The World of the Artist – Jack B. Yeats Studio

This session uses the contents of Jack B. Yeats’s studio, now in the National Gallery of Ireland, and the prominent paintings by the artist in the collection of the Gallery, to show how Art History analyses visual material and documents to understand how artists work, what sources and ideas they use, how artworks are made and how they come into the collections of major museums.  This is a whistlestop tour of the practice of one of Ireland’s most exciting, diverse and challenging  artists, offering you an insight into the discipline of Art History and how it works in actuality.

History and Humour

This session will be about the historical use of humour to speak truth to power. We will investigate the ways satire has been deployed to draw attention to the issues of the day, along with historical forms of mockery and lampooning as a form of protest. Humour is a tricky weapon in that it can be used to punch up, as well as down. And the deeper into the past we go, the more likely it becomes that we may no longer get the joke. We will therefore look at the importance of providing historical context in order to understand how, why, and if something is funny. In exploring historical uses of humour, we will also encounter the range of source materials at a historian’s disposal, from illustrations and written essays, to film, songs, and memes.

Video Games and the Meaning of Choice

The way that video games work and the way we play them communicates something important about the society we live in. In this session, we will explore how video games are designed to offer choices and how these choices carry underlying messages about social values we often take for granted. We will play a selection of games, talk about how they work, and explore how the choices we make tell us about technology, consumer culture, and capitalism.