Dear all,
Here are some questions that I think you may reflect upon while writing your short essays. Depending upon your writing styles, you may use only one of these or several of them. What I expect you to do is to perceive these questions as an exercise for thinking upon what you will write. That means, do not answer all af them as if you are filling out a questionnaire. That would be too superficial for a short essay like this - as you would guess. Try to focus on a certain aspect of the artwork and elaborate on that. Another important point is that you may write a paper without necessarily answering these questions (except for the first one). Be critical, creative and show me you gave a thought on what you wrote. Take these points as a possible guide, not as exam questions.
- Very very briefly introduce the artwork you will be writing on. Give the basic technical information (about the artist, title, time period, technical attributes, if you think relevant, etc.). 5-6 sentences max.
-How is language incorporated into the image? Are the visual qualities of the words part of the image? Or the meaning? Or any other attributes?
- Do the words have a special meanings?
If so, how does it affect the way the image is seen?
If not, is there a certain logical structure behind the meaningless of the text?
- What do you think would happen if language were not used in the artwork? Could the messages be changed? How could the meanings be altered? Would it be more ambigious? How would this ambiguity change the way in which you see the work?
- Do you have additional texts that support the artwork (like information panel texts)? If so, what may be the relationship of these texts to the image as opposed to that of the text which is a part of the work?
- If you were to translate a written text as part of the artwork, what strategies would you adopt?
You are welcome to establish initial connections with any relevant theoretical framework (of linguistics, semiotics, visual arts, art history, etc.). That would very well work if you decide to write a final paper on this subject, which means I don't expect you to cover a theory and make an indepth analysis. But at least it may be a good start for specifying the focus of your final paper if you intend to write on this particular subject.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Syllabus
MUTI 498
CONTEMPORARY VISUAL CULTURE AND TRANSLATION
Course Instructor: Özden Şahin
Office Hours: Wednesdays 13:00 – 14:00 and by appointment
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences Room 17
0216 677 16 30 * 1167
ozden.sahin@okan.edu.tr
Introduction
This class focuses on debates at the intersection of arts, visual culture and translation from the second half of the 20th century until present. The aim of the course is to introduce translation studies students with core issues in contemporary arts and visual culture and to develop the students’ ability to approach the texts from a translator’s point of view.
Susan Sontag wrote in her book On Photography that the industrialization of camera technology “only carried out a promise inherent in photography from its very beginning: to democratize all experiences by translating them into images.” Thinking of images as a translation of experiences is a metaphorical approach but at the same time it opens a space on further discussions on how the frameworks of translation could contribute to the field of visual arts. May the transformation of an exhibition for different spatial settings, for example, be accepted as a visual translation? If so, what kind of translation strategies are adopted by the artists or curators when an artwork is displayed in different gallery spaces?
The issues regarding the translator’s positioning may be complementary to these debates: What are the translation strategies that could be adopted by the translator when new terminology is introduced with the birth of new theoretical debates - such as the posthuman body in arts - or with the birth of new genres - such as digital poetry? Can one accept the semiotic analyses of image rhetoric as a translation?
Method
The students will be exposed to different contemporary visual forms including painting, photography, sculpture, video art, performance art, mask theatre, installation, digital art, interactive design, animation, documentary footage, comics, news footage and advertisements. It should be noted that this course may not cover all of the key issues in visual culture as it is tailored according to the needs of the translation studies students.
The students will come to class having done the readings. The discussions in the class will constitute a) the analysis of the source text b) the reading of the text from a translator’s point of view c) either translation of the text or the analysis of its previous translation(s), if available. Equal emphasis will be given on source text analysis, translation analysis and translation practice.
Course Requirements
The students are expected to submit short response papers or translations periodically throughout the semester. For the final project, the students can
a) do a translation project (of the material not translated into the target language before) plus write an analytical piece reflecting their ideas on the source text and on the translation process. The translated text may be from the resources listed below or from any other relevant text of the student’s own choice.
b) write a final paper on a topic within the field of visual culture along with a commentary reflecting a translator’s point of view. The students are strongly encouraged to ask for written and/or spoken feedback as their papers develop.
c) come up with their own proposal for a final project. Anything relevant, creative, and exciting is welcome.
