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FS4516: ART AND OIL: CRUDE IN FILM AND VISUAL CULTURE (2023-2024)

Last modified: 05 Oct 2023 08:46


Course Overview

Petroleum is everywhere and yet seemingly invisible. This course offers students in Europe’s ‘energy capital’ (until recently its ‘oil and gas capital’) a space to critically explore how artists and filmmakers have visualised this elusive substance.

Course Details

Study Type Undergraduate Level 4
Session Second Sub Session Credit Points 30 credits (15 ECTS credits)
Campus Aberdeen Sustained Study No
Co-ordinators
  • Dr Alejandra Rodriguez-Remedi

What courses & programmes must have been taken before this course?

What other courses must be taken with this course?

None.

What courses cannot be taken with this course?

Are there a limited number of places available?

No

Course Description

Crude oil is toxic, yet it is also one of humanity’s most primal and addictive objects of desire and dependency. It has given shape to visual culture, yet it has also wrought geopolitical and environmental chaos. From the oil rushes, booms and busts of the last 150 years to our current age of climate catastrophe, energy crisis and transition, how have filmmakers and artists visualised this omnipresent yet most elusive of substances? This interdisciplinary course engages students in the historical context and key theoretical discourse in the emerging fields of energy humanities and petroculture and may include works by Robert Flaherty, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Werner Herzog, Sue Jane Taylor, Herwig Turk and George Osodi, among others.


Contact Teaching Time

Information on contact teaching time is available from the course guide.

Teaching Breakdown

More Information about Week Numbers


Details, including assessments, may be subject to change until 31 August 2023 for 1st half-session courses and 22 December 2023 for 2nd half-session courses.

Summative Assessments

Take Home Exam

Assessment Type Summative Weighting 40
Assessment Weeks 36 Feedback Weeks 39

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Feedback

Word Count: 2,500-words.

Feedback will be provided within 3 weeks of submission.

Learning Outcomes
Knowledge LevelThinking SkillOutcome
ConceptualAnalyseTo enhance the ability to identify core issues, ask pertinent questions, and engage in (oral and written) critical and comparative analysis, supported by pertinent evidence.
ConceptualUnderstandTo develop knowledge and critical and contextual understanding of theories and key issues relating to the ways that crude oil has been visualised in film and visual culture.

Creative Project and Reflective Report

Assessment Type Summative Weighting 40
Assessment Weeks 32 Feedback Weeks 35

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Feedback

Students will be able to create a short video essay (10-12 minutes) or a portfolio project accompanied by a short reflective report (1,500 words).

Portfolio project: details will depend on students' interests in working in different media (creative writing, photography, drawing, painting, new media, etc). Depending on the media, this might be equivalent to 8 A4 pages

Feedback will be provided within 3 weeks of submission.

Learning Outcomes
Knowledge LevelThinking SkillOutcome
ConceptualAnalyseTo enhance the ability to identify core issues, ask pertinent questions, and engage in (oral and written) critical and comparative analysis, supported by pertinent evidence.
ConceptualUnderstandTo develop knowledge and critical and contextual understanding of theories and key issues relating to the ways that crude oil has been visualised in film and visual culture.
ReflectionCreateTo create a video essay or portfolio project (plus reflective report) in response to a critical prompt.

Tutorial/Seminar Participation

Assessment Type Summative Weighting 20
Assessment Weeks 28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38 Feedback Weeks 41

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Feedback

Feedback will be provided within 3 weeks of completion of the course.

Learning Outcomes
Knowledge LevelThinking SkillOutcome
ConceptualAnalyseTo enhance the ability to identify core issues, ask pertinent questions, and engage in (oral and written) critical and comparative analysis, supported by pertinent evidence.
ConceptualUnderstandTo develop knowledge and critical and contextual understanding of theories and key issues relating to the ways that crude oil has been visualised in film and visual culture.

Formative Assessment

There are no assessments for this course.

Resit Assessments

Essay

Assessment Type Summative Weighting 100
Assessment Weeks Feedback Weeks

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Feedback

Feedback will be provided within 3 weeks of submission.

Word Count 3500
Learning Outcomes
Knowledge LevelThinking SkillOutcome
Sorry, we don't have this information available just now. Please check the course guide on MyAberdeen or with the Course Coordinator

Course Learning Outcomes

Knowledge LevelThinking SkillOutcome
ConceptualUnderstandTo develop knowledge and critical and contextual understanding of theories and key issues relating to the ways that crude oil has been visualised in film and visual culture.
ConceptualAnalyseTo enhance the ability to identify core issues, ask pertinent questions, and engage in (oral and written) critical and comparative analysis, supported by pertinent evidence.
ReflectionCreateTo create a video essay or portfolio project (plus reflective report) in response to a critical prompt.

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