ARTH 387 Issues in Art and Criticism: Ways of Seeing and the Contemporary Photo-filmic Image
- Wednesdays, 12:15-14:45
- EV-1-615
- Instructor: John Di Stefano
The way we see and understand images has evolved significantly since the latter part of 20th century, due in part to such changing social forces as the decentralization of canonical discourses and perspectives, and the rapid development of imaging technologies. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the global arena of contemporary art. Today we stand somewhere between the immediacy of our portable screens and a growing uncertainty about the authority and veracity of the image itself. This course will examine key critical, theoretical and aesthetic issues in the cultural, historical and socio-political contexts that shape contemporary art practice and discourse with a particular emphasis on the influential role of photography and the filmic image on visual culture, and its complex association with history, memory, experience and identity. We will examine the variety of still and moving images across culture and address questions about the nature and specificity of the medium. Topics include: defining ‘contemporaneity’; post-colonial and cross-cultural critiques; intermediality; and the spatial, screenal and locative image.