STUDY PROGRAMME
Painting and Visual Arts

AFAM CODE
ABPR31

DISCIPLINARY AREA
Photography

DISCIPLINARY FIELD
Photography

CREDITS
8

APPROACH
Theoretical / Project based

The course provides the students with tools to further develop awareness in reading and creating images. The course helps the students gain the ability to build scenarios and images through the language of photography, without necessarily being bound to its production tools.

«There is a “point” where it is difficult to distinguish between container and contents. Choices, the seemingly more peripheral gestures, contribute to shape the work from deep within. It is in that moment that we have to look, when there is no more difference between theory and technique, between horizon and pole driven into the ground». (Vincenzo Castella)

This course is made of a single module of 8 CFA credits.

This course allows the student to gradually acquire the ability to manage with greater awareness the construction of photographic work, starting from the choice of the shooting subject, to the selection and production of the work. A reflection on the production of the works is encouraged, taking into account materials, dimensions and displays as forms that co-participate in the meaning of the work. The student must be able to combine form and theoretical content in a visual unicum.

Starting from the premise that photography is considered as a linguistic apparatus capable of reading reality, the core of the lessons revolves around the concept of textuality of images. The lessons are divided into theoretical and practical sessions that include exercises to contextually check the covered topics and the problems that may arise. The course deals with issues such as: reflection on the figure and the shift of meaning that the photographic language produces on it; the in-depth analysis of the direction of a group of images through the study of their “visual connectives”; the analysis of historical paths also linked to contemporary authors; the experience of text and figures as text, and the development of a work starting from the collaboration between two authors. Particular attention is paid to reviewing and discussing personal projects.

• Theoretical/project based classroom lectures

• Workshops

• Use of tutorials, videos or other media tools for detailed study

• Classroom debates and presentations

• Individual study and research

• Field trips (conferences, meetings, visits to exhibitions as organized by the professor or department)

Assessment is based on the overall competence of the students and may include:

• Oral exam

• Written exam

• Submission of papers, projects or research work

Further details on specific tests can be provided by the professor during the course. Assessment criteria include commitment, active participation and personal growth of the students over the course.

• Susan Sontag, On Photography.

• Paul Virilio, The Accident of Art.

• Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible.

• Gerhard Richter, Atlas, D.A.P, 1989.

• Ed Ruscha, Then and Now, Steidl,2005.

• Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler, Manhatthan.

• Jean Luc Godard, Cinema: Godard on Godard.

• Stan Brackhage, photographic works.

• Lee Friedlander, Apples and olives, Fraenkel Gallery/Hasselblad Foundation, 2005.

• Lee Friedlander, Flowers and trees, Haywire Press, 1981.

Further bibliographic recommendations may be provided by the professor during the course. A lot of the referenced material, together with other in-depth study material, can be consulted online in MyNaba, in the Library section.