Grading
Short Assignments 40%
Final Project 60%
Grading Scale
AA 91 - 100
BA 86 - 90
BB 81 - 85
CB 76 - 80
CC 71 - 75
DC 66 - 70
DD 56 - 65
FD 51 - 55
FF 0 - 50
Plagiarism Notice
Taking someone else’s work as a whole or in part without providing relevant citation is considered as plagiarism. Anyone who does so will fail the class.
Resources
The books, articles, or other material listed below may be used for the purposes of getting acquainted with the research field, preparing for discussions in class, and developing your final projects. Please read them critically. Other resources you would like to add to this list are also welcome.
Introduction to Visual Culture
Roland Barthes, “Rhetoric of the image,” in Visual Culture: the Reader, Stuart Hall and Jessica Evans, eds. (London: Sage Publications, 1999), 33 – 40.
John Berger, About Looking (New York: Vintage, 1997).
John Berger, Ways of Seeing (British Broadcasting Corporation ; London, England ; New York, N.Y. : Penguin Books, 1972).
Margaret Dikovitskaya, Visual Culture : The Study of the Visual after the Cultural Turn (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005).
Chris Jenks, ed. Visual Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 1995).
Nicholas Mirzoeff, The Visual Culture Reader (London: Routledge, 2002).
Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Art and Theory - General
Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Mechanical Reproducibility,” in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections (Berlin: Schocken, 1969).
Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois and Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism, Volumes 1-2 (London: Thames & Hudson, 2005).
David Hopkins, After Modern Art 1945-2000 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
Edward Lucie-Smith, Movements in Art Since 1945 (London: Thames & Hudson, 2001).
Kobena Mercer, “Reading racial fetishism: the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe,” in Visual Culture: the Reader, Stuart Hall and Jessica Evans, eds. (London : Sage Publications, 1999), 435 – 447.
Michael Rush, "Introduction," in New Media in Late 20th-Century Art (London: Thames and Hudson, 1999), 6- 35.
Photography
Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux Inc, 1999).
Geoffrey Batchen, Each Wild Idea: Writing Photography History (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2000).
Victor Burgin, “Art, common sense and photography,” in Visual Culture: the Reader, Stuart Hall and Jessica Evans, eds. (London: Sage Publications, 1999), 41 -50.
Ashley la Grange, Basic Critical Theory for Photographers (Oxford: Focal Press, 2005).
Clive Scott, The Spoken Image: Photography and Language (London: Reaktion Books, 1999).
Susan Sontag, On Photography (New York: Picador, 1990).
John Tagg, Disciplinary Frame: Photographic Truths and the Capture of Meaning (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009).
Film
Dudley Andrew, Concepts in Film Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984).
James Donald. “The City, the Cinema: Modern Spaces,” in Visual Culture, ed. Chris Jenks (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), 77 – 95.
Janet Harbord, Film Cultures (London: Sage Publications, 2002).
Stephen Mulhall, On Film (London: Routledge, 2008).
Amy Villarejo, Film Studies The Basics (London: Routledge, 2002).
New Media
Megan Boler, ed., Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2008).
Paul Brown, Charlie Gere, Nicholas Lambert and Catherine Mason, White Heat Cold Logic: British Computer Art 1960 – 1980 (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2008).
Paul A. Fishwick, ed., Aesthetic Computing (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2006).
Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (New York: NYU Press, 2008).
Glen Creeber, Royston Martin, eds. Digital Cultures: Understanding New Media (Berkshire: Open University Press, 2009).
Oliver Grau, Virtual Art: from Illusion to Immersion, trans. Guloria Custance (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2003).
Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002).
Generative Literature
Jay David Bolter, Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print, Second Edition. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001.
Eduardo Kac, ed., Media Poetry: An International Anthology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007).
Adalaide Morris and Thomas Swiss, eds. New Media Poetics: Contexts, Technotexts, and Theories (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2006).
Artists’ Writings
Kristine Stiles and Peter H. Selz, Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art - A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings (California: University of California Press, 1996).
