VPSB02H3: Image Culture

How should artists make pictures in a world inundated with a relentless flow of digital images? Can pictures shape our understanding of the social world and influence mainstream culture? Through the perspective of contemporary artmaking, this lecture course will explore ways that artists decentre and decolonize the image and concepts of authorship, representation, truth, and the gaze. The course will also examine the role of visual technologies (cameras, screens, microscopes), distribution formats (the photographic print, mobile devices, the Internet), and picture making (ubiquitous capture, synthetic media, artificial intelligence) to consider how artists respond to changing ideas about the visible world.

Arts, Literature and Language