DIGITAL ICONOGRAPHY AND ICONOLOGY STUDIES

The course aims to draw an evolution of the iconography of the digital and digitized image from the contemporary art scene to digital reproductions of images for the study of art history. The course, divided into 30 hours, is part of the Master’s Degree Programme in ‘Digital and Public Humanities’ and is connected to the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities (VeDPH) in the Department of Humanities.

- knowledge and understanding: students will learn the theoretical concept of iconology and iconography related to the digital reproduction of images; students will gain an understanding of the practices of contemporary art affected by digital images; they will absorb the differences between digital and digitized images especially referring to digital resources for art history;
- ability to apply knowledge and understanding: ability to recognize the digital impact in contemporary art expressions; to understand how to use specialistic digital resources for art history;
- ability to understand: capability in analyzing the digital reproductions delivered by digital resources for art history; to critically compare different both the digital resources and the digital archives; to be able to discuss with a property of language and correct formal analysis
- communication skills: the ability to use proper terminology, to comment and communicate the outcome of student's work; to interact with peers and professors in a respectful and effective way.

There are no pre-requirements

Starting from the theoretical concepts of iconography and iconology the course will address the digital transformations of artwork images. The themes of the course will be digital iconography in art production, video art, and digital art practices. A second part of the course will go through the digitized images and the role of the technologies enhancing perception and studying of art history as well as and museums’ collections. Art collections, digital archives, photo archives, and digital art history projects will be analyzed in order to underline the challenges and threats of a hyper visualization of artworks.

Chapters and essays will be defined during the lessons.

H. Belting, An Anthropology of Images: Picture, Medium, Body, Princeton University Press, 2011.
C. Bishop, Against Digital Art History, in «International Journal of digital Art History», 3 (2018), pp. 123-132.
J. Drucker, Is there a “Digital” Art History? in «Visual Resources. An international journal on images and their uses», 29 (2013), pp.5-13.
D. England, T. Schiphorst, N. Bryan-Kins (edited by), Curating the Digital. Space for Art and Interaction, Springer, 2016
E. Huhtamo, Art in the Rear‐View Mirror. The Media‐Archaeological Tradition in Art, in C. C. Paul, Companion to Digital Art, Wiley Blackwell 2016.
E. Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts. Papers in and on art History, Anchor Books edition,1955, https://monoskop.org/images/0/0c/Panofsky_Erwin_Meaning_in_the_Visual_Arts.pdf
V. Stoichita, The Pygmalion Effect. From Ovid To Hitchcock, The University of Chicago Press, 2008.

The final exam will consist of an oral test.
The interview will focus on a critical discussion of an aspect in the (aesthetical, historical, or methodological) approach delivered by digital imaginary for art. The assessment will take counts of participation in class discussions and activities.

For the current semester, the course will be held online, but the decision might be revised according to the pandemic evolution; the lesson will have the projection of slides and power points and will take in exam online case studies, with the interaction between professors and students; the class will be involved in critical readings of texts and in the use of art historical digital resources.

The didactic material will be made available through the Moodle e-learning platform.

English

The program is provisional and there could still be changes in its contents and texts.

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