John F. Schott | Curriculum Vita

Chair of the Cinema & Media Studies Department at Carleton College, Northfield, MN.

James W. Strong Professor of the Liberal Arts. [Since 1985]

Henry Luce Professor of Creative Arts. [1979-1984]

• New Media in New York & Europe, A Regular Off-Campus Study Program

Designed and led the New Media Roadtrip, a ten-week off-campus study program looking at and making new media in New York and major European cities. Our group visited a wide variety of artists, institutions and exhibitions presenting contemporary art and new media. As s part of the seminar, students brought laptops and digital cameras, and produced new media projects along the way, culminating in an exhibition at Tesla in Berlin.

The 2006-7 program visited New York, London, Amsterdam and Berlin. The 2008-9 edition will visit New York, Rome & Prague. Program blog for 2006-7.

• Fellowship: We Media: Behold the Power of Us [Fall, 2005]

Fellowship from the American Press Institute forWe Media: Behold the Power of Us. "More than a billion people are online. We Media brings together the trailblazers, leaders, movers and shakers of a movement that is connecting people everywhere. Their collective efforts are spawning the new ideas, information, services and businesses utilizing the power of mass collaboration."

• Site Seeing: Photographic Excursions in Tourism [2005]

Photographs included in Site Seeing: Photographic Excursions in Tourism, a circulating exhibition by the International Museum of Photography and Film at the George Eastman House.

• Getty Museum: Screening and Discussion of America's Pop Collector [2004]

Screening of America's Pop Collector [Co-Director, Co-Editor] at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, accompanied by a public dialogue with Serge Guilbaut, author of Reconstructing Modernism.

• Camera/Iraq [2004 to the present]

A website gathering commentary, news, photo essays and film regarding image practices in the Middle East. With as many as 2,500 visitors a week, the Public Journalism Network has said that Camera/Iraq is "a site every journalist, academic, and citizen interested in photojournalism should be watching."

• Ratchet Up [2003 to the present]

A personal weblog referencing items of interest in digital culture, particularly digital imaging.

• Carleton Digital Arts Festival [2004]

Organizer of a celebration of digital arts at Carleton College featuring over twenty events, including an exhibition, STATE OF THE ART: Maps, Stories, Games and Algorithms from Minnesota, curated by Steve Dietz in the Carleton Art Gallery. The Festival was complemented by two classes, "Art After New Media," with Steve Dietz and Justin Bakse, and "Understanding New Media" with John Schott.

• American Photography: A Century of Images [1999]

Executive Producer of a 3-part national series for PBS on the social history of American photography in the twentieth century. Major corporate funding by Kodak.

Featuring a companion book by Viki Goldberg and Rob Silberman.

The website for the series, created with Popular Front Interactive, won the PBS national award for "Best Website for A Single Program."

• ITVS, The Independent Television Service [1991-1993]

First Executive Director of the Independent Television Service, a national organization that funds and presents the work of independent film and video makers for PBS.

"The Independent Television Service (ITVS) brings to local, national and international audiences high-quality, content-rich programs created by a diverse body of independent producers. ITVS programs take creative risks, explore complex issues, and express points of view seldom seen on commercial or public television. ITVS programming reflects voices and visions of underrepresented communities and addresses the needs of underserved audiences, particularly minorities and children."

• Alive From Off Center [1986-1990]

Producer and Writer [1986-1987], then Executive Producer [1988-1990], of the national PBS series Alive From Off Center. Each summer in ten programs Alive brought PBS audiences the best of international video and performance art. Produced by Twin Cities Public Television with grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and CPB.

Directed series funding, production and promotion; initiated and executed several international co-productions.

• Distant Lives [1990]

Executive Producer of a thirteen-part anthology series showcasing the work of independent film and video makers portraying non-mainstream cultures outside of the United States, and a few in our own back yard. Host: Linda Hunt. Produced by The Learning Channel and Twin Cities Public Television with a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Cablecast on the Learning Channel in 1990. Broadcast on PBS in 1991.

