The Department of Mixed Media offers courses in a wide range of disciplines. Coursework is addressed to students seeking to expand art processes and techniques to engage in the experimentation of various artistic modes, expressions, and media.
3 semester credits. This course seeks to explore the concept of participatory walking in relation to creative practice and the urban space. Students will engage in a variety of artistic projects, exercises, and experiments aimed at developing a broad understanding of multimedia art. The entire course is held outside so as to guarantee a full-fledged connection with the urban space. The fabric of the city will be assessed through the mapping of architecture, sounds, natural elements, textures, street art, and borders. Each module of the course incorporates the study of significant artists and techniques, together with practical exercises designed to stimulate students’ sensorial and artistic skills. The approach of this course is based on experiencing the city of Florence as the academic space for learning and engagement. Classes are not held in a traditional, frontal-style setting; each lesson is carefully mapped for curricular content and featured locations: lectures, observations, exercises, analysis, and reflections on presented topics are held in relevant sites that are accounted for in the academic planning, syllabus, and related course material. Coursework and submissions will be regularly assessed on the MyFUA platform through daily assignments in addition to exams, papers, and projects. Learning through the on-site classroom approach fosters a deeper understanding of the cultural environment of Florence and how it is related to the subject of study represented by the course, and allows the overall experience to contribute to the students' academic and personal enrichment.
3 semester credits. In this course, students will be introduced to foundational mixed media techniques; they will learn about common materials and how each media within the piece works and interacts with the others. Students will learn how to create a collage based on canvas, add texture with gesso, use stencils and stamps. In addition, students will have the opportunity to experiment with different types of acrylic paints, understand how they work and how they react when water is added. Students will learn which materials work well together and develop confidence in using the acquired knowledge when creating pieces in the future. Even the most inexperienced beginner will develop a new appreciation for the art form and will be encouraged to develop his or her own artistic style.
3 semester credits. Complex contemporary installations are mostly mixed media works. The course aims at instructing how to produce mixed media works which are an assemblage of different artistic languages such as video, photography, sound, sculpture, performance, painting, etc. The course will provide an introduction to the history of mixed media to understand how the discipline does not only revolve around artworks and materials, but how it also involves ideas, how they develop over time, and how the new concepts result from past experiences. Topics will discuss how productions are embedded into history and how artists react to events of historic significance. During the course, there will be a high concentration on student work to promote a strategy that develops manifold and viable expressions. Prerequisites: Studio, fine arts, and visual arts majors.
3 semester credits. Participation and sharing are current urgent issues of the contemporary art practices of our times, when the main outcome is not the production of the final aesthetic object or work of art but the work in progress, which involves dealing with sociology, anthropology, environment, and institutions. After the study of certain territories and conflicting realities, the artist becomes a producer of ideas and the conductor of behaviors and practices meant to stimulate consciousness and awareness. The direct participation of human resources, as well as the reliance on forces and materials available in situ, are often crucial for the success of such art projects. This course will examine specific works of older and younger generation of artists, from Christo and Jean Claude to Rirkrit Tiravanija and the Italians Alberto Garutti and Cesare Pietroiusti. It aims both at examining important projects of public art, social intervention, street art, happenings, and teaching the know-how behind those practices in order to arrive to the production of a project involving the public of Florence in different degrees. Prerequisites: Intermediate fine arts, art history, or visual arts course, or equivalent.