The Art of Standin’ Around

Imagine a college course where you could just hang out—and get credit. Cosmic Connections aside, the concept seems unlikely. Unless of course you’re enrolled in VES 80: Loitering.

According to the official description of the class, posted online, “You will hang out in the vicinity of culture and make things in response to it.” Vague as it appears, this one sentence course description attracted over fifty students to its first meeting. This large group of wanna-be loiterers had to be whittled down to a mere twelve through an application process including a form and an interview with Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies Stephen Prina, the class creator.

“Professor Prina is bringing together students from a bunch of different art backgrounds to try and initiate our own sense of imagination,” says Danielle M. O’Keefe ’08, a VES concentrator with a focus in film video. “Plus, loitering is something I do a lot.”

“The class, as I see it, is a way to discover one’s own creative process,” says Max A. Binder ’09, who was born and raised in the Big Apple Circus (see “Nonsense Upon Stilts” in this week’s FM). “The class allows us to express ourselves in any way possible, with no limits on our creativity.”

For their first assignment, students enrolled in “Loitering” are required to linger around a newsstand, and then purchase a magazine that they would not normally pick up. Students will then bring these intriguing publications to class where discussions and reactions will ensue.

Prina plans to maintain the mysterious aura surrounding the class by not providing a syllabus so the students do not know what to expect as the semester progresses. Probably more loitering.