R.E.M. is a favorite band for plenty of music lovers worldwide, but students attending New York University are listening to former frontman Michael Stipe in a different capacity this fall as a professor.
Stipe, an avid lover of visual art, is leading the class New Sights, New Noise at a space in the Big Apple that serves as a "studio, classroom, and laboratory," Billboard reports. The class runs through Nov. 8 and features a guest artist/cultural figure, which Stipe most definitely knows many. Students receive a prompt for each session and are charged with the task of creating 100 images and gifs revolving around the given theme.
The most current prompt for this week's class titled "Invisible Information-ation-ation" is certainly no easy project. Students have to create 100 works using only this message to get them started: "the glut and onslaught of information made available by the internet, often without context or authorship; the disproportionate and impulsive reactions that it provokes, and the reckless cynicism of a 24-hour news cycle."
Visitors will be allowed to view the work held at 80 WSE Gallery when it's completed.
According to R.E.M.'s website, Stipe attended the University of Georgia and studied photography and painting before he formed the band. In 1975, Stipe became thoroughly interested in music after one of his favorite albums was released.
"Stipe has taken photographs consistently since the age of fourteen, one year prior to the 1975 release of Patti Smith's first album, Horses, which he cites as the creative epiphany that lead him to pursue music," the website states. "In 1995 he met Smith for the first time, soon after turning to photography to document her daily life as she toured the country after a nearly twenty-year hiatus from performing."
For updates on the class, visit the university's website.
