Media-Archeology of Visual Strategies

Short summary of the course

Following the pictorial turn in the 20th century (Mitchell), this specialized course aims at elaborating the potentials of the media-archaeological method in contemporary audiovisual and digital culture research (theories and concepts by Thomas Elsaesser, Erkki Huhtamo, Siegfried Zielinski, Wolfgang Ernst, Jonathan Crary and Jussi Parikka). The new media cultures are investigated through insights from past new media, with an emphasis on inventions, artistic practices, and apparatuses. The seminar focuses on how artists (theater makers, performers, photographers, video artists, movie directors) experiment with images, visual strategies and visual narratives.

Final competences of the course

• Gain insight into the visual language and strategies of film, photography and video art.
  
• To have insight into the technological developments of media and to be able to reflect on the social and cultural implications.
• To have an analytical insight into the visual language and visual strategies of old and new  media.
• To have a theoretical knowledge with regard to visual culture studies and be able to implement it in the analysis of a contemporary audiovisual and digital artistic practice. 
• To be able to formulate and defend a theoretically founded point of view with regard to the way a particular image (a visual strategy) works. 
• To demonstrate a critical perspective on the aesthetic and philosophical writings that inform the reading and writing assignment.  
• To be able to formulate factual and theoretical research problems in the domain of visual culture studies, and to tackle it from a personal perspective, concerning genre specific as  well as intermedial aspects.