107-072 Sound and Vision: The Visual Cultures of Art and Popular Music

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Subject Description

This subject explores the interaction of art and popular music since 1950. Areas of study will include: Pop art images of rock and roll; the impact of performance art on rock; the visual culture of popular music; recent constructions of postmodern identity and visuality through subcultural style and mass media technologies. Media and practices examined will include: performance; design (graphic art, costume, stage, lighting); film and video (bio-pics, music videos, installation); recording (sampling, lo-fi, bootlegging); multimedia. Key musical genres considered will be; pop, glam, art rock, punk, lo-fi, retro-pop, ambient, and techno.

Assessment

A classpaper of 2000 words and an essay of 3000 words.

Prescribed Texts

• V Cagle, Reconstructing pop/subculture: Art, Rock, and Andy Warhol. Sage Publications c1995.
• I Chambers, Urban Rhythms: Pop Music and Popular Culture. Macmillan 1990.
• S Frith, Art into Pop. Methuen 1987.
• J A Walker, Cross-overs: Art into Pop/Pop into Art. Comedia/Methuen 1987.
• R Middleton, Studying Popular Music. Open University Press 1990.
• S Whitely, Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender. Routledge 1997.
• D Rubin, Its only Rock and Roll: Rock and Roll Currents in Contemporary Art. Prestel-Verlag 1995.