Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Thinking About Public Culture: Teddy Cruz

I think that while there is the need to figure out this mission statement / gentle manifesto, in a succinct manner, we also need to figure out its ‘operational’ dimension within the university’s structures and protocols of power, its politics and economics of development. The “how are we going to make this functional?” in terms of generating visibility, producing opportunities for development and gathering resources in the short and long term. So the fragments below oscillate between broad ‘content’ related intentions and specific procedures for action…

-Public Culture as a conceptual ‘framework’ to mediate across fragmented domains of expertise, institutions and sources of funding, bringing together new modes of inter-disciplinary research and strategies for development, in and out of the University.

-A ‘communicational system’ for the Visual Arts department to re-conceptualizing its internal conversation and its relationship to other departments, divisions and the broader public, institutions and agencies external to the university.
(To intensify our conversation with the world ‘out there,’ beyond the autonomy of our art studios, the gallery, the museum, and become more effective in generating change: producing new agencies, institutions, policies, models of possibility, primarily within current conditions of crisis.)

-Public Culture conceived as an instrument to produce new categories that are currently homeless in our curriculum and off the radar from institutions of representation and culture.

-New categories of practice and research that can re-define ‘community outreach’ as a tactical tool for intervention, making ‘research’ a tool not only for other researches, as is usually the case within academia, but primarily a political tool for community activists to transform social service and public culture into a practice of intervention. (Communities of practice)

-This suggests an intensified relationship between UCSD and the region it occupies. This promotes the possibility to bring the University to the community and the community to the University, transforming the globe, territory, city and neighborhood into research laboratories that take us beyond the local-global polarity. The ultimate potential here is to produce new critical interfaces between localities and the world. To USE our own border region (the radicalization of the local to produce new readings of the global) as experimental artistic laboratory remains our missed opportunity. Public Culture can be a way to problematize this polarization and negotiate new spaces of intervention between the local and the global, the high and the low, scholarly work and the public)

-As Grant Kester has written: Global warming is always seen exclusively as an environmental crisis… but it is primarily a CULTURAL crisis) This points at the need to establish a more radical and effective rapport with the public, to produce new cultural agency. Public Culture can be an instrument to produce critical interfaces between artistic specialization and the public… this suggest also intervention into the debate of the public and public debate. (No wonder technology and science get the big bucks in campus: because ‘they’ are actually ‘solving’ environmental crisis through their specialized research… ‘we’ artists are seen as flaky, dispensable, and superfluous in this context… Public Culture should legitimized the essential role of art practice and research in producing the critical link with the public that can allow the transformation of cultural paradigms… through pedagogy, collaboration, and mediation?)

-This includes Public Culture as the engine to generate new collaborations with bottom up neighborhood and community based social agencies, as well as top down political and economic institutions and structures. (To produce critical research into the complex range of forces that ‘make’ the public at different scales, across the city and the territory, and the policies and economies that shape them).

-An instrument to recruit practitioners and researchers that operate outside some of the main sectors of specialization of art and its normative institutions, in order to produce new connections and relationships inside and outside established academic categories.( New categories and spaces of intervention that problematize the relationship between fixed distinctions between ‘social life,’ ‘the public ’ and ‘artistic products.’

-A tool for producing new critical interfaces between art and urban and environmental policy and the creative re-organization of socio-political, economic and cultural forces shaping the contemporary city

-Enabling works and research that sees artistic production as way of producing social systems, interested in the mapping and production of conditions that can promote the intensification of social relations and public culture at the different scales of the territory, the city and the neighborhood.

-To promote a very different notion of public space, one that emerges at the intersection of the collaboration between a large research-based academic institution and a small community based, grass-roots project

-To frame current renewed, collective, inter-disciplinary desire to re-engage, redefine, and challenge the boundaries that simultaneously delimit and blur the diverse socio-cultural geographies of contemporary life by appropriating and recycling its fragmented histories and identities, spaces and situations.