Language and Art
David Cateforis, 'Calligraphy, poetry and paradoxical power in Wenda Gu's Neon Calligraphy Series', Word & Image, 26: 1 (2010), 1-20.
Journal of Visual Culture, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2007) (the whole issue).
Jean Robertson and Craig McDaniel, “Language,” in Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980, (Oxford University Press, 2005), 191 - 232.
Texts on Key Areas in Visual Culture, Populer Genres & Others
Michel Foucault, “Panopticism” in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage, 1995), 195 - 230.
Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1999).
George E. Slusser and Eric S. Rabkin, Aliens: The Anthropology of Science Fiction (Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987).
Paul Virilio, The Information Bomb, trans. Chris Turner (London and New York: Verso, 2005).
Raymond Williams, “Advertising: The magic system,” in Problems in Materialism and Culture: Selected Essays (London and New York: Verso, 1997, 1980), 170 – 195.
Toby Wilsher, The Mask Handbook (New York: Routledge, 2007).
WEEKLY SCHEDULE
Introduction to Visual Culture
Week 1/ February 12: What is Visual Culture?
Nicholas Mirzoeff, “What is Visual Culture?” in The Visual Culture Reader (London: Routledge, 2002), 1 - 33.
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. reflect critically upon visuality and visual culture
b. be introduced briefly to the current body of literature written on the area
c. be able to link their current practices of translation to the field of visuality
Week 2/ February 19: Images, Rhetoric and Political Discourse
Roland Barthes, “Rhetoric of the image,” in Visual Culture: the Reader, Stuart Hall and Jessica Evans, eds. (London: Sage Publications, 1999), 33 – 40.
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. discuss key concepts of structure and agency
b. be asked to position the rhetoric on the image within contemporary culture
Translating Texts on Arts: Developing Generic and Thematic Approaches
Week 3/ February 26: The Thematisation of Language in Contemporary Art
Due: Write a short essay on an artwork/ exhibition that incorporates language as part of the visual work.
Jean Robertson and Craig McDaniel, “Language,” in Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980, (Oxford University Press, 2005), 191 - 232.
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. be exposed to a collection of contemporary artistic expressions where language is thematised.
b. discuss the communication between the verbal acts, imagery and representation.
c. explore the uses of language as a strategy to deliver a politically charged message in an artwork and explore the reflection of theories of language in visual artworks.
Week 4/ March 5: Photography and Translation
Ashley la Grange, “Clive Scott, The Spoken Image: Photography and Language,” in Basic Critical Theory for Photographers (Oxford: Focal Press, 2005), 133 – 148.
Susan Sontag, “In Plato’s Cave,” in On Photography (New York: Picador, 1990), 2 – 24.
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. be introduced to current debates on photography
b. reflect upon the uses of documentary photography
c. compare the textual responses to image bombardment from classical writings to pieces written after the development of digital technologies
Week 5/ March 12: The Language of Film
Screening: Harrison Bergeron (dir. Patrick Horne, 2006) based on a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, “Harrison Bergeron,” in Welcome to the Monkey House.
Amy Villarejo, “The Language of Film,” in Film Studies The Basics (London: Routledge, 2002), 24 - 53.
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. be able to analyse translation of texts on film
b. discuss the adaptation and translation strategies at the intersection of the word and moving images
c. discuss the relationship between the filmic genres and translation of texts
Week 6/ March 19: A Brief Introduction to New Media and Digital Art
Guest Speaker: Lanfranco Aceti
Paul Brown, “Recovering History - Critical and Archival Histories of the Computer-based Arts,” SIGGRAPH 2003 Art Show Catalogue, 2003.
Lev Manovich, “What is New Media?” in The Language of New Media (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002). 43 - 74.
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. be introduced to the concept of digital art and new media
b. be acquainted with examples of software art
c. be presented art projects which are based upon the translational relationship between text and image
Week 7/ March 26: Visual Poetry: New Media for an Old Genre
Due: Proposals of final assignments
Eric Vos, “Media Poetry – Theories and Strategies,” in Media Poetry: An International Anthology, Eduardo Kac, ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007).
