IT'S ABOUT TIME!
Workshops in Time-based Media (TBM) Art Conservation

ART WITH A PLUG
Introduction to Electricity and Electronics

January 14-17, 2019
NYU Integrated Digital Media
MAGNET
8th Floor, Room 817
2 MetroTech Center
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Description

This four-day course will provide an introduction to electricity and electronics in the context of modern and contemporary art. Topics will include: basic principles of electricity, power supplies, soldering, circuits, circuit schematics, and components such as resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors, and motors. Also included will be an introduction to programming microcontrollers and the operation of electronic test equipment, such as digital multimeters, oscilloscopes, and sensors.

Course content and level of instruction are aimed at emerging or already established conservation professionals who are confronted by electric and electronic components in artworks. The workshop will consist of hands-on lab work, lectures, directed discussions of case studies, and conversations with artists.

Participants will gain practical knowledge of basic electric, electronics, physics, and programming concepts, as well as an elementary understanding of coding. Attendees will become familiar with the core components of a computer, as well as commonly encountered equipment such as projectors (slide, film, video), speakers, lights, microphones, foot pads, cameras, motion sensors, motors, and transformers. The workshop will give participants guidance to safely install artworks and to develop preservation strategies.

Enrollment in ART WITH A PLUG – Introduction to Electricity and Electronics is limited to twelve participants for all four days. The workshop is tuition-free, thanks to generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Participants are responsible for all other expenses.

Organizers

The Institute of Fine Arts (IFA) at New York University is an international leader in research and graduate teaching, and committed to global engagement and advancing the fields of art history, archaeology, and the theory and practice of conservation. Founded in 1960 as part of the IFA, the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU is the oldest degree-granting graduate program in art conservation in the United States. The Conservation Center offers a four-year, dual MA/MS graduate degree combining training in art conservation with historical, archaeological, curatorial, and scientific studies. The new specialty in Time-based Media Art Conservation was launched in January 2018.

The It’s About Time! Workshops in Time-based Media (TBM) Art Conservation series is part of a project on Time-based Media Art Conservation Education and Training funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Dr. Hannelore Roemich, TBM Program Director and Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Conservation, and Christine Frohnert, Research Scholar and TBM Program Coordinator, at the Conservation Center, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

This workshop is conceived in cooperation with the Tandon School of Engineering, NYU, and is planned to be offered annually over the course of the next four years. The instructors are experienced educators, engineers, and artists, working and researching in the intersection of art & technology.

Instructors and Local Hosts

Scott Fitzgerald, Assistant Industry Professor of Integrated Digital Media, Co-Director of IDM and IDM Online, Tandon School of Engineering, NYU
David Rios, Artist and Educator, Faculty at ITP, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU