Visual Culture - Einzelansicht

What is visual culture, and how is it important? Visual images permeate our everyday lives, shape our everyday experiences, perceptions of the self, awareness of social and environmental problems, including possibilities for change. We negotiate the world through images, and the world itself is mediated through visual culture. Visuality often acts as an abstract form of control that creates order and coherence, oftentimes by masking—or making invisible—alternative worldviews or forms of knowledge. This course is an introduction to the key issues of visual culture. It will examine the politics of images, their role in producing cultural meaning, visuality and power relations, and how images are forms of visual communication. The course will rely on students’ active participation, and students are encouraged to enrich the class with visual material.