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. discuss the relationship between traditional forms of poetry and digital poetry
b. discuss the challenges of translating new media poetry
c. be asked to form strategies regarding code-based poems
Week 8/ April 2: Translating the Artistic Style I: Exhibiting and Translating
Exhibition: Gelenekten Çağdaşa: Modern Türk Sanatında Kültürel Bellek
From Istanbul Museum of Modern Art’s website:
“From Traditional to Contemporary: Cultural Memory in Modern Turkish Art“ will be a exhibition in which modern and contemporary artists will take part. These are the artists who reinterpret information, which is traditional, in the context of a new language of expression.
“From Traditional to Contemporary: Cultural Memory in Modern Turkish Art” will consist of works by the following artists: Erol Akyavaş, İsmet Doğan, İnci Eviner, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, Selma Gürbüz, Ergin İnan, Balkan Naci İslimyeli, Murat Morova, and Ekrem Yalçındağ. Held in the Temporary Exhibitions Hall, the show will include works by the participating artists, from their different periods, and in disciplines ranging from Video to Painting and from Installation Art to Photography.
Week 9/ April 9: Translating the Artistic Style II: Artist’s Writings
Due: Translate one of the artist writings from Theories and Documents of
Contemporary Art - A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings (Kristine Stiles and Peter H. Selz) and present parts of your translation by connecting the artist’s writing with his/her creative work.
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. practice translating artist’s writings and reflect upon the relationship between the creative pieces of a particular artist and the writing style of the artist.
b. observe how word is shaped when it is a tool of expanding the interpretations of image.
Translating Texts on Key Concepts in Visual Studies and Contemporary Culture
Week 10/ April 16: Challenges of Translating: Texts on Posthumanity as a Case Study
Guest Speaker: Münire Bozdemir
Due: Translate a part from Katherine Hayles, 2009.
Katherine Hayles, “Toward Embodied Virtuality” in How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1999), 1 -25.
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. be introduced to debates on posthumanity
b. discuss the potential strategies that a translator may adopt when he/she is dealing with terminology that is not familiar to target reader
Week 11/ April 23: No Class - Holiday
Week 12/ April 30: Gaze, Spectatorship, Surveillance
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. discuss the contemporary surveillance techniques and theoretical material on the issue
b. learn how gaze and surveillance is thematised in contemporary art
c. be asked to reflect upon translated texts on the issue
Michel Foucault, “Panopticism” in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage, 1995), 195 - 230.
Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright. “Spectatorship, Power and Knowledge,” in Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 72 - 93.
Week 13/ May 7: Advertisement and Cultures of Consumption
Raymond Williams, “Advertising: The magic system,” in Problems in Materialism and Culture: Selected Essays (London and New York: Verso, 1997, 1980), 170 – 195.
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. develop an ability to interpret advertisement in relation to the concept of visual pollution
b. be able to connect the discussions on visual culture and image rhetoric with advertisements
Part IV: Conclusions
Week 14/ May 14: Conclusions and Discussions on Final Assignments
CONTEMPORARY VISUAL CULTURE AND TRANSLATION
Course Instructor: Özden Şahin
Office Hours: Wednesdays 13:00 – 14:00 and by appointment
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences Room 17
0216 677 16 30 * 1167
ozden.sahin@okan.edu.tr
Introduction
This class focuses on debates at the intersection of arts, visual culture and translation from the second half of the 20th century until present. The aim of the course is to introduce translation studies students with core issues in contemporary arts and visual culture and to develop the students’ ability to approach the texts from a translator’s point of view.
Susan Sontag wrote in her book On Photography that the industrialization of camera technology “only carried out a promise inherent in photography from its very beginning: to democratize all experiences by translating them into images.” Thinking of images as a translation of experiences is a metaphorical approach but at the same time it opens a space on further discussions on how the frameworks of translation could contribute to the field of visual arts. May the transformation of an exhibition for different spatial settings, for example, be accepted as a visual translation? If so, what kind of translation strategies are adopted by the artists or curators when an artwork is displayed in different gallery spaces?
The issues regarding the translator’s positioning may be complementary to these debates: What are the translation strategies that could be adopted by the translator when new terminology is introduced with the birth of new theoretical debates - such as the posthuman body in arts - or with the birth of new genres - such as digital poetry? Can one accept the semiotic analyses of image rhetoric as a translation?
