Pentium History of Audiovision: History of Photography 1

Display Schedule

Subject guarantor:

Tomáš DVOŘÁK

Name of lecturer(s):

Tomáš DVOŘÁK

Learning outcomes of the course unit:

Students are introduced to the history of photography, media and visual culture of the 19th century and contemporary theory and historical approaches to the topic.

Mode of study:

Lecture

Prerequisites and co-requisites:

Grading:

Credit awarded at the end of each semester.

Condition: Obligatory interpretive presentation before classmates on any photographer during the semester and submission of the essay accompanying the presentation.

Course contents:

Defined in the syllabus.

01. (7/10) Introduction: Theory and history of photography (Tomáš Dvořák)

Course structure overview, requirements for completion and study materials.

Introduction to required reading for the next lecture.

02. (14/10) Birth of the technical image (Tomáš Dvořák)

The lecture is devoted to visual culture at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries with emphasis on the mechanical and technical forms of depiction (camera obscura, camera lucida, laterna magica, Lichtenberg and Chladny image, panorama and diorama, optical toys, mechanical recording devices, print and lithograph). It also covers various approaches to issues in historical perception and its relation to the development of visual technique and artefacts, particularly media archeology methods.

03. (21/10) Real effect: photography, painting, literature (Tomáš Dvořák)

The lecture presents and interprets challenges in realistic photography during the course of the 19th century and sets it into a wider context of literary, theatrical and artistic techniques attempting to create the impression of reality. This describes the genesis, nature and function of mass culture and mass media and their relationships to art.

(28/10) State holiday

04. (4/11) Realism and Realists (Josef Ledvina)

Practically from its birth photography has been marked as a image creation technique with a privileged relationship to „reality“. Joel Snyder divides diverse variations of repeated arguments contributing to the „realism“ of photography into two groups called the visual model and mechanical model. Proponents of the first assert that photography captures that which we would see if we stood in the place of the photographer at the time of snapping the picture. According to supporters of the second that perceptual equivalent is not necessary. The objectivity of photography lies, simply, in that it is a product of a „mechanical“ process. Snyder himself belongs to the critics of both „models“ pointing, among others, at the historical and functional conditions of the concept of realism itself. The lecture presents a historical-graphic cross-section of the to date endless debate. The measure of how much the realistic effect of a snapshot can be controlled and imagined is demonstrated on the works of selected photographers (Peter Henry Emerson, Henri Cartier-Bresson, etc..)

05. (11/11) Photographic portrait and issues of modern individuality (Tomáš Dvořák)

The lecture covers photographic portraits of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries with emphasis on Nadar, Daumier, Galton and Sander; tracing the changes and mutual relationships of the portrait genre in painting, drawing and graphics, including the silhouette and caricature traditions. It explains the genesis of the concept of photographic portrait in relation to traditional physiognomy, crime methods of identification or attempts to define and capture social types and thus trace the mutual conditions of photographic conventions of the depicting human individuality and periods (philosophic, sociologic and bureaucratic) in understanding the subject.

06. (18/11) Photography as a (scientific) visualization (Tomáš Dvořák)

The lecture focuses on the epistemiological aspects of photography: analysing relationships of technical devices, automization and management and presents the use of photography in scientific research of the 19th century (astonomy, physic, physiology, psychiatry, statistics) with emphasis on the grahic and photographic method of E.-J. Marey and changes in the understanding of objectivity in the 19th and 20th centuries.

07. (25/11) Photographic reproduction of artistic works (Tomáš Dvořák)

The lecture is devoted to the development of photograph reproduction processes (photogravure and photolithograph) in the 19th century with emphasis on artistic works reproduction issues and their consequences for expert and lay perception (tradition) of graphic arts and the understanding of the difference between painting and photography.

08. (2/12) Photography in print, image and text (Hana Buddeus)

The lecture maps out the intersection of the image and text in the history of photography and potential forms of applying those combinations in theory („rhetoric“ of the image, narration issues, „reading“ the image) and in practice (image newspapers and magazines, photojournalism, photo albums, photography in advertising).

09. (9/12) Pictorialism (Hana Buddeus)

The lecture will cover the development of the relationship of photography to painting, touching on issues of indexicality, respectively iconicity of the photographic image and points towards various times in the history of photography when photographers were interested in the potential use of photographic technology for creating stylized images rather than objective copies of reality. This begins with the self-awareness process of photography - (Anna Farova), refined printing and Stieglitz's pictorial photography. The issues of photography as an image and intersecting of painting and photography will be further developed in examples from 20th century art („Picture Generation“, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Gerhard Richter, etc.) through theory writings pointing at the image considerations of photography in contemporary art (MIchael Fried, Jean Francois Chevrier, Douglas Crimp).

10. (16/12) Technical and media relationships between photography and painting (Robert Silverio)

The lecture covers the relationship between the technical and pre-technical image - primarily the relationship between photography and painting. Differing from other analyses, this does not focus on the artists working with painting references. This concentrates on the basic function of both media and how this function in photography is conditioned by technology. The medium is the message - that is the medium conditions the resulting communication. In technology media we can inquire about the type of example on which the medium is based.

Recommended or required reading:

see course contents

Assessment methods and criteria:

A requirement for completing the course attendance requirements (max. 2 absences per semester are tolerated), submission of both required results (if not submitted then only one paper on the assigned date, overall course grade: F).

The following grades are determined by the content of the two results (100-90% = A, 90-80% = B, 80-70% = C, 70-60% = D, 60-50% = E, 50-0% = F).

40% - 1st written paper of 2 -3 standard pages, interpreting or elaborating on a selected writing from the list of required literature.

Due date: 29.11.2015

60% - 2nd written paper of 5 - 10 standard pages on a priorly agreed topic must be submitted on 4.1.2016 at the latest (both texts in .doc/.odt/.pdf format sent to tomdvorak@famu.cz. If there is no confirmation of the sent email recieved the paper will be considered NOT submitted.

The exam is comprised of a discussion of both writings.

Course web page:

Note:

This course is scheduled every year.

Further information:

This course is an elective for all AMU students

Schedule for winter semester 2015/2016:

	06:00–08:0008:00–10:0010:00–12:0012:00–14:0014:00–16:0016:00–18:0018:00–20:0020:00–22:0022:00–24:00
Mon
Tue
Wed	místnost 124 Projekce FAMU (Lažanský palác) DVOŘÁK T. 14:50–18:05 (přednášková par. 1)
Thu
Fri

Date	Day	Time	Tutor	Location	Notes	No. of paralel
	Wed	14:50–18:05	Tomáš DVOŘÁK	Projekce FAMU Lažanský palác		přednášková par. 1

Schedule for summer semester 2015/2016:

The schedule has not yet been prepared

The subject is a part of the following study plans:

• Photography CZ - Bachelor (faculty subject, optional subject)
• Restoring of Photogrphy (faculty subject, optional subject)