AN2108 - Image, Art and Design: Making Visual, Digital and Material Worlds

[Not offered in 2020]

SP2 in odd years

This subject is concerned with the role of images and objects in creating social worlds. It explores anthropological approaches to audiovisual technologies, digital media and museum curating in a seminar-workshop format. The primary aim is to provide students with the critical and creative means to assess the role that visual and material culture play in everyday life and how design processes help to explore what it means to be human. Students will consider such practices as photography, film, digital media, art objects and other creative expressions, both as modes of representation and as sites of cultural and political practice. A critical practice of ethnographic filmmaking will be developed through a programme of film screenings and discussions. Students will engage with current, readily accessible technologies with which they are already familiar - their own digital cameras, mobile phones and laptops - and apply an anthropologist's eye to the use and integration of these technologies into ethnographic, visually-oriented research. (Note: Specific case studies and topics covered in the subject may vary year to year in accordance with the research foci of the staff delivering the subject).

Learning Outcomes

• Produce visual work that demonstrates ethnographically informed attention to social life;
• Critically discuss the ethics and aesthetics of ethnographic filmmaking and other creative works by Anthropologists;
• Recognise the social contexts and political dimensions of digital image-making, art practice, and design processes;
• Critically appreciate the role of the camera in shaping contemporary social practices and identities;
• Understand the significance and value of sensuous approaches to the study of the social;
• Speak and write analytically about concepts, methods, theories as these apply in the anthropology of design, visual anthropology and material culture studies.

Subject Assessment

• presentations (20%)
• audio-visual research project (40%)
• essays (40%).

Note: Minor variations might occur due to the continuous Subject quality improvement process, and in case of minor variation(s) in assessment details, the Subject Outline represents the latest official information.