Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

Course Outlines

Fall 2025 - CA 186 E100

Art and the Moving Image (3)

Class Number: 6199

Delivery Method: In Person

Overview

  • Course Times + Location:

    Sep 3 – Dec 2, 2025: Tue, 5:30–7:20 p.m.
    GOLDCORP

  • Exam Times + Location:

    Dec 8, 2025
    Mon, 7:00–8:30 p.m.
    GOLDCORP

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Introduces the many ways artists have employed moving images across artistic disciplines. By the completion of the course students should have a good sense of both the historical innovations and traditions in moving-image arts as well as the use of moving images in the contemporary art scene.

COURSE DETAILS:

Instructor:                                 Dr. Laura U. Marks, www.sfu.ca/~lmarks

                                                      lmarks@sfu.ca

                                                      Office hours: Thursdays 10:00-12:00 and by appointment

Teaching assistants TBA

 

This course introduces artists and scholars in the fine and performing arts to some of the wonderful ways you can think with and through recorded, time-based, audiovisual media. In lecture, students will encounter great works from around the world and learn concepts and methods that will help you get the most out of moving-image media. In tutorials, students will practices these approaches in intensive engagement with the works. We will orient our investigation around perception, the body, and movement. Key terms include embodiment, empathy, seeing and hearing, components of the audiovisual moving image, rhythm, indexicality, pleasure, performance, materiality, information, environment, and imagination. You will make a low-impact, small-file video of less than 1.44 megabytes per minute!

Students with credit for FPA 186 may not take this course for further credit.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

By the end of the course, students should be able to:

analyze moving-image works with close attention to audiovisual form and in light of course concepts and approaches;

identify important historical movements and works;

build an argument in a simply structured essay;

create a small-file video.

Grading

  • In-class film analysis 10%
  • Test 1 10%
  • Small-file video 10%
  • Test 2 10%
  • In-class essay 15%
  • FInal exam 30%
  • Attendance and participation 15%

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

Nathaniel Dorsky, Devotional Cinema, revised third edition (Tuumba Press, 2005). In SFU bookstore

Readings available on course Canvas site or through SFU Library site


ISBN: 193115712X

REQUIRED READING NOTES:

Your personalized Course Material list, including digital and physical textbooks, are available through the SFU Bookstore website by simply entering your Computing ID at: shop.sfu.ca/course-materials/my-personalized-course-materials.

Registrar Notes:

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: YOUR WORK, YOUR SUCCESS

At SFU, you are expected to act honestly and responsibly in all your academic work. Cheating, plagiarism, or any other form of academic dishonesty harms your own learning, undermines the efforts of your classmates who pursue their studies honestly, and goes against the core values of the university.

To learn more about the academic disciplinary process and relevant academic supports, visit: 


RELIGIOUS ACCOMMODATION

Students with a faith background who may need accommodations during the term are encouraged to assess their needs as soon as possible and review the Multifaith religious accommodations website. The page outlines ways they begin working toward an accommodation and ensure solutions can be reached in a timely fashion.