FINALLY (for now): a more functional aspect about the Public Culture agenda, in terms of a short term, immediate plan of action… It can be conceived as a series of ‘pieces,’ as Steve put it… the pieces of cheese that incrementally will fuse into the pizza… an informal, loose aggregate of tactical projects… conceived as an ‘infrastructural umbrella’ that can ‘frame,’ support and advance many existing, on the ground, efforts that are currently in the department but lack the cohesive visibility to maximize their potential… and that can intensify the conversation across those efforts (projects, centers, institutes…) that, in turn, can produce new pedagogical projects, courses, collaborations, development, funding? Some of these pieces of cheese, efforts could include:

1. Producing a really hot website / media campaign that brings together all the projects currently on the ground… under one overarching ‘façade,’ allowing them to keep their autonomy but framing them as public culture… Among the many compelling projects and centers at work right now, I can add that Kyong and I are in the process of founding a think tank / laboratory on critical urbanism (too long to include here)… This will immediately allow us to have the level of visibility that we need to project ourselves more effectively across campus and for development efforts. This website would of course have the language we need to frame the public culture definition, etc…

2. Review the undergrad curriculum for new spaces of opportunity to produce new courses and clusters, etc…

3. The InSite archive possibility!

4. The PHD program on art practice, as an excuse to specifically recruit two ‘targeted’ characters that can also have visibility… and networks of connectivity…

Kyong Park

Public Culture as an art practice rooted in process, through research, participation and activism in social, cultural and environmental spaces. In the realm of research, Public Culture should operate by acquiring from multiple sources the informations, knowledges and assessments of contemporary culture derived from areas of economy, culture and society, with various derivates and overlaps between them. The 'sources' of Public Culture could be the physical and conceptual materials that operates outside the territories of arts, which are to become the fundamental elements from which the need, values and impact of art practice could be constructed. Once all this is completed and the work of art is made, it, or we, should then return to the territories and subjects of the source, under the term of collaborations, interventions and activism. But we should do so without dogmas, and be ready to transform our work according to the condition of applications or exercises.

Jordan Crandall: Practice

For me public culture practice is what which takes place in an expanded field of architectural, environmental, and urban sites, engaging dynamics of social interaction, community, and public discourse, involving various artistic and presentational strategies that can involve gallery or cultural institution sites but which are not fully contained in them.

Cauleen Smith: Practice

I’m hopeful that the practice of public culture in all of the iterations offered by fellow committee members can be made manifest in the way Visarts asserts itself on the campus and in the greater San Diego / La Jolla community.

On the campus, between studios, on the bus, in the bike lanes, at the city council meetings, in the canyons. I believe we gain immensely by allowing the local to be our laboratory and the launch pad for the global.

I understand that creating relationships and dialogs that span Latin America and Asia is imperative. I would like to suggest that demonstrating the ways in which research, collaboration and production really do create moments of destabilization, and therefore opportunities for reflection and communication in public life must happen here, in San Diego/La Jolla, well.

I’ve noticed that this kind of work is fruitful and engaging when there are opportunities to contribute on both ends – the high/expert and the low/amateur. An openness to the ways in which the “greater public” are actually needed in order for public art to “work”, we are not solely making work for the legacy of our sponsors/benefactors/institutional umbrellas. I think public culture should really in fact be public.

Adriene Jenik: Practice

I have always conceived of my work in relation to a public. Like epoxy that only forms its bonding substance once two substances are combined, much of my work only comes to life once it is enacted within the public sphere. My art is meant to serve as a catalyst for discussion and debate and I try and make work that can involve and engage the very young and very old as well as the many of us in between. Often the work is located within a public space and arrives unannounced, having to negotiate those people in that space on their terms (or fail). Much of the work is multi-lingual and offers multiple points of entry. Much of it is live. Free and Open to the Public is a recurring tagline. Utilizing "high-technology" as subject matter, medium and distribution mechanism at once, I hope to inspire new types of exchange that help question the social seductions and cultural impact of these very tools.

The production process is completely iterative; I make a show in public, evaluate the project in relation to its ability to activate this public, and then do another version, or project.

I'm interested in understanding this iterative research method much more deeply, and developing methods of observation and analysis to assist in creating work that has significant impact and can be scaled in various ways.

