Becoming Insect

Contemporary Studio Art,

Social Theory & Swarm Politics

ARTS 388 / Pathways
Queens College CUNY Art Department –

SPRING 2024 – Tuesdays – 1:40-5:30
Klapper Hall Room 284

Faith Wilding, Womb Room (1972)

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Instructor:
Gregory Sholette
gsholetteSTUDIO@gmail.com

Tuesdays 2:00-5:30
Klapper Hall Room 284

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TO VIEW BECOMING INSECT PROJECTS
FROM PAST CLASSES
CLICK HERE

Basic Downloadable Syllabus : Download

Class Description:

This is an experimental interdisciplinary seminar investigating contemporary art, spatial structures, visual communications, literary culture, digital imaging, and the social significance of critical thinking and aesthetic interpretation. A single ant is photographed dragging a hand-cut jewel across a linoleum-tiled floor. The image goes viral on social media networks, but it also tells a powerful visual story about the dramatically different scales, motivations and morphology between insect and human societies. Fusing project-based studio practice with individual research this hybrid seminar explores the shifting line between contemporary art and social practice through the lens of what we consider the human and the non-human. By focusing on the figure of the insect as it appears in art, science, philosophy, and popular culture students will develop collaborative projects that address one or more related topics including animal intelligence, networked technology, cyborg affectivity, and interventionist public art. Among the materials we will cover in class include sculpture by Louise Bourgeois, installations by Damien Hirst, tactical media interventions by Electronic Disturbance Theater, and a number of “giant bug” movies from the 1950s. We will also read selections from the theoretical books including “Insect Media” by Jussi Parikka, watch excerpts from movies such as Them! and Starship Troopers, and listen to the sound of crickets used to defend a virgin forest in California by the Center of Tactical Media.

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Requirements:

+ Collaborate with other student researchers in a work group in an ongoing investigation

+ Investigate a specific research topic and use visual art to generate new knowledge on it *

+ Incorporate research and discussion into Final Project

+ Maintain a small notebook/sketchbook and update this “field journal” every week

+ Present your research findings to class for discussion

+ Final Project is to be designed, created, exhibited, or performed and documented

+ Participate in course discussions/demonstrate you’ve done assigned readings, viewings etc…

* Key Delivery Dates:

FEB 6: Research Groups formed and a research topic is selected.

FEB 27: First presentation of initial research and ongoing project development (sketches etc…).

MARCH 19: Second presentation of far more developed research and projects (things we can see, touch, etc…).

May 7 & 14: Final presentations of final projects.

Grade Composition:

+ 25% Attendance and engagement in class discussions

+ 25% Weekly writings in you Field Journal

+ 50% Your final research project and Evaluation Paper

Expectations:

Throughout the course you will be tasked with stretching your imagination and your tacit social interpretation of the world in order to consider the relationship of visual art to such fields as media arts, communication, digital imaging, architecture, urban planning and even issues of social relations and social justice while using the specific characteristics of insects as a material and conceptual vehicle towards creative learning. Through the evaluation and discussion of your projects this heuristic process of self-learning will be brought into the foreground.

PATHWAYS LEARNING OUTCOMES

Gather, interpret, and assess information from a variety of sources and points of view.
Evaluate evidence and arguments critically or analytically.
Produce well-reasoned written or oral arguments using evidence to support conclusions.
Identify and apply the fundamental concepts and methods of a discipline or interdisciplinary field exploring creative expression, including, but not limited to, arts, communications, creative writing, media arts, music, and theater.
Analyze how arts from diverse cultures of the past serve as a foundation for those of the present and describe the significance of works of art in the societies that created them.
Articulate how meaning is created in the arts or communications and how experience is interpreted and conveyed.

* List of Possible Research Topics for this Class:

2024 LIST:

Insects/Light/Clothing

Insects/Music/Culture

Insects/Adaptation/Thinking

Insects and Imitation/Camouflage

Future Bugs!