• Spirit of Place [1988]

Executive Producer of a thirteen-part anthology series collecting the work of independent film and video makers around the theme of place, how we make our places and how they make us. Produced by The Learning Channel and Twin Cities Public Television with a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Cablecast on the Learning Channel in 1987. Broadcast on PBS in 1988.

• Declarations of Independents [1987]

Series Producer and Writer of a twelve-part anthology series celebrating the work of independent film and video makers over the past forty years. The series provides an overview of independent media from Maya Deren to the present. Host: director Sydney Pollack. Produced by The Learning Channel and Twin Cities Public Television with a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Cablecast in 1987. Broadcast on PBS in 1988.

• Mud or Blood: Issues in Contemporary Photojournalism [1986]

Writer, Director and Host of a video program to accompany Walker Art Center's exhibition On the Line: The New Color Photojournalism. Features interviews with three photographers, a magazine photo editor and the exhibition's curator. Distributor: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN. [25:00]

• Image and Message: A Conversation with Estelle Jussim and John Schott [1984]

Writer, Director and Host of a video program to complement Walker Art Center's exhibition The 20th-Century Poster: Design of the Avant-Garde. Combines an historical overview of the evolution of poster design with a discussion of the esthetic and communication strategies of poster designers. Distributor: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN. [29:00]

• Individual Artist Fellowship, Minnesota State Arts Board [1982]

An Individual Artist Fellowship in photography from the Minnesota State Arts Board.

• New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape [1977]

Photographic work featured in the seminal exhibition and book New Topographics, curated by Bill Jenkins for the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House.

The term New Topographics has come to "characterize the style of a number of young photographers he had chosen for the exhibition at the International Museum of Photography, Rochester, NY, in 1975. These photographers avoided the ‘subjective’ themes of beauty and emotion and shared an apparent disregard for traditional subject-matter. Instead they emphasized the ‘objective’ description of a location, showing a preference for landscape that included everyday features of industrial culture. This style, suggesting a tradition of documentary rather than formalist photography, is related to the idea of ‘social landscape’, which explores how man affects his natural environment. Jenkins traced the style back to several photographic series by Edward Ruscha in the early 1960s of urban subjects such as petrol stations and Los Angeles apartments." [ArtNet] [New Topographics]

• Deal [1977]

Co-director and Editor of a feature non-fiction film on the controversial game show Let's Make A Deal. Chronicles behind-the-scenes activities of producers and contestants during the production of a single show. Designed to provoke discussion of the television an industry and cultural institution. Made in collaboration with producer and co-director E.J. Vaughn. Cinematography by Robert Young and Tom McDonnough. Distributor: Museum of Modern Art, NYC.

• National Endowment for the Arts Photography Fellowship [1977]

A one-year fellowship for personal creative work in photography.

• America's Pop Collector: Contemporary Art At Auction [1973]

Co-director and Co-editor of a feature non-fiction film on Robert Scull's historic auction of contemporary art at Sotheby Park Bernet. An exploration of the social history of contemporary American art and the New York art scene. Made in collaboration with producer and co-director E.J. Vaughn. Cinematography by Susan and Allan Raymond. Distributor: Museum of Modern Art, NYC.

• New Acquisitions: Museum of Modern Art [1973]

Photographs included in a public exhibition of new acquisitions by MOMA. Organized by John Szarkowski.

• Education: Junior Fellow, Michigan Society of Fellows [1973-1975]

The Michigan Society of Fellows, sister to the Harvard Society of Fellows, each year selects for membership between four and six scholars and artists. Fellows are invited to work on projects of their choice and receive three years of complete financial support. Study included the history and esthetics of film, photography and video, and their relation to contemporary art and society. Research focused on theoretical concerns regarding the psychology of photographic seeing and the cultural context of film and photography as visual communication systems. The Fellowship also supported creative work in photography and film.

• Education: University of Michigan

Courses completed for a PhD in the History of Art, with particular interests in the Early Renaissance, Contemporary Art and the History of Photography. Projects undertaken during the three years in the Michigan Society of Fellows led to residence in New York City, and away from the University of Michigan and a dissertation.

Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. [1965]