Film and Visual Culture

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Prof Michael Syrotinski

Pre-requisites

Available only to registered postgraduate students or by permission of Head of School

Overview

Students will be introduced to a wide variety of works from the artistic avant-garde of the 20th century, as well as to a range of theoretical approaches to this tradition. Like the avant-garde itself, the course will be decidedly multi-medial (we will study literature, film, art...) and international. The course will be structured around two axes: one concerned with 'avant-garde formalism(s)', another concerned with 'avant-garde ideologies'; consequently, the main focus will be the relation between formalism and ideology.

Structure

1 two-hour seminar per week

Assessment

One written assignment (essay, 4,000-5000 words) (80%); critical bibliography (20%)

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr Alan Marcus

Pre-requisites

Available only to registered postgraduate students or by permission of the Head of School.

Overview

This course will allow students to engage in documentary and visual art production, putting into practice methodologies they have studies through a series of screenings, workshops, seminar discussions, and practical work. Students will research a topic, film it on digital video, complete the project through post-production and analyse the process applied.

Structure

1 two-hour seminar per week, 1 two-hour screening per week.

Assessment

Two practical pieces (50%); reflective logbook (20%); 3000 word essay (30%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr Janet Stewart

Pre-requisites

Available only to registered postgraduate students or by permission of the Head of School.

Notes

Overview

This course explores current debates and controversies in Visual Culture through the study of key articles in leading journals. The course will examine contemporary writing in a range of fields, such as Art Theory, Anthropology, Fine Art, Design, Architecture, Museum Studies, Film Studies, the New Media and Music. It will also include instruction in the key professional skills of presenting work in written form to a specialist academic audience, in accessing library and other relevant resources, and practical training in gathering information and presenting research in visual culture, focusing on the possibilities offered by new technology. As part of the course, students will produce a design brief for an online exhibition.

Structure

1 two-hour seminar, 1 one-hour tutorial per fortnight, 5 two-hour workshops per semester.

Assessment

One project (20%) and related 3000 word report (20%), and one 5000 word essay (60%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr Janet Stewart

Pre-requisites

Available only to registered postgraduate students or by permission of the Head of School.

Overview

This will introduce students to the study of key theoretical texts in contemporary visual art, drawing on the work of prominent figures in the field such as Alpers, Amerika, Bann, Barthes, Baxendal, Bois, Burgen, Bryson, Casetti, Kenneth Clark, TJ Clark, Crary, Danto, Deleuze, Foster, Fried, Grau, Greenberg, Krauss, Lyotard, Metz, Phelan, Pollack, Nochlin, Ranciere, Sekula, Vidler and Weibel. The course will relate these theoretical positions to works of contemporary visual art, and physical and virtual exhibitions, drawing on fieldwork undertaken in galleries and museums.

Structure

1 one-hour seminar per week, 3 two-hour workshops per semester.

Assessment

One 5000 word essay (70%); one 20-minute oral presentation (10%); one 2000 word written paper (20%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr Nerea Arruti

Pre-requisites

Available only to registered postgraduate students or by permission of the Head of School

Overview

The first section of the course will map out the development of photography in the Hispanic world from the 20th century to contemporary times. The main themes explored by the course will be: the tensions between tradition and modernisation as explored by contemporary Spanish photography, the relationship between the Old and New World in photography (particularly in landscapes and portraits), the relationship between memory and photography, photography and the archive, the impact of social changes on photography and the relationship between local and global. In the second section of the course ZoneZero, the digital platform created by the photographer Pedro Meyer, will be studied from the perspective of the global digital and how new forms of production and exchange have revolutionised the photographic medium. In the final section of the course there will be a practical element as an optional component that can be included in the extended essay as case study.

Structure

One-hour lecture and one-hour seminar per week

Assessment

One extended essay (6,000 words)

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr J Stewart

Pre-requisites

Available only to registered postgraduate students or by permission of the Head of School

Overview

This course explores the central role of the aesthetic in modern thought through a series of case studies and close contextual readings of key works by leading modern theorists, available for study either in the original or in English translation, as befits the academic background of individual students. It will also provide direction and advice in investigating the area of the student's research, and training in key research skills, such as the production of literature reviews and research proposals.

Structure

One 2-hour seminar per week, five 2-hour workshops per half-session, 6 one-to-one hours per half-session.

Assessment

One 5,000-word essay (70%), one 1,500 word annotated bibliography (10%), one 500 word research proposal (10%), one 20 minute oral presentation (10%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr Alan Marcus

Pre-requisites

Available only to registered postgraduate students or by permission of the Head of School.

Co-requisites

FS5012 Documentary and Visual Practice 1

Overview

Building on the knowledge and skills acquired through 'Documentary and Visual Practice 1' while requiring a greater degree of practical and conceptual sophistication, this course will allow students to engage in documentary and visual art production, putting into practice a methodology they have studied through a series of screenings, seminar discussions and practical work. Students will research a topic, film it on digital video, complete the project through post-production and analyse the process applied.

Structure

1 two-hour seminar per week, 1 two-hour screening per week.

Assessment

One practical piece (50%); a reflective logbook (20%); a 3000 word essay (30%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr Simon Ward

Pre-requisites

Available only to registered postgraduate students or by permission of the Head of School.

Overview

Drawing on a wide range of perspectives drawn from fields such as urban history and theory, sociology, and architectural history, this course will consider both how the visual arts shape the way we understand and interact with the urban environment and the limitations of the visual as a mode for communicating urban experience.

Structure

1 two-hour seminar per week, 3 two-hour workshops per semester.

Assessment

One 5000 word essay (70%); one 20-minute presentation (10%); one 2000 word paper (20%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr Alan Marcus

Pre-requisites

Available only to registered postgraduate students or by permission of the Head of School

Overview

This course explores the central role of documenting filmic practices in visual culture and the use of documentary aesthetics in dramatic film through a series of case studies and close contextual readings of key works by leading practitioners and theorists.

Structure

1 two-hour seminar per week, 3 two-hour workshops per half-session.

Assessment

One 5000 word essay (70%); one 20-minute oral presentation (10%); one 2000 word written paper (20%).

Credit Points

60

Course Coordinator

Dr J Stewart

Pre-requisites

Successful completion of the 120 credits constituting the diploma.

Overview

Each candidate will be required to research and write a 12,000-word dissertation on a subject and in an area approved by the Programme Co-ordinator.

Structure

There will be no teaching, but a supervisory meeting will be held at fortnightly intervals (allowing for holidays etc.) at a mutually convenient time.

Assessment

Dissertation