HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY

The course is part of the optional courses of the Masters’ Degree in History of Art and Preservation of the Artistic Heritage. It aims at providing the students with an in-depth knowledge of a series of questions related to the history and theory of photography, with a special focus on the question of the aesthetic, epistemological, technical, and political implications of what can be defined as “‘re-’practices” – namely, the appropriation of already existing images and their new use, thereby recontextualisation, resignification and redistribution, especially in the digital domain.

1. Knowledge and understanding:
The students will acquire an in-depth knowledge of a series of questions related to the history and theory of photography, with a special focus on the practices of reappropriation, retouch and redistribution of images in the contemporary iconosphere.
2. Capacity of applying knowledge and understanding:
The students will learn how to approach the history and theory of photography from the vantage point of research perspectives which have developed during the last 10-15 years, such as visual culture studies and media studies. The students will also learn how to discuss some of the issues that will be tackled during the course through the writing of a paper.
3. Capacity of formulating judgments:
The students will learn how to develop original or partly original ideas and how to elaborate a critical judgment concerning certain aspects of the history and theory of photography, with a special focus on the topics discussed during the course.
4. Communicational skills:
Within the framework of seminar-like discussions, the students will learn how to articulate ideas with the appropriate language and share them with the professor and fellow students.
5. Learning skills:
The students will acquire the appropriate conceptual and analytical skills that will allow them to analyse the issues discussed in class. They will learn how to study and discuss texts (some of which in English) in a constant confrontation with the professor and fellow students, as well as how to write an academic paper, accompanied by notes, bibliography, images and captions.

Good knowledge of the major historical events and the main movements of thought between the 19th and the 21st century, as a general framework in which the history of photography and of the visual arts is included.

The course will examine the history of photography in the 20th and 21st century focusing on the analysis of the aesthetic, epistemological, technical, and political implications of image production that takes place mostly through the appropriation of existing visual materials. At the beginning of the last century photography and cinema contributed to the renewal of art forms and both to the hybridization of disciplines and cultural fields. With the spread of the Internet and digital media in the new millennium, the possibilities of reproduction have expanded and simplified, further transforming, with an increasing speed, cultural practices and the way in which we relate to images. Today, appropriation and sharing are the two main features of digital photography, which, as an image that can be easily copied, manipulated and diffused in the form of a file, has become “fluid” – to such a degree that almost everyone has become a skilled producer, as well as a voracious consumer, of visual material. For artists and professional photographers, it is a new challenge, which involves, in addition to a constant updating of the procedures, tools and objectives of art, a close comparison with the technical and aesthetic evolutions, the social habits, and the political consequences brought by digital media. This profound revision process concerns a whole set of practices linked by the “re-” prefix, which act as counter-strategies in the current visual production. The “artists-iconographers” make extensive use of already existing images outside and inside the Net, modifying their form, meaning and context through remix, remediation, reenactment, recirculation, and rearchiviation. The value of “shared images”, which are bound to a perpetual migration, no longer concerns their origin – therefore also the idea of originality – but rather their destination and always different repetition/re-presentation.

1. To acquire the necessary theoretical knowledge:

• Claudio Marra, “L’immagine infedele. La falsa rivoluzione della fotografia digitale”, Bruno Mondadori, Milan 2006.
• Andrea Pinotti and Antonio Somaini, “Cultura visuale. Immagini, sguardi, media, dispositive”, Einaudi, Turin 2016.

