THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH

DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2021/2022

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : Edinburgh College of Art : History of Art

Undergraduate Course: Radical Nature: art and ecology from Joseph Beuys to the Present Day (HIAR10145)

Course Outline
SchoolEdinburgh College of Art CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryEcology, nature and the environment has paralleled and critiqued the development of the avant-garde in art, particularly since the 1960s. Significant art practices can be understood by looking through the lens of the ecological movement and by exploring the radical reconceptualisation of nature that has emerged over this time, across many cultures. Key artists relevant to the art historical tradition include: Joseph Beuys, Robert Smithson, Helen Chadwick, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Giuseppe Penone, Eduardo Kac, The Critical Art Ensemble, Christine Borland, Superflex, Simon Starling, Ursula Biemann and Johan Grimonprez. These artists can be jointly situated within art movements from Land Art, Eco-Aesthetics, Arte Povera, Genetic/Aesthetics and Post-Conceptualism, as well as within political and social movements, often with radical intent and in opposition to conventional neo-liberal and globalised economies. The intellectual content of the course is also supported by a burgeoning quantity of academic literature in this area, given the social, cultural and political need for radical responses to nature, from genetics research to climate change.
Course description The course will:
- Set out the main theoretical concepts around ecology and nature that have informed contemporary Western culture
- Understand some of the key art practices since the 1960s that have developed radical ideas of nature and ecology
- Encourage students to make independent, informed and complex evaluations of these art practices within their political and cultural contexts
- Involve students in direct and active learning strategies that extend beyond orthodox art history.

Ecology, nature and the environment has paralleled and critiqued the development of the avant-garde in art, particularly since the 1960s. Significant art practices can be understood by looking through the lens of the ecological movement and by exploring the radical reconceptualisation of nature that has emerged over this time, across many cultures. Key artists relevant to the art historical tradition include: Joseph Beuys, Robert Smithson, Helen Chadwick, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Giuseppe Penone, Eduardo Kac, The Critical Art Ensemble, Christine Borland, Superflex, Simon Starling, Ursula Biemann and Johan Grimonprez. These artists can be jointly situated within art movements from Land Art, Eco-Aesthetics, Arte Povera, Genetic/Aesthetics and Post-Conceptualism, as well as within political and social movements, often with radical intent and in opposition to conventional neo-liberal and globalised economies. The intellectual content of the course is also supported by a burgeoning quantity of academic literature in this area, given the social, cultural and political need for radical responses to nature, from genetics research to climate change.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Students MUST have passed: History of Art 2A Reason, Romance, Revolution: Art from 1700 to 1900 (HIAR08027) AND History of Art 2B From Modernism and the Avant-Gardes to Postmodernism and Globalisation (HIAR08028) OR Architectural History 2a: Order & the City (ARHI08006) AND Architectural History 2b: Culture & the City (ARHI08007)
Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2021/22, Not available to visiting students (SS1) Quota:  22
Course Start Semester 1
Timetable Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 200 ( Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20, Formative Assessment Hours 1, Summative Assessment Hours 2, Revision Session Hours 1, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 172 )
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 50 %, Coursework 50 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment) 1 x 2,500 word extended essay (50%)
1 x 3 hour online examination paper (50%)


Relationship between Assessment and Learning Outcomes:

Formative Assessment assists directly in the Set Essay task (50%).

Summative assessment matches all of the Learning Outcomes, as the essay and exam questions will cover a mix of the broad conceptual and artist-focussed approaches
Feedback By the end of Week 4, students will produce a two-page outline of their intended art historical essay topic, with a short free-text introduction followed by section headings and themes.
Exam Information
Exam Diet Paper Name Hours & Minutes
Main Exam Diet S1 (December)3 hour online exam paper3:00
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. Demonstrate an ability to explain the main theoretical concepts that inform ecologically-orientated Western art since 1960.
  2. Demonstrate an ability to discuss different art practices highlighted in the course in relation to the themes of 'radical nature' and ecology.
  3. Demonstrate an ability to evaluate these art practices in the light of their own judgements and arguments.
  4. Demonstrate an ability to express themselves in writing and verbally for different artistic and academic audiences
  5. Demonstrate an ability to evaluate reflectively their own learning and understanding of the course.
Reading List
Bate, Jonathan, Romantic Ecology (Routledge, 1991)
Bennett, Jane, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Duke, 2010)
Buell, Lawrence, The Environmental Imagination (Harvard, 1996)
Burnham, Jack, 'Systems Aesthetics', ARTforum, 1968
Davis, Heather & Turpin, Etienne (eds), Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Aesthetics, Politics, Environments and Epistemologies (An Exact, 2015)
Demos, TJ, ed., Special Issue of Third Text no. 120, 'Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology' (January, 2013)
Guattari, Felix, Chaosmosis. An Ethico-aesthetic Paradigm (Power, 1994)
Kester, Grant, 'Groundworks: Environmental Collaboration in Contemporary Art,' Groundworks, Regina Gouger Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University (2005)
Latour, Bruno, Politics of Nature (Harvard, 2004)
Lippard, Lucy, The Lure of the Local: Sense of Place in a Multicentered Society (New Press, NY, 1997)
Miles, Malcolm, Eco Aesthetics (IB Tauris, 2014)
Morton, Timothy, Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World (Univ Of Minnesota Press, 2013)
Schama, Simon, Landscape and Memory (1995)
Sheffield, Graham & Bush, Kate (eds), Radical Nature: Art & Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969-2009, (Barbican, London / Konig Books, 2009)
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills - Visual and critical analysis
- Independent research
- Presentation and communication skills
- Group work
- Organisation and planning
Keywordsecology,environment,aesthetics,activism,visual art,1960s to the Present,Anthropocene
Contacts
Course organiserProf Andrew Patrizio
Tel: (0131 6)51 1782
Email: a.patrizio@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Ellie McCartney
Tel: (0131 6)51 5879
Email: emccartn@exseed.ed.ac.uk
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