilmForm (The Swedish art film & video archive) 

Filmform (Anna-Karin Larsson and/or Andreas Bertman) will travel from Stockholm to Malmö to present a history of FilmForm. This won't be a standard organizational introduction but rather an exploration of how artists have engaged with moving images since the organization's inception in the 1950s. They will discuss FilmForm's ongoing work with archives, artists, and how the organization adapts to the evolving media landscape. Their presentation will illuminate the practical aspects of workingwith artists, including presentation, exhibition, and compensation negotiations.

On the last day of the course, each participant will give a 20-minute presentation based on one of the works discussed, related to their past, current work, or proposed work. There will be a 20-minute discussion after each presentation. These presentations do not aim to provide an art-historical account but rather to relate one's own work to a broader discourse on moving images.

Credits: 3
Teacher: Amin Zouiten
Dates: 2-5 April & 8 April
Tid: 10.00 – 15.00
Form: Seminar
Language: Swedish and english

Language

Under the heading “Språk/Language”, English is default. When “Swedish and English” is indicated, depending on the language competencies of the student group, the course might be offered in Swedish or other Scandinavian language.

Elective courses fall semester 2023

A Material Opera – a Survey of methods into the Choreographed Exhibition

The course focusses on lectures, texts and essays that research material agency, performative materials, queer materialism, performance, exhibition activation / space activation, tactility, sensorial experiences, automata, organic and inorganic materials, material duration and time (time keeping/clocks). Collectively we'll formulate and investigate research questions in order to expand the ability to create performative art works and a choreographed exhibition. Like; What time frames are at stake within the context of an exhibition? What performative strategies can be applied within this space? What institutional and material limitations might be at stake and how can we collaborate with these limitations? We'll zoom in on new materialism, feminism, porous bodies and materials, material agency, ecology, contemporary notions of performance within the art institute at large.

Teacher: Isabelle Andriessen

Radical Cringe

Radical Cringe is a 3-week production course where we’ll wallow in the aesthetics of glorious embarrassment, shame and bad taste. Oversharing, overacting and over-being, we’ll watchneach other through our fingers as we search for a radical agency in being free from self- awareness. In an era where the pressures of self-presentation are almost paralyzing, and conversely, where cringe culture has become a veritable force in the entertainment industry, we’ll engage cringe as a joyous escape valve. If the feeling of cringe is a warning that one has violated some social norm and strayed from the cultural path, is it not also precisely a territory we should seek out as artists, a place where authenticity, vulnerability, otherness and innovation overlap. The working process will involve daily active sessions borrowing techniques from devised theatre, improvisation, performance art and contemporary dance, combined with discussion. Mixing solo and group production, we'll create a performance, which will be presented at the end of the course.

Teacher: Michael Portnoy

16 mm Film - the Fundamentals

This course is designed as an introduction to the fundamental skills involved in making 16mm film. The students will learn how to use a 16mm camera, how to measure and set lights, and also 16mm film editing: how to cut and splice the film and use a Steenbeck editing table.

In the first part of the course we will go through a series of hands on exercises with the camera in the studio or on location. The exercises will be structured as scenes, which will become a film made in collaboration. Additionally, each student will be g Lihiven 3 films and the opportunity to shoot a film of their own and receive feedback, technical and artistic advise on this.

When we meet again the students will be introduced to working on a Steenbeck editing table. This will be done through collective and individual exercises. We will edit the film material we made together and the participants will be able to edit their individual films as well. Also, as part of the course we will discuss media archeology and media theory –the history of images and film in relation to new digital media.

Teachers: Youngjae Lih & Sophie Ljungblom

Negative/Positive: Divergence and Repetition

In the field of photography there are concepts that are present both as methods and as technology. At the same time, these concepts have been used extensively as figures of thought or metaphors in, for example, philosophy and psychoanalysis. Two of these concepts are repetition and the negative/positive. In this course, we want to use these concepts both in relation to artistic practice; in relation to our "doings", as well as look at how they have been used historically as visual expressions, metaphors and methods in photography, art, psychoanalysis and philosophy.

Teachers: Katarina Elvén and Beata Fransson

Welding course

Technical instruction course in welding.

Teacher: Ariel Alaniz

Digital Print

During a one-week course, we will learn the basics of how digital images work and different principles for digital image processing and printing. We will learn to print with a large format printer through a RIP (Raster Image Processor).

There will be a focus on photography, but other mediums are also welcome. During the course we learn basic theory about how digital sensors and digital images work and what happens in the process when they are materialized on a paper or a canvas. By experimenting with different software, paper, and editing, we will try to understand the process and search for the best suiting expression for each project.

Teacher: Joakim Sandqvist

Original, copy, original: Casting course in bronze and aluminium

From original to original. From one material to another. Advance casting course that introduces some of the traditional techniques which is used to work with bronze and aluminum. The course provides a basic understanding of mold making (plaster and silicone), working with wax/lost wax-casting (cire perdue) and sand casting. The course is divided into two parts, the first will take place in the plaster workshop at Båghallarna, in two weeks we explore the basics of making molds in plaster and silicone to cast wax originals. In the second part we change location to work in the foundry at KKV (Bragegatan 15), and during a two-week period we transfer the wax copy to bronze and/or aluminum and learn the basics of sand-casting.

Teacher: Gabriel Karlsson

Abject

The word actually means despicable, absurd – and in the 18th century, abandoned. After Julia Kristeva published her ground-breaking essay Les Pouvoirs de l’horreur in 1980, abject and abjection have entered the art theory standard lexicon. Yet, reading Powers of Horror is a dizzying experience.

According to Kristeva, the omnipotent, shadowy and terrifying Mother is there somewhere, as is an idealised image of the father. The combination creates violent disgust, horror, hatred, but also a longing for purity, the ideal... We will read Powers of Horror in its entirety, and examine what the swing between abject/sublime produces within art, from Celine to Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Cindy Sherman etc. We will also read the British anthropologist Mary Douglas’ Purity and Danger, which inspired Kristeva, and the parallel case of Klaus Theweleit’s equally pioneering two-volume work MännerPhantasien (Male Fantasies) 1977. It will be a bewildering journey between abyss and plateau, to the edge of the self and beyond.

Teacher: Gertrud Sandqvist

Economics and Law for Artists

The aim of the course is to provide theoretical knowledge and practical skills in economy and law that are important for students in the artistic process and the practice of art as well as in the role as small business owners.

The purpose is to prepare students for questions about economy and law that they may encounter after their studies. Not least, students should get insight into when it may be necessary to consult legal and / or financial expertise.

Teacher: Katarina Renman Claesson