Course Description: In this course, students will examine contemporary philosophical, historical, aesthetic and epistemological topics by addressing the evolution of discourse from the Enlightenment into the 20th century. A comprehensive selection of theorists and critics who address visual semiotics and the taxonomy of imagery and ideas will be introduced. Active discussion and participation will be a core requirement.
This article I found to be boring and repetitive. The first couple of paragraphs were interesting, how he was saying that there isn't a 'language' of photography, but a "heterogeneous complex of codes." I think that fine art photography is made up of secret little codes that we as artists insert purposefully (or not) to make our viewers think. From that point to almost the end, I just felt like he was repeating himself with specific examples; while this may be important, I found it to be unnecessary and boring.
Towards the end he writes: "The photograph is a place of work, a structured and structuring space within which the reader deploys and is deployed by, what codes he or she is familiar with in order to make sense." I have always found photography to be very subjective. The general meaning is understood by most, but there are little details that would remind me of something personal and would remind someone else of something completely opposite. I think that is what makes photography unique.
Roland Barthes - Rhetoric of the Image
"How does meaning get into the image? Where does it end? And if it ends, what is there beyond?" In this piece I really agreed with Barthes POV. There are no directors telling you what to think exactly about a photograph. We just think what we see, or as it is to us as individuals, for me that is always based on personal experiences. "In order to 'read' tis last level of image, all that is needed is the knowledge bound up with our perception."
One thing that I wasn't sure about, was how he kept using the term 'anchorage.' Was this supposed to mean that we are secured to the meaning of the photograph, or the meaning is secured in the photograph?
Umberto Eco - A Photograph
Short and sweet; a photograph isn't just a concept or a theory, it's a moment in time that will forever tell a story. "It no longer speaks of that single character or of those characters, but expresses concepts."
Victor Burgin - Looking at Photographs
ReplyDeleteThis article I found to be boring and repetitive. The first couple of paragraphs were interesting, how he was saying that there isn't a 'language' of photography, but a "heterogeneous complex of codes." I think that fine art photography is made up of secret little codes that we as artists insert purposefully (or not) to make our viewers think. From that point to almost the end, I just felt like he was repeating himself with specific examples; while this may be important, I found it to be unnecessary and boring.
Towards the end he writes: "The photograph is a place of work, a structured and structuring space within which the reader deploys and is deployed by, what codes he or she is familiar with in order to make sense." I have always found photography to be very subjective. The general meaning is understood by most, but there are little details that would remind me of something personal and would remind someone else of something completely opposite. I think that is what makes photography unique.
Roland Barthes - Rhetoric of the Image
"How does meaning get into the image? Where does it end? And if it ends, what is there beyond?" In this piece I really agreed with Barthes POV. There are no directors telling you what to think exactly about a photograph. We just think what we see, or as it is to us as individuals, for me that is always based on personal experiences. "In order to 'read' tis last level of image, all that is needed is the knowledge bound up with our perception."
One thing that I wasn't sure about, was how he kept using the term 'anchorage.' Was this supposed to mean that we are secured to the meaning of the photograph, or the meaning is secured in the photograph?
Umberto Eco - A Photograph
Short and sweet; a photograph isn't just a concept or a theory, it's a moment in time that will forever tell a story. "It no longer speaks of that single character or of those characters, but expresses concepts."