ARTS3968: Ways Of Seeing

Abstract

Since its inception photography has been critical in shaping our personal and collective memory. Whether in the form of historical documentation or through a personal archive of family photographs, we look to images to structure and transform emotional meaning. Can, or perhaps should, a photograph act as a proxy for truth, feeling, or connection? Through a series of lectures, generative creative assignments, and critiques, in this course students will examine the properties, both physical and emotional, that make a photograph in order to investigate the possibilities and limitations of what it can do.Throughout the semester we will use John Berger’s seminal 1972 text “Ways of Seeing” as an anchor for how to critically consider the ways we see, engage with, and react to images in all formats. Students will be introduced to a variety of artists and writers who make work on this topic such as Carmen Winant, JEB, Errol Morris and more. For the provided assignments students will be expected to occasionally make new images and to re-contextualize existing photographic work- which can be in the form of a family archive, public domain historical photos, or found pictures.