ARTH 358 Studies in The History of Media Art: The Screen Image

•  Wednesdays, 2:45pm-5:15pm
• Online: Access through Moodle
• Instructor: Dr. John Di Stefano

Screens increasingly pervade both contemporary art and everyday life. How have different screen cultures influenced new forms of contemporary artist practice, and also altered our experience and understanding of contemporary art itself? This course offers an historical and theoretical framework for understanding screen-based art, and the forms of spectatorship it evokes. By examining the origins and the convergence of such practices as photography, video art, experimental film, installation art, and performance art, this course will consider how ideas of temporality, spatiality and performativity inherent in contemporary screen-based art shape this spectatorship. The course will also consider a contextualised approach to screen-based art, placing it within the history, culture and politics of modern technology. Key topics will include: the history of the projected image; materiality, and the screen as surface; immersivity, expanded cinema and multi-screen installations; urban screens and public space; net art, activism, and screen-based artistic practices in a post-truth era.