Contextual Practice

The Contextual Practice (CP) area of the School of Art program at Carnegie Mellon engages students in the study and production of art that has a direct, conscious and often catalytic relationship to the place in which it exists and the audience with whom it engages. This new area, the first undergraduate program of its kind in the country, continues the School of Art’s significant history of presenting classes that explore the social role of art in public contexts. Additional terms that have been used to circumscribe this practice are: relational aesthetics, new genre public art, social sculpture, intervention, participatory art, social practice, tactical media and institutional critique. Studio and academic CP classes are presented by faculty members and visiting artists throughout the School of Art, offering students ongoing opportunities to research and produce experimental works in the public sphere and develop new venues and audiences for art. All art majors are required to take at least one CP class during their time at CMU.

2008-09 Contextual Practice classes include:

Tactical Media—Assistant Professor Rich Pell: This course considers the practice and theory of tactical media, hacktivism, and other media-based strategies of cultural disruption, protest and critique. Students develop several projects that employ skills in digital and physical media to create works that creatively engage with audiences in contexts that may not be traditionally associated with art.

The Storefront Project—Assistant Professor Jon Rubin: The Storefront Project relocates each year into a different vacant storefront or unused space in the city of Pittsburgh. Students in this class use the storefront to present projects that have a catalytic relationship to surrounding social, physical and economic context.

Eco Village—Professor Bob Bingham: In collaboration with the fourth year Architecture Design Studio students will work at the Hamnett Homestead in Wilkensburg, a historic house to be converted into a sustainable building and landscape to become part of an urban farm with a vision for the neighborhood to evolve into an ecovillage.

Seduction and Sedition—Associate Professor Andrew Johnson:

We will analyze “propaganda,” literally “that which is to be spread,” from many sources and create our own in this blended seminar/studio course. No prerequisites other than an interest in social activism, international relations, public policy, communication, tactical media, realpolitik, the arts, the digital spectacular or the cultural imaginary.

Migrants, Nomads, Transients, and Miscrients: Art Practice and the Digital Diaspora—Visiting Assistant Professor Osman Kahn:

This course explores the effects of technologies on our culture, in particular how it affects our notions of identity, place, mapping and community. Students work on projects exploring a critical position in relation to culture and technologies.

Making Connections: Individual Projects in the Community—Professor Joe Mannino:

Students in this class explore what it means to be an artist outside the art school studio: how to make connections with a new audience; how to translate artistic vision into statements that are comprehensible and meaningful to a non-artist community; and how to apply personal aesthetics and interests to non-traditional settings.

Culture in the Public Realm—Professor Elaine King:

This class will introduce and critically explore the historical, theoretical, and practical production and consumption of culture and art beyond the museum or gallery and what shapes its production. During the term we will focus on issues expressed in cross-disciplinary forms of art and culture and the facts and policies that influence its production including power, people, politics, and money.

Space Art—Professor Lowry Burgess:

The Space Art Studio will direct our assembled creative consciousnesses to outer space and the cosmos through interdisciplinary projects and individual and collaborative artworks involving all the arts and their interactions with science and technology. Our artistic projects and creations will point to the territories of mind and reality, science and technology, at the edges of the possible and even far beyond.

Mapping Braddock—Visiting Assistant Professor Jill Miller: In this course, students use ethnographic methods to study and understand the multi-layered scope of the steel town of Braddock. Students will work together to create a picture of Braddock, and develop a final project that relates to the city.

Wanderlust – Artistic Perspectives on Mobility—Adjunct Assistant Professor Ally Reeves:

This course explores objects which enable and are inspired by mobility in its many manifestations including walking, biking, touring, wandering, foraging, drifting, laboring, searching, escaping, and being lost.

Image Credit: Images from the "Storefront Project" a Contextual Practice class that takes place in storefront spaces throughout Pittsburgh. More info at http://www.tentshow.org Back to Top