Method
The students will be exposed to different contemporary visual forms including painting, photography, sculpture, video art, performance art, mask theatre, installation, digital art, interactive design, animation, documentary footage, comics, news footage and advertisements. It should be noted that this course may not cover all of the key issues in visual culture as it is tailored according to the needs of the translation studies students.
The students will come to class having done the readings. The discussions in the class will constitute a) the analysis of the source text b) the reading of the text from a translator’s point of view c) either translation of the text or the analysis of its previous translation(s), if available. Equal emphasis will be given on source text analysis, translation analysis and translation practice.
Course Requirements
The students are expected to submit short response papers or translations periodically throughout the semester. For the final project, the students can
a) do a translation project (of the material not translated into the target language before) plus write an analytical piece reflecting their ideas on the source text and on the translation process. The translated text may be from the resources listed below or from any other relevant text of the student’s own choice.
b) write a final paper on a topic within the field of visual culture along with a commentary reflecting a translator’s point of view. The students are strongly encouraged to ask for written and/or spoken feedback as their papers develop.
c) come up with their own proposal for a final project. Anything relevant, creative, and exciting is welcome.
Grading
Short Assignments 40%
Final Project 60%
Grading Scale
AA 91 - 100
BA 86 - 90
BB 81 - 85
CB 76 - 80
CC 71 - 75
DC 66 - 70
DD 56 - 65
FD 51 - 55
FF 0 - 50
Plagiarism Notice
Taking someone else’s work as a whole or in part without providing relevant citation is considered as plagiarism. Anyone who does so will fail the class.
Resources
The books, articles, or other material listed below may be used for the purposes of getting acquainted with the research field, preparing for discussions in class, and developing your final projects. Please read them critically. Other resources you would like to add to this list are also welcome.
Introduction to Visual Culture
Roland Barthes, “Rhetoric of the image,” in Visual Culture: the Reader, Stuart Hall and Jessica Evans, eds. (London: Sage Publications, 1999), 33 – 40.
John Berger, About Looking (New York: Vintage, 1997).
John Berger, Ways of Seeing (British Broadcasting Corporation ; London, England ; New York, N.Y. : Penguin Books, 1972).
Margaret Dikovitskaya, Visual Culture : The Study of the Visual after the Cultural Turn (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005).
Chris Jenks, ed. Visual Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 1995).
Nicholas Mirzoeff, The Visual Culture Reader (London: Routledge, 2002).
Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Art and Theory - General
Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Mechanical Reproducibility,” in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections (Berlin: Schocken, 1969).
Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois and Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism, Volumes 1-2 (London: Thames & Hudson, 2005).
David Hopkins, After Modern Art 1945-2000 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
Edward Lucie-Smith, Movements in Art Since 1945 (London: Thames & Hudson, 2001).
Kobena Mercer, “Reading racial fetishism: the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe,” in Visual Culture: the Reader, Stuart Hall and Jessica Evans, eds. (London : Sage Publications, 1999), 435 – 447.
Michael Rush, "Introduction," in New Media in Late 20th-Century Art (London: Thames and Hudson, 1999), 6- 35.
Photography
Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux Inc, 1999).
Geoffrey Batchen, Each Wild Idea: Writing Photography History (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2000).
Victor Burgin, “Art, common sense and photography,” in Visual Culture: the Reader, Stuart Hall and Jessica Evans, eds. (London: Sage Publications, 1999), 41 -50.
Ashley la Grange, Basic Critical Theory for Photographers (Oxford: Focal Press, 2005).
Clive Scott, The Spoken Image: Photography and Language (London: Reaktion Books, 1999).
Susan Sontag, On Photography (New York: Picador, 1990).
John Tagg, Disciplinary Frame: Photographic Truths and the Capture of Meaning (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009).
Film
Dudley Andrew, Concepts in Film Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984).
James Donald. “The City, the Cinema: Modern Spaces,” in Visual Culture, ed. Chris Jenks (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), 77 – 95.
Janet Harbord, Film Cultures (London: Sage Publications, 2002).
