Politics of Images

Images are increasingly dominating the centre of contemporary political-social issues and debates. Images are no longer used just to convey a message – they are often released into the visual domain to create an entire new response. Do images have agency? How are political experiences created through images? How are images and visual culture used in crises or global visual politics?

In this course, we will discover how the realm of art & visual culture and the world of politics are intricately bound up with each other. Particularly during times of conflict, artists speak with a political voice and politicians, leaders and activists use art, images, and visual culture as a means to achieve their goals. In this course we will examine the intricate relationships between visual culture and politics, thinking about the ways in which images not only reflect, but actually produce society. As such, we will consider the ways in which images, artworks, and visual artefacts, can embody, convey, and perform political messages, as well as the ways in which practices of using, handling, placing, and looking at images can be embedded in highly politicized contexts that may also shift across time. As part of this, we will consider how and why certain practices come to be understood as political, and analyse the ways in which specific images resonate against a wider media landscape.
In order to think deeply about the “work” of art and what images “do”, we will focus our attention on several key topics: art and power, the politics of display and the framing of images, (post-)propaganda, the politics of the body-image and the creation of identity, visual global politics and protest, and images of climate change. The course focuses on image-culture, with an emphasis on art and photography, but also includes a wider sense of visual culture, such as posters, exhibitions, and AI-generated (‘fake’) images. It starts from the premise that art cannot be understood without a solid understanding of its political, economic, social and cultural historical context. 

Questions to keep in mind throughout the course include:

• In what ways do visual and material culture play a role in the construction – or contestation – of political messages and/or identities?
• How do visual and material culture reflect and/or impact social and political action?
• How are the biographies of artworks, images, and artefacts connected to political histories? And how do they shape what we can imagine for our futures?
• What is the difference between art and wider visual cultures in thinking about the politics of images?

After completing this course, you will:
•    Have survey knowledge of theories on political uses of art, visuality and sensory experience.
•    Be familiar with key conceptual and methodological approaches to studying art, images and sensory culture.
•    Recognize political strategies and sensory dynamics in cultural production and experience.
•    Understand current challenges and the importance of trans- and interdisciplinary approaches.
•    Have practiced academic writing and research skills.

If there are excursions to museums or cities, or other art institutions, these may incur additional costs.