Grant Kester: Practices

My research interests in Public Culture are based primarily on my efforts over the past twenty years to develop a critical and theoretical framework for the interpretation of socially engaged and collaborative art practices, with a specific emphasis on performance-based work. This research is presented in the publications Art, Activism and Oppositionality: Essays from Afterimage (Duke University Press, 1997), Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art (University of California Press, 2004, Chinese translation 2007) and my forthcoming book The One and the Many: Agency and Identity in Contemporary Collaborative Art, along with the exhibition and catalog for Groundworks: Environmental Collaboration in Contemporary Art (Carnegie Mellon University, 2005). I’m currently researching collaborative projects in Senegal, Myanmar, Germany, Peru, Brazil, and India. My research overlaps with issues and methodologies in theater studies, sociology, urban studies, anthropology and communications (I’m speaking at the Yale School of Drama this spring and have been invited to next year’s Community Theater Festival in Amsterdam). As part of the Public Culture initiative I would suggest making contact with the UCSD Theater and Communications departments in particular (and possibly sociology). I have a long-term interest in bringing the Public Culture emphasis into the Ph.D. program more fully, possibly through the creation of a special concentration devoted to the development of new methodologies for the analysis of collaborative, collective and activist art practices. It’s one of my long-standing contentions that existing theoretical approaches in art and media history are ill equipped to address collaborative and participatory practice. I’d like to eventually establish a more formal framework for this investigation in the Ph.D. program in order to attract graduate students, develop off-campus opportunities for field work and mentorships, and to attract extramural support for publications, symposia and fellowships.

Possible Parameters for Public Culture

from VIS 219 (WI08)

by Kyong Park

February 10, 2008

Thanks to C, M, K and F for their wonderful presentations about your own works, giving me some starting points from which we could begin to outline the parameters, domains and processes of Public Culture. I am also looking forward to next week’s presentation from J, CL and K, and B [optional to him]. I should first say what I mean by parameters, domains and processes in regards to Public Culture.

Let's consider Public Culture as having some spatial characteristics, or atleast figurative features that could help us identify it in some tangible way. Such structurally minded visualization might be helpful for us, so that we can better engage and explore the term Public Culture that I feel remains undefined. For instance, ‘parameter’ could suggest that there is a boundary or distinction between what is Public Culture and what is not, granted that I prefer that such boundaries remain permeable, movable and transformative. A boundary that is flexible and overlapping with other sets of territories.

‘Domain’ then could be a territory within Public Culture that enables us to configure and critique it within itself, about its own performances and nature, without considering what lies beyond it. It is the sovereignty that gives the consensus and contentions within Public Culture, for the purpose of its own developments and responsibility as a particular field or practice of art. Obviously, parameter and domain of Public Culture would be associative to each other, and their relational status would help to define both independently.

‘Process,’ on the other hand, suggests that Public Culture is something that evolves, never permanently fixed as an artifact nor as a subject. This may be because the subjects, or the contents, of Public Culture are constantly changing under the influence of time or places. Few examples on the dynamic condition of Public Culture could be the trends of popular media, advancing technologies or the global economy. Of course both parameter and domain of Public Culture are subjected to similar dynamic conditions.

But more importantly, process is also about the methodology through which we can begin to understand, respond or even make Public Culture, at least in the form of art. Moreover, this also suggests that the work within research or expressions, or about theories and criticism, of Public Culture is process-based, and arguably that its expressions are in the form of process only, leaving no distinctive object of art behind. In addition, “process’ is an element that can bridge and combine ‘parameter’ and “domain’ of Public Culture, with process as a key instrument that can migrate between them.

Let me say that these three spatial characteristics of Public Culture coincide with the subtitle of this course EXCLUSION/INCLUSION/FLOW, respectively. And I also think that these three spatial characteristics of Public Culture could collaborate to form a fundamental and formalistic structure from which various issues and subjects of Public Culture can be analyzed more effectively. Imagine that they together outline the board game of a 3-dimensional chess game within—not upon—the vital ‘features’ of Public Culture could functionally coerce or align.

My open assessment on Public Culture embraces various and particular statements on Public Culture that you [the students] have blogged onto our web site so far. Each has its own legitimate concerns, but they are mostly about issues that could be entertained in the parameter and domain of Public Culture. However, we need, for the moment, separate ourselves from the multiplicity of issues in order to discuss the fundamental clauses of Public Culture. To do so, I suggest we use the notion of ‘features’ in Public Culture, which also rises from various concerns you raised last week

CONTEXTUAL
Although C may feel that his work has been overly determined by contextual concerns, I continue to think that context is a vital resource for Public Culture. But what are the forms of context in Public Culture, meaning in physical or metaphysical, social or personal, and visual or textual terms for examples? For C, they seem to be cultural and urban landscapes, and predominantly physically based. For K, Internet social culture was one of her context, but also territorial social culture was important to her, asking why she, as a white American, would have the legitimacy to do work about Tijuana culture. The boundary between normality and exceptions in sexuality, or the conflict from UCSD on his web site location seemed to form a strong context for M. Meanwhile the presence of social and political expressions that challenges the normality in urban spaces were some of the resources for F’s works. In all cases, contexts were importance source and reason for ensuing artistic processes.