Stephen Mulhall, On Film (London: Routledge, 2008).
Amy Villarejo, Film Studies The Basics (London: Routledge, 2002).
New Media
Megan Boler, ed., Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2008).
Paul Brown, Charlie Gere, Nicholas Lambert and Catherine Mason, White Heat Cold Logic: British Computer Art 1960 – 1980 (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2008).
Paul A. Fishwick, ed., Aesthetic Computing (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2006).
Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (New York: NYU Press, 2008).
Glen Creeber, Royston Martin, eds. Digital Cultures: Understanding New Media (Berkshire: Open University Press, 2009).
Oliver Grau, Virtual Art: from Illusion to Immersion, trans. Guloria Custance (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2003).
Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002).
Generative Literature
Jay David Bolter, Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print, Second Edition. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001.
Eduardo Kac, ed., Media Poetry: An International Anthology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007).
Adalaide Morris and Thomas Swiss, eds. New Media Poetics: Contexts, Technotexts, and Theories (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2006).
Artists’ Writings
Kristine Stiles and Peter H. Selz, Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art - A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings (California: University of California Press, 1996).
Language and Art
David Cateforis, 'Calligraphy, poetry and paradoxical power in Wenda Gu's Neon Calligraphy Series', Word & Image, 26: 1 (2010), 1-20.
Journal of Visual Culture, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2007) (the whole issue).
Jean Robertson and Craig McDaniel, “Language,” in Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980, (Oxford University Press, 2005), 191 - 232.
Texts on Key Areas in Visual Culture, Populer Genres & Others
Michel Foucault, “Panopticism” in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage, 1995), 195 - 230.
Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1999).
George E. Slusser and Eric S. Rabkin, Aliens: The Anthropology of Science Fiction (Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987).
Paul Virilio, The Information Bomb, trans. Chris Turner (London and New York: Verso, 2005).
Raymond Williams, “Advertising: The magic system,” in Problems in Materialism and Culture: Selected Essays (London and New York: Verso, 1997, 1980), 170 – 195.
Toby Wilsher, The Mask Handbook (New York: Routledge, 2007).
WEEKLY SCHEDULE
Introduction to Visual Culture
Week 1/ February 12: What is Visual Culture?
Nicholas Mirzoeff, “What is Visual Culture?” in The Visual Culture Reader (London: Routledge, 2002), 1 - 33.
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. reflect critically upon visuality and visual culture
b. be introduced briefly to the current body of literature written on the area
c. be able to link their current practices of translation to the field of visuality
Week 2/ February 19: Images, Rhetoric and Political Discourse
Roland Barthes, “Rhetoric of the image,” in Visual Culture: the Reader, Stuart Hall and Jessica Evans, eds. (London: Sage Publications, 1999), 33 – 40.
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. discuss key concepts of structure and agency
b. be asked to position the rhetoric on the image within contemporary culture
Translating Texts on Arts: Developing Generic and Thematic Approaches
Week 3/ February 26: The Thematisation of Language in Contemporary Art
Due: Write a short essay on an artwork/ exhibition that incorporates language as part of the visual work.
Jean Robertson and Craig McDaniel, “Language,” in Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980, (Oxford University Press, 2005), 191 - 232.
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. be exposed to a collection of contemporary artistic expressions where language is thematised.
b. discuss the communication between the verbal acts, imagery and representation.
c. explore the uses of language as a strategy to deliver a politically charged message in an artwork and explore the reflection of theories of language in visual artworks.
Week 4/ March 5: Photography and Translation
Ashley la Grange, “Clive Scott, The Spoken Image: Photography and Language,” in Basic Critical Theory for Photographers (Oxford: Focal Press, 2005), 133 – 148.
Susan Sontag, “In Plato’s Cave,” in On Photography (New York: Picador, 1990), 2 – 24.
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. be introduced to current debates on photography
b. reflect upon the uses of documentary photography
c. compare the textual responses to image bombardment from classical writings to pieces written after the development of digital technologies
Week 5/ March 12: The Language of Film
Screening: Harrison Bergeron (dir. Patrick Horne, 2006) based on a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, “Harrison Bergeron,” in Welcome to the Monkey House.