2. To expand on the subjects covered during classes:

• Cristina Baldacci, ‘Re-enactment e altre storie. Dall’archivio alla contro-narrazione per immagini nell’arte contemporanea’, in “La rivista di engramma”, 150 (October 2017), pp. 41-48 (available here: http://www.engramma.it/eOS/index.php?id_articolo=3215 ).
• Cristina Baldacci, ‘Recirculation: The Wandering of Digital Images in Post-Internet Art’, in “Re-: An Errant Glossary”, ed. by C.F.E. Holzhey e A. Wedemeyer, ICI Berlin, Berlin 2019, pp. 25-33 (available here: https://doi.org/10.25620/ci-15_04 ).
• Cristina Baldacci, ‘Reenactment: Errant Images in Contemporary Art’, in “Re-: An Errant Glossary”, ed. by C.F.E. Holzhey e A. Wedemeyer, ICI Berlin, Berlin 2019, pp. 57-67 (available here: https://doi.org/10.25620/ci-15_07 ).
• Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, ‘Allegorical Procedures: Appropriation and Montage in Contemporary Art’, in “Artforum”, 21, 1 (September 1982), pp. 43-56 (available on Moodle).
• C. Chéroux, ‘“Hopefully There Is an Internet Connection!”: Seventeen Observations on Photo Sharing’, in “Snap + Share: Transmitting Photographs from Mail Art to Social Networks”, exhibition catalogue, Cernunnos, Paris 2019, pp. 7-13 (available on Moodle).
• Douglas Crimp, ‘Pictures’ (1977), in “October”, 8 (Spring 1979), pp. 75-88 (available on Moodle).
• Georges Didi-Huberman, ‘Rendere un’immagine”, in “aut aut”, 348 (October-December 2010), pp. 6-27 (available on Moodle).
• Tristan Garcia, ‘In Defence of Representation’ (2015), in “Picture Industry: A Provisional History of the Technical Image 1844-2018”, ed. by W. Beshty, exh. cat., Luma Foundation/CCS Bard, Zurich/Annandale-On-Hudson (NY), pp. 758-761 (available on Moodle).
• André Gunthert, ‘La culture du partage ou la revanche des foules’, in “L’image partagée. La photographie numérique”, Textuel, Paris 2015, pp. xxx (available on Moodle).
• Peter Osborne, ‘The Distributed Image’ (2015), in “Picture Industry: A Provisional History of the Technical Image 1844-2018”, ed. by W. Beshty, exh. cat., Luma Foundation/CCS Bard, Zurich/Annandale-On-Hudson (NY), pp. 772-775 (available on Moodle).
• Dieter Roelstraete, ‘Make it Re-: The Eternally Returning Object’, in “When Attitudes Become Form: Bern 1969/Venice 2013”, ed. by G. Celant, exh. cat., Fondazione Prada, Milan 2013, pp. 423-428 (available on Moodle).

NB: The complete programme will be presented and made available at the beginning of the course.

Non-attending students will bring, in addition to the programme indicated above, one of the following texts of their choice:

• Garance Chabert and Aurélien Mole (eds.), Les Artistes iconographes/Artists as Iconographers, Empire Books-Villa du Parc, Paris 2018.
• Charlotte Cotton, The Photograph as Contemporary Art, Thames & Hudson, London 2004.
• Maurizio Guerri and Francesco Parisi (eds.), Filosofia della fotografia, Cortina, Milan 2013.
• André Gunthert, L’image partagée. La photographie numérique, Textuel, Paris 2015.
• Claudio Marra, Fotografia e arti visive, Carocci, Rome 2014.
• Nicholas Mirzoeff, “How to See the World”, Pelican Books, London 2015.

NB: It is advisable to contact the professor in the case of specific requests or particular language needs to agree on a text of one’s choice other than the bibliography indicated above.

Students will be evaluated through an oral exam -- during which the professor will check the knowledge and understanding of both the topics covered during the course and studied on the reference books --, as well as through a written paper. The essay must be about 20.000 characters (including spaces), accompanied by notes, bibliography, images and caption. The subject -- chosen from the topics covered in class -- must be agreed in advance and sent to the professor via e-mail, in PDF format, at least ten days before the date of the exam (papers that are up to 24 hours late will not be accepted; therefore, students will not be admitted to the exam). The grade obtained with the paper will average the one obtained with the oral exam.

NB: the paper will be carefully read and checked by the professor. The identification of obvious plagiarisms, with entire sentences or paragraphs copied from the Internet or from other sources, will cause the peremptory exclusion of the student from the oral exam.

written and oral

The course will adopt a seminar-like format. Students are expected to actively participate in the discussion, commenting the texts, images and topics presented in class. The interpretative reading of theoretical texts and of images will be carried out in class as methodological exercise to facilitate learning -- particular attention will be given to the essays in English, which will be carefully explained to help and improve understanding. The theoretical texts discussed by the professor, as well as the selection of images that will be projected in class as slides, will be made available to students on the online platform Moodle during the course (for copyright reasons images and texts cannot be made available in any other way). Any possible visits to exhibitions and lectures by other professors or experts in the field will be an integral part of the course –more information will be provided during classes.

Italian

Class attendance is recommended to all students. Those who skip more than 30% of the lessons will be considered non-attending students and will have to add one of the books of the suggested bibliography in preparation of the exam.

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Poverty and inequalities" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development