Visual Culture

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• broader cultural contexts in which to position your specialist knowledge and/or practice in the production and consumption of visual culture.
• historical and contemporary contexts of the production and consumption of visual cultural artifacts;
• a range of key concepts in visual culture and contemporary critical debates in art and design theory;

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• formulate and express complex ideas and arguments;
• effectively manage your own workload, meet deadlines and work independently.
• identify and develop advanced research ideas and apply appropriate research methods;

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• demonstrate a depth of critical and analytical thinking in relation to visual cultural artifacts and their contexts;
• identify and deploy appropriate critical approaches to the analysis of the production and consumption of visual culture;
• extend critical approaches to the analysis of your own practice and/or specialist knowledge.

Underpinning the approach to this module is the understanding that you are a future producer, as well as consumer, of visual culture. Therefore the module aims to investigate the processes and contexts of production in terms of the practices, forms, and technologies of visual culture as well as its consumption, reception and meaning. It will explore key theories and concepts in visual culture with a range of theoretical approaches taken from psychoanalysis, feminism, philosophy, political theory, art history, film studies, critical theory and others.

In terms of learning, students will be expected, over the course of the module, to identify, analyse, and collate, a wide range of material in order to ensure that they have a thorough understanding of contemporary visual cultural theory and art and design practice. Students will also need to identify a specific area of interest that will provide the basis for an illustrated essay by the end of the module.

Teaching methods include:

• Lectures
• Seminars
• Presentations
• Study visit

Learning activities include:

• Lectures
• Seminars
• Group discussion
• Presentations
• Peer group learning
• Study visit

Relationship between the teaching, learning and assessment methods and the planned learning outcomes

In this module learning and teaching activities focus on helping you to investigate, question and analyse a range of contemporary visual cultural artifacts applying appropriate theoretical and analytical approaches. You will be encouraged to make links between diverse practices and theoretical approaches presented in the lectures and your own art and design practice and/or areas of specialised study. Seminars will provide opportunities for you to explore and identify these links through discussion and verbal feedback. This also provides opportunities for peer group learning and self-evaluation. During the module you will be guided in developing a topic for an illustrated essay in preparation for which you will present your proposed topic and will receive feedback and advice. This provides an opportunity to identify and explore in depth an aspect of visual culture that is most relevant to your areas of interest.

Formative

This is how we’ll give you feedback as you are learning. It is not a formal test or exam.

Peer Group Feedback

• Assessment Type: Formative
• Feedback:
• Final Assessment: No
• Group Work: No

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.