UNITED IN ANGER: A HISTORY OF ACT UP STUDY GUIDE

UNIT 5: PROJECTS AND EXERCISES

Individual/Group Project #1: Becoming and Art Critic: Listening to Gran Fury in Their Own Words
 Early on, when the messages of the AIDS crisis were simpler, Gran Fury could successfully use the mode of advertising to convey its message. But by 1995 as the crisis became more complex, Gran Fury found that advertising was “unable to communicate the complexities of AIDS issues,” a position explained in a farewell essay “Good Luck…Miss You.”

Members of Gran Fury reunited for a group interview with art historian Douglas Crimp in contemporary art magazine Artforum in 2003.  Read the interview to get a more thorough sense of Gran Fury’s origins, role, and aesthetic philosophy.

Now return to the Gran Fury graphics and choose one as your target text for interpretation: [link] Write an analysis of the chosen graphic that develops your own ideas (perhaps initiated in Section 1 above) and that also uses the above essay and interview to add additional layers of detail and complexity.

Individual/Group Project #2: Composing a Visual Argument
A visual argument, like a written argument, is a form of composition that follows a logic in order to produce meaning.  Visual argument, however, uses only graphics without explanatory text or prose (though the graphics may contain their own internal text).

Choose five of the following images from United in Anger that, when arranged together, produce an argument about a focused aspect of the film or of HIV/AIDS.  Compose the images in such a way that a “reader” will be able to follow your logic and understand your point or argument (much like paragraphs allow a reader to understand how you build an argument in a written essay). Then, ask fellow group members to write down what they think your visual argument is.