ARTH 290: Making Material Histories

Professor Maggie Cao

Spring 2018

Tuesdays & Thursdays 2-3:15

Hanes Art Center 117

Clay, wood, cloth, glass, steel, and plastic. We interact with these materials every day, but rarely do we think about their properties and histories. This course explores the history and technology of materials and the ways they have impacted art, culture, and science. The course fully integrates historical scholarship and experiential making. Students engage both with the physical and chemical properties of materials through hands-on manipulation and fabrication at BeAM, studios, and laboratories across campus and study the historical and with theoretical debates surrounding material invention and use by artists, architects, scientists, and industries. How did the artisanal race to produce Asian porcelain in the eighteenth-century West impact the history of globalization? How did the wide adoption of plate glass in modern architecture alter social relations in the built environment? How will 3D printing technologies expand the potential uses of plastics in realms from fashion to weaponry?