Amy Villarejo, “The Language of Film,” in Film Studies The Basics (London: Routledge, 2002), 24 - 53.
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. be able to analyse translation of texts on film
b. discuss the adaptation and translation strategies at the intersection of the word and moving images
c. discuss the relationship between the filmic genres and translation of texts
Week 6/ March 19: A Brief Introduction to New Media and Digital Art
Guest Speaker: Lanfranco Aceti
Paul Brown, “Recovering History - Critical and Archival Histories of the Computer-based Arts,” SIGGRAPH 2003 Art Show Catalogue, 2003.
Lev Manovich, “What is New Media?” in The Language of New Media (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002). 43 - 74.
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. be introduced to the concept of digital art and new media
b. be acquainted with examples of software art
c. be presented art projects which are based upon the translational relationship between text and image
Week 7/ March 26: Visual Poetry: New Media for an Old Genre
Due: Proposals of final assignments
Eric Vos, “Media Poetry – Theories and Strategies,” in Media Poetry: An International Anthology, Eduardo Kac, ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007).
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. discuss the relationship between traditional forms of poetry and digital poetry
b. discuss the challenges of translating new media poetry
c. be asked to form strategies regarding code-based poems
Week 8/ April 2: Translating the Artistic Style I: Exhibiting and Translating
Exhibition: Gelenekten Çağdaşa: Modern Türk Sanatında Kültürel Bellek
From Istanbul Museum of Modern Art’s website:
“From Traditional to Contemporary: Cultural Memory in Modern Turkish Art“ will be a exhibition in which modern and contemporary artists will take part. These are the artists who reinterpret information, which is traditional, in the context of a new language of expression.
“From Traditional to Contemporary: Cultural Memory in Modern Turkish Art” will consist of works by the following artists: Erol Akyavaş, İsmet Doğan, İnci Eviner, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, Selma Gürbüz, Ergin İnan, Balkan Naci İslimyeli, Murat Morova, and Ekrem Yalçındağ. Held in the Temporary Exhibitions Hall, the show will include works by the participating artists, from their different periods, and in disciplines ranging from Video to Painting and from Installation Art to Photography.
Week 9/ April 9: Translating the Artistic Style II: Artist’s Writings
Due: Translate one of the artist writings from Theories and Documents of
Contemporary Art - A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings (Kristine Stiles and Peter H. Selz) and present parts of your translation by connecting the artist’s writing with his/her creative work.
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. practice translating artist’s writings and reflect upon the relationship between the creative pieces of a particular artist and the writing style of the artist.
b. observe how word is shaped when it is a tool of expanding the interpretations of image.
Translating Texts on Key Concepts in Visual Studies and Contemporary Culture
Week 10/ April 16: Challenges of Translating: Texts on Posthumanity as a Case Study
Guest Speaker: Münire Bozdemir
Due: Translate a part from Katherine Hayles, 2009.
Katherine Hayles, “Toward Embodied Virtuality” in How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1999), 1 -25.
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. be introduced to debates on posthumanity
b. discuss the potential strategies that a translator may adopt when he/she is dealing with terminology that is not familiar to target reader
Week 11/ April 23: No Class - Holiday
Week 12/ April 30: Gaze, Spectatorship, Surveillance
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. discuss the contemporary surveillance techniques and theoretical material on the issue
b. learn how gaze and surveillance is thematised in contemporary art
c. be asked to reflect upon translated texts on the issue
Michel Foucault, “Panopticism” in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage, 1995), 195 - 230.
Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright. “Spectatorship, Power and Knowledge,” in Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 72 - 93.
Week 13/ May 7: Advertisement and Cultures of Consumption
Raymond Williams, “Advertising: The magic system,” in Problems in Materialism and Culture: Selected Essays (London and New York: Verso, 1997, 1980), 170 – 195.
Learning Outcomes: The students will
a. develop an ability to interpret advertisement in relation to the concept of visual pollution
b. be able to connect the discussions on visual culture and image rhetoric with advertisements
Part IV: Conclusions
Week 14/ May 14: Conclusions and Discussions on Final Assignments
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