Older Lists- INSECTS &

FOOD
ROBOTICS
FASHION
B-MOVIES
MIMICRY
SURVIVAL AESTHETICS
SOUNDS
SWARMS
ARCHITECTURE
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
COMMUNICATION/ LANGUAGE
TERMINOLOGY OF COMPUTERS
PHYSIQUE
TRANSFORMATION OF HUMAN TO INSECT
TACTICAL MEDIA
CRAFTIVISM
ROBOTICS
GAMING

Insects Doing Incredible Things – a FB Site

And What Are Your Ideas?

Such as:

6 prompts for Buzzing, Thinking, Flying, Metamorphosing:

If you were an armed jellyfish like this one in the video, what would you defend from whom? How would you think un-humanly? Could you adapt to be a New York City resident? How? Who would be your friends? How would you be treated by other New Yorker’s?
Upside-Down Jellyfish Release Weaponized Goo Packed With Toxic ‘Grenades’

How would you apply the characters and elements in this story to your own life today? Could you act that out? Illustrate it? Make a puppet show about it? Make outfits for people to wear and a script for them to follow based on it?
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

What sort of METAMORPHOSIS would you go through to be a better student or parent or citizen or sibling? What would you go through to work with others better? If you were transforming into a protector of the environment, what would you become?
Monarch Butterfly Metamorphosis Time Lapse

Think of a woven art work or piece of clothing or a useful object (a hat or accessory or a bag to hold things) inspired by this animal and its web?
Orb Weaver Spider

How do these recorded insect sounds suggest or describe: Spaces? Behaviors? Languages? Communications? Social exchanges? Happiness? Working Together? Being Angry? Losing your temper? Greeting Friends? Measuring Passing Time? (Could you make an insect clock using sound alone?) Another insect sound resource.

Based on our previous readings what kind of board game (or video game) would you design?
Game: Bugs in the Kitchen

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Production Resources on Queens College Campus:

MAKER SPACE
KLAPPER DIGITAL LAB
LYNDA .COM TUTORIALS LOGIN

AND PLEASE SEE SEDIQ’S WEBSITE AT: https://sediqkholdi.com/

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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

SAL ASARO’s INSECT SCIENCE RESOURCES PAGE

OTHER ART & MEDIA RESOURCES FOR CLASS

HUMAN & INSECT INTERACTION Wikipedia

John Heartfield a 1933 photomontage targeting the German Nazi Party’s “evolution.”

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THE SYLLABUS

* Changes to class content and readings may take place during the semester: always check online.

* * All readings, viewings and other resources are available at the online syllabus:

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Week one: JAN 30: Introductions

INTRO PPT

Have you ever heard of insect politics? From Kafka’s hapless insect-boy Gregor Samsa in The Metamorphosis, to John Heartfield’s ironic photomontage of a larval German Fascism transforming itself into the Deathshead Moth Adolph Hitler, to the tactical “Biological Contestation” of Critical Art Ensemble, a host of modern and contemporary artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers have been drawn to the world of the insect. In fact the image or the idea of arthropods and invertebrates in art appears in all ages, including ancient Egyptian Scarab Beetle carvings, insect-like totems from Papua New Guinea, and 19^th Century entomological engravings. More recently, the behavior of insects –as opposed to just their representation- has come to animate the thinking of robotics designers, war strategists, and network programmers. Meanwhile, practitioners of tactical media describe their decentralized activism as a type of collective swarming. The aim of this class is to research and generate artwork both collectively and as individuals. There are no set rules about how we go about this, no limits on the direction or shape this investigation will take, other than the broad thematic stated above. Our objective is to transform the classroom into an experimental platform that produces knowledge while critically transforming -or perhaps I should say critically meta-morphing?- our everyday practice of art, life, and learning. Put differently: What is it that bugs us humans anyway?

Same day workshop: following the professor’s lecture and our discussion of news articles that you bring to class, you will break into an investigative team to explore and imagine what kind of spaces an insect or other arthropod would want to inhabit within Klapper Hall. Your will use your weekly field journal to take notes, create sketches, make measurements of the light and space, the exits and entrances and hiding space potential of the room or space that you are observing. And should you encounter an insect or other arthropod consider also taking a photo of it, or if dead, bring it back to the classroom and we will collectively investigate the physiological qualities and taxonomy as part of your first field journal entry that you will continue to update throughout the semester.

