The Image History and Theory

General characterization

Prerequisites

N/A

Bibliography

Introduction

Reading

MONDZAIN, Marie-José. (2007/2015). Introdução a Homo Spectator: Ver, Fazer Ver, Orfeu Negro.

 

1. Image and Truth: iconicity and simulacrum

Readings

PLATO. (375 BCE). The Republic. Oxford University Press, 1970 (Book VII §514a-§518, Book X, §595a-§605b)

BELTING, Hans. (1994). Likeness and Presence. A History of the Image Before the Era of Art, University of Chicago Press (Prefsce, pp xxi-xxiv , Introduction. pp. 1-9)

DEBORD, Guy. (1970/1967). "Separation Perfected", in Society of The Spectacle, Black & Red (Fragmentos 1-20)

 

2. Image and Meaning: visuality, representation and language

Leituras

PANOFSKY, Erwin. (1989/1955). "Iconography and Iconology: an introduction to the study of Renaissance Art", in Meaning in the Visual Arts, London: Anchor Books, 1955, pp. 26-40)

ATKIN, Albert. (2013). "Peirce's Theory of Signs", (1. a 1.3; 2 a 2.2; 3-3.4), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce-semiotics/)

MITCHELL, W.J. (2003). "Word and Image" in Critical Terms for Art History, R. Nelson and R. Shiff (Eds), The University of Chicago Press, Chap. 4, pp. 51-61.

FOUCAULT, Michel, (2002/1966) "Las Meninas", in The Order of Things, London: Taylor and Francis, 2005, pp. 3-18

 

3. Imagem e Técnica

Readings

CRARY, Jonathan. (1990). «Modernity and the problem of the observer», in Techniques of the observer. On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1990, pp. 2-24.

BENJAMIN, Walter. (1936/2008). The work of art and other writing on media, Harvard University Press, 2008, pp. 19-55

MANOVICH, Lev. (1993). «The Mapping of Space: Perspective, Radar, and 3-D Computer Graphics», [Manovich.net]

CUBITT, Sean. (2021). "Mass Image, Anthropocene Image, Image Commons" in Photography Off the Scale Technologies and Theories of the Mass Image, Dvorak, T. and Parikka (Eds.), Edinburgh University Press.

Teaching method

- Presentation of fundamental issues and concepts and their historical-critical frameworks

- Contextualization and guidance of mandatory readings

- Discussion of texts with the participation of students

- Image analysis with student participation

- In practical classes (text discussion and image analysis), the course is divided into two parallel sessions (same timetable). See the map of the division of classes and rooms in the "Materials" folder.

Classes will take place under the guidance of the teacher responsible for the course (Maria Teresa Cruz) with the collaboration of a teacher's assistant (Philipp Teuchmann)

Evaluation method

1. Written test (60%)
Alternative to one of the test's questions: participation in the discussion of a text (20%). (subject to enrollment and attendance of more than 50% in practical classes)

2. Group work on Image Analysis (40%)

Subject matter

This course proposes a theoretical and critical reflection on the image in its broad historical and cultural dimensions. Its orientation is not, therefore, that of a general science of image endowed with a single doctrinal body but rather an analysis of the historical constitution of the notion of image and of the image production and visual culture that have accompanied it. Its goal is to understand the issue of the image at its crossroads with various fields and times of Western experience in its relationship with some of its major questions and configurations (philosophical, religious, political, aesthetic and technological). Approaching this fundamental status of the image seeks to understand the "civilization of images" we have become, the modes of production, circulation and massification of images and the mistrust that, at various times, has placed images at the centre of confrontations of critical importance. Between old and new fascinations and suspicions, and despite their trivialization, images remain enormously relevant in our societies from a cultural, political, technical and aesthetic perspective.
Following this approach, the course privileges the problems arising from the relationship of images with the questions of truth, meaning and technique, proposing a brief archaeology for each of these issues based on modern and contemporary questions. This journey is divided into three chapters: 1. The notions of iconicity and simulacrum and the ambivalence of our trust and distrust in images; 2. It will situate the disputes between word and image, analyze how images produce meaning in various historical-cultural contexts and interrogate the relationship between visuality and language; 3. It will present an archaeology of the modern technical image through the apparatuses of photography and cinema and will emphasize the ruptures that digital ecology has introduced at the level of perception and visuality, as well as at the level of images and their planetary infrastructures.

Introduction
- The birth of Images
- Homo sapiens and Homo spectator

1. Image and Truth: iconicity and simulacrum
- Metaphysics as a doctrine of the image
- The theological economy and the sacred image
- The civilization of images: trust and distrust in images

2. Image and Meaning: visuality, representation and language
- Elements of Iconology: symbolic value and legibility of images
- Elements of semiotics: visuality and meaning
- Elements of mediology: the frame

3. Image and Technology
- Perspective and observer: a proto-history of the technical image
- The modern technical image: camera obscura, photography and cinema
- Image and digitality: digital images, machine vision and automation

Programs

Programs where the course is taught: