Intro to Visual Culture

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Lower Division – 200 level
Prerequisite:Completion of the University’s Writing Requirement

Course Description

Our culture is becoming more & more saturated with visual media every day. The dividing lines between fine art, pop culture, and science are becoming blurred, as are the definitions of local, regional, and global culture. The purpose of this class is to assist students in learning the process of decoding the visual culture that surrounds them. Through this process they will become active participants in their culture rather than just passive consumers. This class will be looking at fine art, indigenous art, advertising, and more; students will enounter both the familiar and the unfamiliar.

Course Objectives

Demonstrate active participation in the classroom learning community by initiating discussion, presenting own ideas, and responding to questions.

Learn the vocabulary of visual literacy and culture and apply it appropriately by defining terms, and using it to study and describe objects and images from our visual culture.

Demonstrate ability to use information resources by doing library, internet, and field research for written and creative assignments.

Demonstrate an understanding of the use of theories to study images and their contextual meanings by using them to analyze their own visual culture and paraphrasing and distinguishing between theories and critiques from the texts.

Understand the historical shifts in the dynamics of visual culture in the 20th century and be able to outline and summarize these in written assignments.

Successfully collaborate with fellow students in developing and presenting creative research projects.

Show respect for cultures different than their own through class discussion and writing.

Text

Sturken & Cartwright. Practices of Looking: and introduction to visual culture. Oxford, 2001.

Sample Assignments

Visual Description
A written visual description 2-3 pages in length. In this paper you are asked to visually descibe an art object ( fine, indigenous, naive) or a pop culture object. This excludes time-based media (films, TV, etc). You must see this object in person - you may not, for example, use a photo of a sculpture . This same object will be the subject of a research paper later in the course, so be sure it is something that interests you.

Bricolage/Collage/Montage: The Flyer
Make a “flyer” using found images and text to convey a social or political idea. The final piece should be photocopied on a letter-size sheet of paper, so design accordingly. While computers may be used, keep in mind the examples shown in class and realize that they’re not necessary. These will be turned in after we have a showing in class.

A more detailed description of this proposed course, focusing on Information Literacy Standards, can be found on the Association of College and Research Libraries website.