An initial reading: CULTURAL ENTOMOLOGY by Ayla Tüzün

Week two: FEB 6: Create Groups

& Chose Research Topics

Task 1: Establish working groups and research topics (6 with 3 members each)

Task 2: Your Research Group will decide on one area of focus and one insect type.

For example:

Architecture and Bees or

Robotics and Dragonflies or

Needlework/Weaving and Spiders or

Mantid Insects and Camouflage or

Wearable Art and Beetles or

Social Cooperation and Ants or

Sound Communication and Night Insects

As. you can see, these combinations can go on and on!

Research Groups will explore their selected topic for the rest of the semester, and each of you will produce a work related to the Research Group you are part of (collaborative projects are also a possibility).

And once again:

* Key Delivery Dates:

FEB 6: Research Groups formed and a research topic is selected.

FEB 27: First presentation of initial research and ongoing project development (sketches etc…).

MARCH 19: Second presentation of far more developed research and projects (things we can see, touch, etc…).

May 7 & 14: Final presentations of final projects.

VISITS: Linda Jackson KLAPPER DIGITAL LAB/ Nick Normal MAKER SPACE/ Alex Wong

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All images & links on this page are strictly for educational and non-commercial use.
Contact professor Sholette if you wish to discuss: gsholetteSTUDIO@gmail.com

Week three: FEB 13: Insect Media & Swarms

Task: After Presentation & discussion: Break into working groups / Report on Brainstorming end of class

INSECT MEDIA: According to Professor Jussi Parikka the figure of the insect as a metaphor and image has shifted over the centuries and now stand for some of the most advanced and experimental aspects of new media art and technology. The introduction to his book Insect Media explores this thesis in which he insists the new network culture is “a rather peculiar phase in our modern technical civilization, as it seems to be a combination of high technology and a fascination with such seemingly simple life forms as insects. We continuously make sense of emerging media and technology through references and metaphors borrowed from the biological world: viruses, worms, swarms, and other similar eclectic ideas that suggest a complex view of scientific culture.”

SWARMS: A multitude of frustrated youthful citizens swarmed into Tahrir Square in Egypt in 2011, forming a “hive-like” mass that directed traffic, swept and cleaned streets, and eventually brought down the country’s powerful dictator Hosni Mubarak. All of this was accomplished without definitive leaders, organizational hierarchies, or ideological positions. Several months later a similarly leaderless swarm took the form of marauding locusts in London, gleaning and carrying off goods and property denied them in day-to-day life. Meanwhile, in the virtual world of the Internet, another leaderless collective known as Anonymous hacks into the data streams of authorities and corporations sometimes just for fun, and sometimes to make a political statement as when they cyber-punished PayPal and Mastercard for withdrawing the account of WikiLeaks. How does this collective swarming operate when it not only eschews ideological positions, but also rejects centralized leadership? Is the group “consciousness” of social insects -ant, wasp, and bees- one possible metaphor for this new, leaderless collectivism? Does the hive body represent the future of the social imagination for nations, networks, and humanity?

Readings and resources:

Week Four: FEB 20:

continue working on projects

special presentation on Black Fantastic exhibition Hayward Gallery London

Task: Continue to research, read and communicate with your research group remotely & please review the following topics:

Insect Weavers

Despite a pervasive cyber-aesthetic a recent wave of younger craft-based artists have revived needlecraft as a vital form of artistic practice, sometimes combined with public art, and/or social activism. This so-called “yarn bombing,” and “craftavism” has not so much rejected the dominant digital paradigm as it has made use of the networking power of the Internet to generate widespread knitting circles made up of individuals who will likely never meet in person. Sharing and transmitting information about wool and patterns actually makes perfect sense if we reflect on the very moniker: the World Wide Web. At the same time, the production of woven materials and crafted objects has played a central role in human civilization including classical myth: think of Penelope’s making and unmaking of the tapestry in the Odyssey, or the golden thread Ariadne weaves through the Minotaur’s labyrinth.

Actual weaving activities carried out by animals have inspired scientists and philosophers. Spider silk is being genetically engineered within goats to produce a super-strong, yet flexible filament; the feminist artist Faith Wilding created an influential web installation at Women House in the late 1970s; and Karl Marx famously made reference to both the architecture of bee colonies and the natural labor of the silkworm in his 19^th Century analysis of Capitalism.

