What is "visual culture" and what impact do digital and imaging technologies have on contemporary culture of images? What are the interactions between traditional forms of visual representation and new technological possibilities? In particular, how do "digitality" and "virtuality" redefine the relationships between creators and consumers of new visual objects? Are "new ways of seeing" emerging with the techological capacities of new media? What new social, institutional, and aesthetic practices are emerging?
Readings
Urban Screens: the beginning of a universal visual culture by Paul Martin
Lester
First Monday, Special Issue #4: Urban Screens: Discovering the potential
of outdoor screens for urban society (February 2006),
http://firstmonday.org/issues/special11_2/lester/index.html
Optional Readings
Andy
Warhol's Iconophilia by William V. Ganis (2000). Invisible
Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Studies, Issue 3.
Links
Notes on
the "Gaze" by Daniel Chandler, read in particular the comment
on John Berger's Ways of Seeing.