Visual Culture Over Time

How do we see? How does the history of the image make us see in a particular way? Images have played a central role in every culture of which we have record and, further, images have deeply informed the human quest for knowledge, from the arts and medicine to philosophy and technology. By looking at such different images as photographs, medical drawings, tattoos, totem poles, paintings, graffiti, the course will examine how our ways of seeing have been largely created by a given society and a historical period. Seeing, then, is not individual. We are collectively taught to see in specific ways. By recognizing this it will become possible not only to better analyse all forms of images, but also to change our ways of seeing. Rather than merely looking at visual representations for their informational or aesthetic significance, the course will explore how many human beings and entire cultures shape their understanding of themselves through images.