RESEARCH
Some think that research is an essential domain of Public Culture. This suggests that art can work as an instrument for knowledge construction, and not necessarily—even not at all—a pure aesthetic expeditions on cognitive visual experiences by, and for, an heighten individuality. I emphasize individuality here to contrast with the notion of research in Public Culture implies that the subject of work is greater than the artist alone, and assumes to be social or communal. Then is the boundary of research in Public Culture to be found along the line that distinguishes what is self and social? But can a self and the social ever shared a common domain in Public Culture?

SOCIAL
CL wondered if the domain of Public Culture must always have a social issue, context or purpose. And some reputed art of Public Culture have lead to comments like “art is not a social work,” absurd yet a case for a debate on parameter and domain of Public Culture. Furthermore, I tend to think that M’s erotic web site is a socially engaging practice, or at least poses a question on social normality; even it may not be classified as your ordinary social work. What needs to be questioned then is the domain of social, or more precisely the domain of society, as it itself is being changed by new social constructions from the Internet community. Here, the boundary between personal and social overlaps, as one can be completely self and unique and yet still project themselves to the society of similar self or shared interests, not to mention that all this can be done completely within traditionally anti-social spaces; alone to be together. This creates new sets of subculture, as well as some of the more private component of societal structure becoming more public. This suggests that the support for Public Culture may not be just about defense of public sphere from its totally privatization, but also reconfiguration of the parameters and domains of public and private. Therefore, critical re-assessment of contemporary state of society is necessary for the subsequent construction of Public Culture

COLLABORATIONS
Often art in Public Culture assumes the requirement to collaborate with others, such as organizations, communities, governmental agencies, NGOs, or even corporations. This leads to the importance of dialogues with others, outside between me, I and myself. If so, then what are the benefit of collaboration with those outside of art community, and can such acts improves the activities and significance of art in public and how?

INTERDISCIPLINARY
Another form of collaboration or dialogues can occur between disciplines of higher educations, researches and studies. For instance, I am looking forward to the future chance of collaborating with other departments and schools at UCSD, such as sociology, history, anthropology, geography, economics, political science and so on, or virtually every disciplines, depending on particular needs of my projects. This also is one of the main ideas behind the creation of Public Culture initiative by this department. And I agree that the benefit of interdisciplinary collaboration is about the chance to construct some practical application of arts in society—in an expanded sense of it—as well as to enlarge the terrain of resources for domain of art in Public Culture. Furthermore, interdisciplinary collaboration creates the condition of relativity within arts, which can help to expand the process and product of arts.

LANGUAGE
Personally, art in Public Culture is a language, a visual one that can extend human knowledge and communication beyond the limitation of text-based language—the intention of original makers of Virtual Reality systems, for example. Even the tradition of absolute, individualized, authentic and unique arts could also be looked as a visual language after all, from its condition of being a form of expression, regardless to their overwhelmingly subjective nature, or as a commodity for privileged ownership and investment within the contemporary hyper art markets. Yet, my view of art as a visual language is about the one that can operate in cross disciplinary mode, between, and within, the fields of studies that are largely of text-based investigations in writings and data. Graphic illustrations and charts used in other fields are the initial indicators of the need to visualize our knowledge. Data mining, information design and dynamic mappings are some of the more current examples in the urgency to visually present, or to navigate through, information over load resulting from the recent advancements in technological tools. Art, together with architecture, is the preeminent visual language that can serve well both as a language and mediating tools for interdisciplinary collaborations.

I hope that the above list of what I defined as the “feature” of art in Public Culture can set certain structure for our course, and its investigation of WHAT IS PUBLIC CULTURE? However, one fundamental question is if Public Culture is a theory and practice of art?

For this, we should first note that Public Culture is titled differently from Public Art or Art in Public Places, two previous but now ineffective practice of art in relation to the public. For instance, the preciseness of the term “Art in Public Places” literally specifies that this type of art be located in places that are open to the public use. Beyond this initiating protocol, the practice was quiet lenient as to if these work really did had any context, research and process that occurred within the public realm at all. The demise of Art in Public Places may be from the fact it really did not make art anymore public beyond a transition from equestrian statue to so-called “turd in plaza,” and did not change nor innovate art itself. An example of this is Richard Serra’s “Titled Arc” at the Foley Square in New York City that was removed due to public complaint. This was proven as his work since then found better ‘homes’ amongst museums, collections and private commissions.

