Art 689 - Introduction to Visual Culture

Visual culture can be roughly defined as material artifacts, buildings and images, plus time-based media and performances, produced by human labor and imagination. These serve practical functions, aesthetis, symbolic, ritualistic or ideological ends, and, to a significant extent, address the sense of sight. Visual Culture Studies draws from a number of multi-disciplinary fields such as Cultural, Media and Performance Studies. In this course, we will touch upon discourses within these fields with a goal of developing techniques of critical analysis and interpretation.