module specification

The FA4008 Techniques: Fine Art module introduces students to and engages them with a range of art media and approaches to artistic production. Focusing upon key skills and concepts, the module introduces students to relevant materials, processes and techniques for the development of ideas and artefacts, enabling students to make quick, heuristic connections between intention, process, and outcome.

The module involves a series of demonstrations and exercises, introducing and developing basic artistic skills and techniques relevant to Fine Art practice. Allied with the FA4007 Visual Intelligence module, the module supports an applied understanding of visual and technical literacy through development of project work, negotiated between tutor and student.

In the FA4008 Techniques: Fine Art module students are expected to look for and construct relationships between and across modules. Students are encouraged to test out and explore different methods or enquiry and approaches to practice through one or more of the established Fine Art disciplines of painting, photography, printmaking, drawing, ceramics, sculpture, installation art and mixed media.

FA4008 Techniques: Fine Art serves and sustains an award in the BA Fine Art course only, delivered in a seamless and integral relationship with the work of other core modules on Level 4. Students are expected to investigate and develop critical and aesthetic working relationships between and across the Level 4 modules.

This module aims to enable students to test the methods of art enquiry introduced in other modules by applying art processes and art media techniques effectively, with students learning to organise tools and materials and use workshop equipment with fluency and control. The module aims in this way to give maximum opportunities in the practical aspects of art-making, allowing students to show respect and consideration for artworks by their careful installation and finishing, with attention to professional storage of artworks and the construction of packing cases with protective interiors.

At the beginning of the module, its aims and key concepts will be outlined to all students. Sessions will then be organised in three blocks across the year, passing student groups through a carousel of project workshops in different media of printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, photography, painting, drawing and video (Learning Outcome 1). Each medium technique workshop will demonstrate and induct in the necessary organisation of tools and materials in that medium (Learning Outcome 2). All students will pass through a special masterclass in Photographing Art in this module as well as a session in the professional packing of artworks for display (Learning Outcome 3). Throughout the module the students will be encouraged to reflect upon the techniques learnt and how these will help develop their work (Learning Outcome 4).

Scheduled teaching ensures that independent study is effective and addresses the learning outcomes and assessment tasks. Students are expected to (and to have the opportunity to) continue with their studies outside of scheduled classes. There will be a range of learning strategies deployed and individual learning styles will be accommodated. The module’s learning outcomes, its contents and delivery, have been scrutinised and will be regularly reviewed to ensure an inclusive approach to pedagogic practice.

The module and course utilise the University’s blended learning platform to support and reinforce learning, to foster peer-to-peer communication and to facilitate tutorial support for students. Reflective learning is promoted through assessment items and interim formative feedback points that ask students to reflect on their progress, seek help where they identify the opportunity for improvement in learning strategies and outcomes, and make recommendations to themselves for future development. Throughout the module, students build a body of work, including reflections on progress and achievement.

The School’s programme of employability events and embedded work-related learning within the curriculum supports students’ personal development planning. Through these initiatives, students are increasingly able, as they progress from year to year, to understand the professional environment of their disciplines, the various opportunities available to them, and how to shape their learning according to their ambitions.

On completing the module, students will be able to:

1. test methods of enquiry and processes by applying them effectively via art media;
2. organise tools and materials and use equipment and techniques for art-making in different media with proficiency and confidence;
3. take care of original artworks by installation, protection, packing and storing;
4. reflect upon techniques learnt.

Formative Submission:
A journal of tasks and collated coursework will be submitted at three points throughout the year.

Summative Submission
All journals and collated coursework submitted at the end of the module
(LO1, LO2, LO3 & LO4)

Precise requirements for submissions will be established in set or self-set project briefs each year

The assessment strategy includes formative assessments throughout the Level, with tutorial feedback designed to encourage and help students to develop and improve their work. These will inform the student of their progress through the course. An interim review offers a specific opportunity to reflect on the work in relation to the module’s learning outcomes and this together with finished project work and all supporting material will inform the assessment panel at the summative assessment at the end of the Level.

Students will evaluate their own learning on the module using the criteria given and write a short critical appraisal (summary statement) of their work. This will provide the basis for discussion at the assessment feedback session after the formal coursework assessment has taken place.

Summative assessment takes place at the end of the module. Written feedback addresses the strengths and weaknesses of individual presentations in relation to the grading criteria.

Core Textbooks:
Bishop, C. (2013) Radical Museology, or What’s Contemporary in Museums of Contemporary Art?,  London: Koenig Books
Bishop, C. (2012) Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship, London: Verso
Kuchler, S and Schneider, A. (2XXX) Site-Specificity in Art: the Ethnographic Turn, London: Black Dog
Zakia, D. (2013) Perception and Imaging: A Photographic Way of Seeing, London: Focal Press

Additional Textbooks:
Bell, J. (2XXX) What is Painting? Representation and Modern Art, London: Thames and Hudson
Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing, London: BBC/Pelican
Bishop, C. (2005) Installation Art: A Critical History, London: Tate
Bois,Y-A. (1993) Painting as Model, New York: MIT Press
Faris Belt, A. (2011) Elements of Photography, London: Focal Press
• Gaut, B and McIver Lopes, D. (2XXX) The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, London: Routledge
Krauss, R. (1981) Passages in Modern Sculpture, New York: MIT Press
• Nelson, R.S. and Shiff, R. (2XXX) Critical Terms for Art History, Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Newman, A. (2005) The Stage of Drawing: Gesture and Act, London: Tate/The Drawing Centre
Rattemeyer, C. (2009) Compass in Hand, New York: MOMA
Rosand, D. (2XXX) Drawing Acts: Studies in Graphic Expression and Representation, Cambridge: Cambridge UP
Savage, J., (ed.) (2XXX) Drawing Texts, Seattle: Occasional Press
Shore, S. (2010) The Nature of Photography, London: Phaidon
Szarkowski, J. (2005) The Photographer’s Eye, New York: MOMA
Tucker, W. (1985) The Language of Sculpture, London: Thames & Hudson
Yee, R. (2007) Architectural Drawing, London: John Wiley