107-262 Photography: History and Theory

Usually 12.5 points of first-year art history.

This subject traces the history of international and Australian photography from the medium's invention to the 21st century. It will explore the theories that informed this medium's theories that investigated photography's role as a document as a witness to events and to changing ideas of the body, race and gender. The unit examines the theories that accompanied its evolving place as a new art form and as a medium that was continually and profoundly affected by changing technologies. Students will encounter the evolution of the new medium, its intersection with existing art forms, and the documentation of the modernising city, the frontier and distant colonial possessions by traveling photographers. They will look at the impact of 20th century modernism in the creation and legitimisation of the new art form, and consider the recording of nation building and environmental change by Australian photographers, the indispensability of photography to propaganda and advertising from the 1920s onwards, the snapshot revolution of 1970s conceptualist photography, the avant-garde and then postmodern artists who appropriated photography as the medium most suited to avant-garde art practices and then to the simulation of 'reality,' and the emergence of new digital photography at the start of the 21st century. On completion of the subject students should be familiar with key issues in photographic history since the mid-19th century, and with the outlines of changes in the theory of photography over the same period.

Written work, which may comprise class papers, essays and take-home examinations totalling 4000 words. All pieces of written work must be submitted.

A subject reader will be available.