VSA1000

Introduction to visual culture: back to the future

John Gregory, Anne Marsh, Constantine Verevis and Deane Williams

6 points - 4 hours per week - First semester - Clayton

Objectives On completion of this subject, students should have begun to develop the ability to engage with a range of visual texts through the application of appropriate forms of visual analysis; should be able to make informed, critical judgements about various forms of visual culture; and should be able to engage with appropriate written texts

Synopsis This subject is designed to introduce any interested student to the study of visual culture in its various forms, whether in film and video, photography, painting and sculpture, the built environment, advertising and fashion, or contemporary arenas such as video games and the internet. Following preliminary attention to the classical theory of representation, especially the Renaissance system of perspective and its variants in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, consideration will be given to the rise of modernist conceptions of visuality in nineteenth-century France. Issues to be considered will include the origins and character of the so-called 'society of the spectacle,' the growth of new urban forms such as arcades, and the birth and early development of photography and the cinema. Themes to be discussed in relation to visuality in the twentieth century will include the Futurist preoccupation with speed, the characteristics of modern styles such as Surrealism and Pop, and the rise of televisual culture. The course will conclude with consideration of the visual aspect of postmodern developments to do with technology and the body, cyberculture and the 'neo-baroque' tendencies of the near future. A broad range of relevant visual images, film and video will be shown and discussed throughout the course.

Assessment First essay (1500 words): 25% - Long essay (2000 words): 50% - Visual test (1 hour): 25%

Preliminary reading

Berger J Ways of seeing Penguin, 1975

Recommended texts

Cha T (ed.) Apparatus Tanan Press, 1980
Cubitt S (ed.) Timeshift: On video culture Routledge, 1991
Foster H (ed.) Vision and visuality Bay Press, 1988
Friedberg A Window shopping: Cinema and the postmodern U California P, 1993
Ghirardo D Architecture after modernism Thames and Hudson, 1996
Jenks C (ed.) Visual culture Routledge, 1995
Naremore J and Brantlinger P (eds) Modernity and mass culture Indiana U P, 1991
Wood P and others Modernism in dispute: Art since the forties Yale U P, 1993

Back to the 1999 Arts Handbook