Hello students of Site Dance 2014!
This is my small welcome to Stephan’s big, amazing MOOC. I took this course last year and was blown away by how powerfully engaged he was able to be even in such a massive course. This year I’m lucky to be back as one of 11 Community TAs (CTAs).
BTW since we live in this “virtual” time of 2014, I should mention that I’m an Avatar and that for the past 5-1/2 years the Site Work I’ve done has been with avatars performing at virtual sites. This project began in April ’09 with Site Specific Performance Art works, and over time my practice has evolved to Public Art works that engage participants in expressing their virtual identity.
- Vanessa Blaylock Company / Performance Art portfolio
- Vanessa Blaylock Company / Public Art portfolio
MOOC Magazine
I’ve participated in a handful of MOOCs in the past few years, and another project I participated in earlier this year was the launch of MOOC Magazine. The first issue of MOOC Magazine was focused on the student output in another very compelling MOOC, Warhol MOOC, from Glyn Davis at the University of Edinburg.
Our idea was that students do so much compelling work in these MOOCs, but that that work is a little bit silo’d inside the MOOC itself. So MOOC Magazine is a chance to feature some of the projects that students create in these classes.
I’d like to invite you to contribute to the Site Dance issue of MOOC Magazine! For Warhol MOOC, since it was an art history course, the contributions were all essays. Here in Site Dance, you might like to contribute text, or a photo essay, or a production video. If you’re interested let me know, and we can talk about your work and what you’d like to contribute to the magazine.
Submission Guidelines
You can submit works in Text, Photo, Video, Audio. If you’ve got another format, LMK!
While your previous site work is definitely interesting, to make this issue of MOOC Magazine most about our experience of Stephan Koplowitz’ Creating Site-Specific Dance and Performance Works from CalArts / Coursera, we should focus on work you create during our time together.
DEADLINE: Monday 10 November ’14, 11pm California Time (7am Tue GMT)
SEND MATERIALS TO: vanessa at blaylock dot nl
- TEXT: Pasting your text in the body of your email is probably easiest. .RTF is good. Open Office Docs, Google Docs, MS Word Docs, and PDF Docs will also work. Probably any format you have will work. But pasting your text in the body of your email is probably easiest.
- PHOTOS: Attach to email
- VIDEOS: Upload to Vimeo or YouTube and give the URL in your email.
- AUDIO: Upload to CC Mixter or SoundCloud and give the URL in your email.
Things to include that we WILL PUBLISH
1. Your name & names of any cast members
2. Your URL (website, portfolio, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, wherever you’d like visitors to find you) & URLs of cast members
3. Name, Location & URL of venue if applicable
4. A brief bio about You and/or Your Company
5. Introduction – unnecessary if your work includes text, but if it’s a media only submission, a few sentences of intro text would help visitors site your activity
Things to include that we WILL NOT PUBLISH
1. Your email
Other questions? Just shout right here in the Forum!
Enjoy the MOOC!
I hope you have a great experience here in Stephan’s Site Dance MOOC! Whether you are advancing a long time career in Site Work, or dipping your toe in for the first time, I think you’ll find a lot of great resources, inspired classmates, new ideas, and plenty of motivation here! I look forward to interacting with you in the course forums, and perhaps helping you prepare a piece for MOOC Magazine.
Best Regards,
— Vanessa