Artful Didactics

'Artful' isn't what comes immediately to mind when you think of PowerPoint-based lectures, unless you really enjoy stilted motion graphics and pie charts. But some artists have found creative potential for the presentation-enhancing software, like David Byrne's recent 'Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information' and the Yes Men's performative impersonations of the WTO. Portland, Oregon-based artist Amos Latteier has also found that PowerPoint lectures can be critically-engaging and artful. His PowerPoints anchor lectures analyzing the human face as a communication machine and overviews of the different uses of the word 'model.' With these unlikely topics, Latteier's absurdist lectures question the arbitrary, yet powerful, systems of classification that govern both the mundane and spectacular. From his web site, you can view the lecture on models and other projects such as photography created with pigeons. Don't forget to take notes. -Ryan Griffis