Vision and Visuality

Philosophy of Vision and Visuality.
In recent decades, the study of vision and
perception has merged with the study of visuality
and cultural production. This course departs from
Walter Benjamin's theorizing on culture, which
was proceeded by Theodor Adorno's aesthetic
theory and Guy Debord's observations on society
and spectacle. The course also encompasses the
postmodern perspective expounded by writers such
as Jonathan Crary and Susan Buck-Morris who
suggest that modern visuality has been altered by
technological and media-based mediation. The
tendency to fuse vision and visuality relies on
an underlying philosophical tradition (from
Descartes to Maurice Merleau-Ponty) that centers
on the metaphor of the 'eye'. Considering both of
these tendencies, the cultural and the
philosophical, the course will try to define what
vision entails for contemporary art beyond the
filmic layer of image production.