Public Art, as a term, is comparably less defined. Dropping the location judgment of Art in Public Places, it became more open to a much broader theory and practice of public art, you might say. Without a precise definition on its domain, Public Culture, by a chance, may have given us a necessary period of theoretical gestation for art of public relevancy to become less formalistic and absolute. Indecisiveness about itself has allowed a wide range of practices toward the idea of process, including ephemeral existence of art. The importance of research of context and subjects also gained importance, along the line of engagement of artists within larger social and physical territories, such as communities, cities and global, and ‘interventions’ occupied a household position in Public Art. In return, through the enlargement of artistic practices, and subsequent migration of aesthetics into other territories of knowledge and practices—social and community works for instance—Public Art also lost the defensible ‘parameter’ of itself, leading to the end of its relevance. With the dissolving of Public Art into other domains, it is now reasonable for art begin to speak about Public Culture, a complete adoption of art by culture.

Therefore, Public Culture, at present time, is very nebulous idea in regard to art, leaving us out in the open as to how art would find a place in Public Culture. My point is that Public Culture is not exclusively about a theory and practice of art, rather it is a much larger notion in which art must find its role as a participant, along with other disciplines. And its quiet possible that even the notion of Public and Culture should be examined separately, followed with the relational understanding between them, before we could construct the full potential of what Public Culture could become.

ISSUES [points or matters in debate, for examples]
SUBJECTS [person, object or places, for examples]

CITIES
This is an important ‘subject’ for my own work. Although it may not be qualify as an independent ‘feature’ of art, it certainly is in Public Culture. Its ability to be relational to all ‘features’ Public Culture, makes city function as a fundamental territory in which all human activities and knowledge can be found; more specifically, in the realms of culture, economy and politics. In addition, city is incredible cinema that is grandly present in fully 3- dimensional, with constantly changing backgrounds, colors, audio and scents, not to mention that all actors in this movie is fully interactive and dangerously live. For me, it is the greatest visual project ever created, possibly even forever. If not, then it is the foremost form of Public Culture.

City is also the most relevant and truthful document of our history in progress, as it remains unedited by historical or political manipulations. The destruction or modification of historical or political edifices within the city self-records such act, thus leaving nothing hidden, as we navigate through our past, present and future in a timeless state, but in real-time. Thus, it is no surprise that art has taken increasing engagement with the notion of city and urban landscape, through the curatorial works of Catherine David, Okwui Enwezor, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Hou Hanru, including your dear professor.

Public Culture Program Initiative

by Grant Kester

2006

The Visual Arts Department proposes a new area of specialization for its degree programs. This area of specialization in “public culture” will add to the Department’s existing degree programs in media, studio, computing, and art history. It will include course offerings at the undergraduate, graduate, and PhD levels.

This specialization in public culture is intended to address a growing need. A growing number of artists and critics are interested in public space, or urban space, as a site of investigation. These individuals are interested in developing new kinds of interventions in the physical space of the city, and in the social networks and media pathways through which people communicate and build communities. They often do not orient their work toward the traditional venues for art presentation, such as the gallery/museum system or the film and video circuit. Rather, they are interested in working in social and environmental settings, moving across the divides between public and private space. They are interested in developing new forms of public engagement, new communications infrastructures, and new contexts for public intervention. These individuals are often interested in developing collaborative working methods. They often work with people from other disciplines such as architecture, literature, and the social sciences.

This area of specialization in public culture is also intended to allow entry into current debates on globalization, urban visual culture, and translocality, which in many ways are helping to shape new historical and critical contexts for art practice. Many of these debates derive from a non-Western perspective and offer a challenge to Western narratives of modernity. This area of specialization is also intended to build on historical discourses dealing with public art, activism, and the politics of the public sphere. It therefore re-activates and extends these historical traditions.

This area of specialization is highly resonant given the unique history of the Visual Arts Department. The faculty and emeritus faculty of the Department have a strong history in pioneering new forms of art practice along with new critical and theoretical contexts for such work, which include the engagement of new audiences outside of traditional art contexts. Often, as is the case with founders such as Alan Kaprow and Helen and Newton Harrison, this has included movement into social and environmental space. The Department is dedicated to the facilitation of cross-genre and cross-disciplinary working methods, which is extremely important given the hybrid nature of contemporary urban forms. It is uniquely positioned to offer this specialization. New faculty hires for the specialization in public culture are anticipated to include a theorist/practitioner who works across visual art, architecture, and urban studies; a historian/theorist whose research focuses on architecture and urban space; and an artist who works within the genre of “tactical media” (a combination of visual art, media, networking, and politics). A range of taught courses will be added to the curriculum whose topics will include urban visual studies, new social and spatial theories, critical geography, network architectures, globalism, public art, independent media strategy, urban theory, visual anthropology, and critical network cultures.

