School: Arts and Humanities

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

    Dialogues with Art
  • Unit Code

    VIS1805
  • Year

    2025
  • Enrolment Period

    1
  • Version

    1
  • Credit Points

    15
  • Full Year Unit

    N
  • Mode of Delivery

    Online
  • Unit Coordinator

    Dr Paul UHLMANN

Description

How does art help us find meaning in an accelerated world bombarded by an excessive number of images? This unit examines historical art periods and locates key moments of disruption and change to enable us to clearly understand our present. Students will engage through dialogues with diverse cultural approaches to art history and art making: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, Asian, European, decolonial, our region and our world. Students learn the significance of how context shapes art practice and theory as they develop critical thinking through diverse lenses such as ecology, the environment, socio-political, geopolitical, and economic.

Equivalent Rule

Unit was previously coded VIS2315

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

  1. Use appropriate art terminology to describe and discuss art works, art concepts and art periods.
  2. Critically analyse historical evidence to interpret visual art works.
  3. Evaluate the impact of cultural and political change using appropriate research evidence to inform an interpretation of the cross-cultural and global nature of art.
  4. Use digital literacy skills to access, evaluate and synthesise relevant information from multiple sources to present a coherent narrative.

Unit Content

  1. An overview of key periods and movements in art from Renaissance to our contemporary present including case studies from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander; Asian; European and decolonial.
  2. An introduction to the analysis of art production across time periods and appropriate art history terminology; importance of media and new technologies within art production.
  3. The impact of diverse cultures and political change on the production and meanings of art.
  4. Historical links between art, science and new technologies.

Learning Experience

Students will engage in learning experiences via ECU’s LMS as well as additional ECU learning technologies

Additional Learning Experience Information

This unit includes a project where students must create a model of an artwork or process from key periods in art history; the student will create their own version of this model as an authentic learning experience. They will then build on this experience to deepen their research and inform their essay which will combine subjective and objective voices within their writing.

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 School Progression Panel.

ONLINE
TypeDescriptionValue
ProjectModel30%
EssayEssay proposal20%
EssayResearch essay: Art History50%

Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005)

For the purposes of considering a request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005), inherent requirements for this subject are articulated in the Unit Description, Learning Outcomes and Assessment Requirements of this entry. The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the support for students with disabilities or medical conditions can be found at the Access and Inclusion website.

Assessment

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. Informal vivas may be conducted as part of an assessment task, where staff require further information to confirm the learning outcomes have been met. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

Academic Integrity

Integrity is a core value at Edith Cowan University, and it is expected that ECU students complete their assessment tasks honestly and with acknowledgement of other people's work as well as any generative artificial intelligence tools that may have been used. This means that assessment tasks must be completed individually (unless it is an authorised group assessment task) and any sources used must be referenced.

Breaches of academic integrity can include:

Plagiarism

Copying the words, ideas or creative works of other people or generative artificial intelligence tools, without referencing in accordance with stated University requirements. Students need to seek approval from the Unit Coordinator within the first week of study if they intend to use some of their previous work in an assessment task (self-plagiarism).

Unauthorised collaboration (collusion)

Working with other students and submitting the same or substantially similar work or portions of work when an individual submission was required. This includes students knowingly providing others with copies of their own work to use in the same or similar assessment task(s).

Contract cheating

Organising a friend, a family member, another student or an external person or organisation (e.g. through an online website) to complete or substantially edit or refine part or all of an assessment task(s) on their behalf.

Cheating in an exam

Using or having access to unauthorised materials in an exam or test.

Serious outcomes may be imposed if a student is found to have committed one of these breaches, up to and including expulsion from the University for repeated or serious acts.

ECU's policies and more information about academic integrity can be found on the student academic integrity website.

All commencing ECU students are required to complete the Academic Integrity Module.

Assessment Extension

In some circumstances, Students may apply to their Unit Coordinator to extend the due date of their Assessment Task(s) in accordance with ECU's Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000001386.

Special Consideration

Students may apply for Special Consideration in respect of a final unit grade, where their achievement was affected by Exceptional Circumstances as set out in the Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000003318.

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