Weavers Presentation

Reading: Forward to FASHION-able (review examples up to page 56)

Ad d i t i o n a l M edi a & Readings:

From Esther Berry:

“The art of weaving is a profound metaphor for understanding the workings of the universe and our place in it. Through the physical process of weaving, we gain a better understanding of this world and how we as human beings are woven into it.

We are bound to our bodies with the fragile threads of earth. Our skeleton is a loom on which every system is strung and woven with our blood. The meeting of opposite elements woven into a whole is the quest of every spiritual seeker. No wonder the art of weaving is so appealing: it is the c of creating the unified one out of two opposites.”

http://www.weavingalife.com/about/weaving/#.XkthzC2ZPyU

Faith Wilding: UnNatural Parables

Faith Wilding, Arlene Raven: Womanhouse

Fashion-able_webanspassa

Orb Weaver Spider

Gestures of Resistance: Cat Mazza

Cat Mazza- Post Craft

Faith Wilding: Monstrous Domesticity

Insect Warriors

Nomadic raiding colonies of Army Ants and Marauder Ants (Pheidologeton) sweep over their pray, sometimes tactically stationing soldiers along pathways to protect their mass movement. Robotic drones developed for the United States war on terror locate and destroy human targets In Afghanistan. And military planners study the swarming behavior of social insects in order to rethink the tactics of war.

Readings and resources:

DOWNLOAD: Israeli Military Using Post-Structuralism as “Operational Theory”

Additional Optional Reading:

Jean Paul Martinon – (In)visibilityTACTICS

And march over to these sites for more action:

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Week Five: FEB 27: Warriors…

Task 1: Review material from previous two weeks and update group research

Task 2: After presentation: Break-out into working groups / End of Day: report on group research project methodology up to this point

We will also continue our discussion with a focus on robotics and the way DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) is using insects as potential weapons of war.

Resources:

Newsweek: DARPA Is Making Insects That Can Deliver Bioweapons, Scientists Claim

Readings and resources:

DARPA (The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)

Week Six: MARCH 5:

Phasmids and Mimics

Task: After presentation: Break-out into working groups

Camouflage, mimicry, the radical morphing and adaptation to one’s external environment, these are the tactics of survival in a hostile world. As theorist Michel De Certeau once argued everyday resistance to oppression requires a tool box of primordial “simulations, tricks, and disguises” that are not unlike certain fishes or plants. He could have added that this cryptic “art of the weak” is also the empire of the insect, in particular the Phasmida order that includes stick insects some that physically resemble flowers, vegetation, and even inert materials. But what if being an artist also requires an act of trickery and disguise? Have artists and informal art collectives incorporated insect-like mimicry as a form of survival?

Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia Roger Caillois
Esther Berry’s powerpoint:
MAMAN by artist Louise Bourgeois

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Week Seven: MARCH 12 Architects

Task: After presentation: Break-out into working groups

From termite mounds to Paper Wasp nests to Caddisfly larva’s portable homes made of stones and sticks found on river bottoms, insects are formidable constructors and makers. We will look at some of these remarkable fabrications and discuss ways their forms might become part of our human world in imaginative ways. Please review the following projects and ideas and find at least one example related to insect architecture to share with the class this week online:

Furniture for Insects to Live inside

Robots Weaving Insect-Web Architecture

Furniture Inspired by Insects

Week Eight: MARCH 19: Bug Movies

Week Nine: MARCH 26

Task: After presentation: Break-out into working groups

We will look at excerpts from a number of movies featuring insects as monsters or as something else strange and challenging in order to understand what social figure bugs play within the popular cultural imagination.

WEEK TEN APRIL 2: An Insect’s Point of View

Task: After presentation: Break-out into working groups

Jeff Goldblum’s monologue in David Cronenberg’s movie remake of “The Fly” asks have you ever heard of insect politics CLICK
But what does being an insect really feel like? Scientist Jakob Johann Von Uexküll famously tried to describe what he called the signifying experience of a tick using his concept of the umwelt.
Tick’s Eye View: A Stroll Through the World’s of Animals and Men