FS30320 Punk, Cult and Video Art

Academic Year 2024/2025

This module explores the key subcultural forms and methods of screen media production, providing an overview of underground movements in film and video art. It introduces students the artistic categories of screen media that have largely been associated with subcultural concepts, such as punk, trash, underground, experimental and cult. Through looking into ritualistic, low-budget, improvisational and collective aspects of video production, we will explore the relationship between cult film culture (a.k.a. “bad films” fandom), underground cinemas and a selected number of influential art movements and subcultures. We will see that the concept of “video art” serves as a conceptual bridge between these seemingly separate sectors of screen media. Engaging with various forms of art film, trash film and videos alongside theoretical texts, we will simultaneously practice creating visual media with punk filmmaking methods, such as collage, pastiche, parody and asynchronous sound-image.

Note: the content of this module is provocative by definition. Students are advised that there will be challenges to sensibility and confrontation of taboo subjects from start to finish. Disturbance is inherent.

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Curricular information is subject to change

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of the module, students will be able to:
- Demonstrate critical understanding of a range of subcultural screen media through written and verbal language
- Develop an understanding of the economic and historical intersections between European art movements, subcultures, avant-garde cinema and video art
- Demonstrate writing skills that engage with theoretical materials around the concepts of marginalization, canonization, mainstream and underground cultures
- Channel knowledge gained from primary and secondary material into creative work, class participation and writing
- Demonstrate knowledge in creative methods of underground media by creating proof of concepts

Indicative Module Content:

Indicative Topics
Cult, Culture, Subculture
Paracinema and Fandom
Parody, Irony, Camp
Feminist Structuralism
Self-Reflexivity, Collectivity, Individualism
Trash Cinema
Blaxploitation
Cult Cinema
Eurotrash and Surrealism
Rip-offs

Indicative Textbooks
Barefoot, Guy. Trash Cinema: The Lure of the Low. Columbia University Press, 2017.
Garfield, Rachel. Experimental Filmmaking & Punk: Feminist Audio Visual Culture in the 1970s and 1980s. Bloomsbury, 2022. (Introduction and Chapter 1)
Hawkins, Joan. Downtown Film and TV Culture 1975-2001, University of Chicago Press, 2015.
Hunter, I. Q. Cult Film as a Guide to Life: Fandom, Adaptation, and Identity. Bloomsbury, 2015.
Laderman, David. Punk Slash! Musicals: Tracking Slip-Sync on Film. University of Texas Press, 2011.
Mathijs, Ernest, and Jamie Sexton. The Routledge Companion to Cult Cinema. Wallflower Press, 2004.
Rees, A.L. A History of Experimental Film and Video. 1999. BFI Publishing, 2005.
Rombes, Nicholas. New Punk Cinema. Edinburgh University Press, 2005.
Sconce, Jeffrey. Sleaze Artists: Cinema at the Margins of Taste, Style, and Politics. Duke University Press, 2007.
Thorne, Tony. Dictionary of Contemporary Slang. Pantheon, 1990.

Student Effort Hours: 
Student Effort Type Hours
Lectures

24
Laboratories

24
Specified Learning Activities

60
Autonomous Student Learning

100
Total

208
Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
This module will be taught on the basis of one weekly two hour teaching session and one weekly two hour screening session. Running times will vary. Viewer discretion is advised for all module content. The material is consciously provocative by definition. 
Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Not applicable to this module.
 
Assessment Strategy  
Description Timing Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade In Module Component Repeat Offered
Individual Project: Proposal Presentation for a punk project. This will take the form of a mood board presented in-class as a powerpoint or other electronic format. It would have a thematic and methodological focus. Week 6 Graded No

20

 No
Assignment(Including Essay): Short, topic-based essay (approx 1500 words) reflecting on theoretical reading and critical thinking throughout the module. Week 8 Graded No

30

 No
Assignment(Including Essay): This will be a Proof of Concept which will reflect on and revise the project proposed earlier in the course. Week 14 Graded No

50

 No

Carry forward of passed components
Yes
 
Resit In Terminal Exam
Spring No
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 
Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
• Group/class feedback, post-assessment

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Students will receive feedback and provisional grading using Brightspace. Group feedback will occur in-class through discussion.