Undergraduate Course: Countercultures of Art: Light, Psychedelia and Behaviour, 1955-1975 (HIAR10217)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course draws together experiments in light, behaviour and consciousness that took place both within the art world and in peripheral countercultural zones in the 1960s and 1970s. Focusing on the phenomenon of light response, it surveys the use of flickering light as stimulus in diverse practices including conceptual art, rock concert light shows, psychedelic happenings and psychiatry. The course will focus on global case studies including the UK, France, Japan and the USA, whilst also tracing the broad influence of Eastern philosophies in these countercultural experiments with light flicker. |
| Course description |
This course focuses on one of the most curious and widespread psychedelic experiments of the late 1960s: light flicker. While it had been known for centuries that flickering light could induce changes in brain activity, post-war advances in psychiatry saw a more sophisticated and expanded understanding of the phenomenon. In addition, this was the era of light-responsive technologies; machines that could be programmed to change their activities in response to pulses of light. The course surveys some of the artists that employed light flicker in their practices, whilst taking in the broad experiments in light that took place in countercultural settings. The course will include seminar topics such as light experiments at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at M.I.T., light works from Experiments in Art and Technology, countercultural light shows at rock concerts and other events, artists' experiential architectures, light-responsive cybernetic art and light as material in British schools of art.
The course will be delivered in ten two-hour seminars, with the possibility of gallery visits where appropriate. Seminar discussions will be informed by rich preparatory readings that will be interdisciplinary, drawing on psychiatry, cybernetics and music history as well as art history. Students will undertake preparatory reading, and there will be occasional preparatory group work such as small close reading groups or the preparation of short presentations in pairs. The course will employ post-war theories of behaviourism and control in relation to technology and art, whilst establishing what happened when artists worked on this very new territory in the period. By looking both at the military-industrial complex and countercultural responses to it, we will develop a thorough understanding of the medium of light.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | This Course does not require any additional costs to be met by the Student.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 10,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 9,
External Visit Hours 1,
Summative Assessment Hours 2,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
174 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
This course has 2 assessment components.
1) Recorded Presentation, 40%, due in Week 6, relating to LOs 1-3
2) Essay, 2500 words, 60%, due in exam period, relating to LOs 1-3
Further Information
Detailed briefs will be provided for each assessment.
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| Feedback |
Formative Feedback:
- Students will have the opportunity to create an essay plan for peer-to-peer feedback
- Part of the week 7/8 seminar will also be dedicated to discussing essay plans on a one-to-one basis with the lecturer
- Feedback will be supported through general discussion and Q&A on the essay plans
- Feedback journey: these short plans will give students the opportunity to formulate an argument and to discuss their plans in a supportive environment
Summative Feedback
- For the first assessment, summative feedback will be provided in writing
- The CO will deliver the feedback and offer office hours for students who wish to discuss their feedback in person.
- The students will benefit from both formative feedback on their essay plans, and also draw on summative feedback from their first assignment when planning their essays
Summative feedback will be provided according to University regulations. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Apply critical and visual analysis skills effectively to interpret works of art and technology
- Construct written and verbal arguments about art, light and behaviour based on relevant historical and theoretical contexts
- Apply art historical methods to interdisciplinary objects
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Reading List
Blakinger, John. György Kepes: Undreaming the Bauhaus. The MIT Press, 2019.
Blauvelt, Andrew, Greg Castillo, and Esther Choi, eds. Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia. Walker Art Center, 2015.
Beck, John. Technocrats of the Imagination: Art, Technology and the Military-Industrial Avant-Garde. Duke University Press, 2020.
Perloff, Nancy and Michelle Kuo, eds. Sensing the Future: Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.). Getty Institute, 2024.
Pickering, Andrew Pickering. The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future. The University of Chicago Press, 2010. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Communication: Through discussion, debate and group work about light, modern art and behaviour, you will refine your verbal and interpersonal skills. The two assessments will support your development of the core art historical skills of focused writing and the construction of complex arguments.
Personal and Intellectual Autonomy: Firstly, both assessments will support you in gaining independent and interdisciplinary research skills, with support for writing about new or under-researched areas of art and visual culture. Secondly, the supported debates and discussions in class will foster the development of your independent critical voice.
Research and Inquiry: Your critical awareness will develop through engagement with interdisciplinary primary and secondary sources that bring together technology, science, art and counterculture in novel ways. Seminar discussions and assessments will allow you to synthesise this knowledge and apply in critical analysis, using art historical skills creatively and in interdisciplinary ways.
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| Keywords | Technology,light,conceptual art,counterculture,psychedelic |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Kate Sloan
Tel:
Email: Kate.Sloan@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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