Handbook : Unit informationEdith Cowan University

Faculty of Education and Arts

School: Communications and Arts

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

• Unit Title

  Photomedia Aesthetics and Histories

• Unit Code

  PHO2102

• Year

  2015

• Enrolment Period

  1

• Version

  1

• Credit Points

  15

• Full Year Unit

  N

• Mode of Delivery

  On Campus
  Online

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Description

In this unit, students acquire an overview of the principle practices, theories and debates, credited as having defined photography's history. The unit focuses on the influential aesthetic discourses of European and American photography giving emphasis to major trends. Students will explore and extend these practices and theories in their own creative work and so are required to have fundamental photomedia production skills.

Equivalent Rule

Unit was previously coded PHO3104

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

1. Analyse photomedia aesthetic practices (e.g. romantic, humanism, pictorialism, symbolism, constructivism, formalism, realism, feminism).
2. Compare and contrast the work of selected photographers.
3. Describe the work of principle photographers credited as having defined photomedia's histories.
4. Evaluate the significance of selected photographers practices.

Unit Content

1. Critical perspectives, the language and writing of artist statements.
2. Early 20th century European and American photographic projects that signalled a shift from pictorialism.
3. Formalism, Constructivism, Bauhaus and Chicago School photography.
4. The Beat movement, the concerns of the 1960s, recent American documentary, street, landscape and art photography.
5. The project of Alfred Stieglitz, the journal Camera Work and the New York based, Photo Secession group in raising the status of photography to that of art.
6. The significance of the Paris based photographers, Man Ray, Bill Brandt, Brassai and Kertesz during the 1920s and 1930s

Additional Learning Experience Information

Screenings. Seminars.

Assessment

GS1 GRADING SCHEMA 1 Used for standard coursework units

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant Board of Examiners.

Text References

• Arbus, D. (2003). Revelations. London: Jonathon Cape.
• Bourdin, G. (2001). Exhibit A. London: Jonathon Cape.
• Costa, G. (2010). Nan Goldin. London: Phaidon.
• Delany, P. (2004). Bill Brandt: A life. London: Jonathon Cape.
• Fielder, J. (Ed.). (2006). Bauhaus. Cologne: Konemann.
• Sherman, C. (2007). A play of selves. New York: Metro Pictures.
• Friedlander, L. (2000). Lee Friedlander. San Francisco: Fraenkel Gallery.
• Ginsberg, A. (2010). Beat memories: The photographs of Allen Ginsberg. New York: DelMonico Books/Prestel.
• Hostetler, L. (2009). Street seen: The psychological gesture in American photography, 1940-1959. New York: DelMonico.
• Kripner, J. (2010). Paul Strand in Mexico. New York: Aperture.
• Philippi, S., & Kieseyer, U. (Eds.). (2008). Camera work: The complete photographs 1903-1917. New York: Taschen.
• Frank, R. (2008). The Americans. Gottingen: Steidl.

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