VISA 1500

Students undertake an interdisciplinary exploration of the visual components of our cultural environment. Students engage in a critical survey of early Western technological developments and how ways of seeing underscore late twentieth and twenty-first century forms of visual communication such as advertising, television, film, video, gaming, computer generated imagery, data visualization, post-photographic imaging, and other sources of image-making. We analyze the power of image-based media to entertain, influence, and condition, researching who creates it and purposes it serves. Students develop a critical framework for deconstructing images, applying visual theories and methodologies to real-world examples, reflecting upon the visual ecology that conditions their own perspectives.