Proposal for a Public Culture Major

by Louise Hock

April 25, 2006

OVERVIEW: The Visual Arts Department proposes a new major within its undergraduate degree program. This area of specialization in public culture will add to the Department’s existing Majors in media, studio, computing, and art history. While not offering a distinct course of study at the graduate level at this time, public culture as a topic will be emphasized through its regular course offerings at the MFA and PhD levels.

This specialization in public culture is intended to address a growing need in two particular areas. A number of artists and critics are interested in public space, or urban space, as a site of investigation. Another group is interested in addressing the culture of unbuilt space or the natural environment as location for investigation utilizing an aesthetic methodology. The thrust of the latter’s work is often centered on human incursion into the unbuilt environment, using historic, contemporary, and future time frames. These two distinct but complementary engagements with public space form the two areas of Emphasis within the proposed Public Culture Major.

The artists and scholars interested in the built environment seek to develop new kinds of interventions in the physical space of the city, and in the social networks and media pathways through which people communicate and build communities. They often do not orient their work toward the traditional venues for art presentation, such as the gallery/museum system or the film and video circuit. Rather, they are interested in working in social and environmental settings, moving across the divides between public and private space. They are interested in developing new forms of public engagement, new communications infrastructures, and new contexts for public intervention.

Both of the Emphasis share an interest in developing collaborative working methods as process of both investigation and production. They also both tend to work outside of the traditional modes for artistic production and exhibition, often working directly at and within the investigative site rather than abstracting the information and presenting it within an institutionalized setting. Both of the Emphasis often work with people from other disciplines such as architecture, literature, engineering, and the social and natural sciences.

This area of specialization in public culture is also intended to allow entry into current debates on globalization, urban visual culture, and translocality, which in many ways are helping to shape new historical and critical contexts for art practice. Many of these debates derive from a non-Western perspective and offer a challenge to Western narratives of modernity.

This area of specialization is also intended to build on historical discourses dealing with public art, activism, and the politics of the public sphere. It therefore re-activates and extends these historical traditions. This area of specialization is highly resonant given the unique history of the Visual Arts Department. The faculty and emeritus faculty of the Department have a strong history in pioneering new forms of art practice along with new critical and theoretical contexts for such work, which include the engagement of new audiences outside of traditional art contexts. Often, as is the case with founders such as Alan Kaprow and Helen and Newton Harrison, this has included movement into social and environmental space. The Department is dedicated to the facilitation of cross-genre and cross-disciplinary working methods, which is extremely important given the hybrid nature of contemporary urban and environmental forms. It is uniquely positioned to offer this specialization.

RESOURCES: There are numerous current faculty in the Department now active in the area of public culture in their research. This vital group with their broad interests creates the foundation for the Major. They include Ricardo Domiguez’s collaborative internet incursions into the political sphere, Amy Alexander and Adriene Jenik’s work engagement with internet culture, Brett Stalbaum’s environmental re-mapping, Jordon Crandall’s internet salons, Ruben Ortiz-Torres’s cultural reflections of Latin America in the southern California, Louis Hock’s collaborative public art interventions, and Natalie Jeremijenko’s technological/ environmental demonstration projects. The group also includes two art historians/theoreticians: Grant Kester, whose recent scholarship has been keenly centered on artistic political and environmental art collaborations and Lesley Stern who has been working in the area of both collaborative theater in Zimbabwe and the culture of urban gardening. In 2005 we hired architect and urbanist Teddy Cruz, whose tactical intervention into the local infrastructure and practice of public space, were internationally recognized. As a theorist/practitioner, his area of his research was unique to our program and critical to compliment the existing faculty in the development of the Public Culture Major. We plan to use him to teach the keystone lower division introductory course. Additionally, our next departmental hire will be a historian/theorist in public culture whose research focuses on architecture, urban space, and globalization. Our current faculty with the addition of these two new hires will form a critical mass in terms of faculty number and coverage of the public culture topic. Additionally, the Major will not only use the faculty and courses within the Visual Arts Department, rather, the curriculum will draw on relevant concentrations of study in other disciplines across the academic spectrum at UCSD. A distinct characteristic of the Major for both Emphasis will be an off-campus research component as part of their senior thesis project work. In this way the Major will engage the community as an educational resource.