Media Aesthetics

This course addresses the ways that media matter to the way something is presented. Media are not neutral channels for transmitting information. Different aesthetic forms of expression organise information and structure the experience of media users in different ways. The term ”aesthetics” is in this context understood as pertaining to perception and knowledge acquired through sensory experience rather than as a theory of the beautiful. The course focuses on the aesthetic expressions and qualities of visual media as means of communication, both in an historical and a contemporary context. It investigates questions of media aesthetics through examples drawn from the fields of art and popular culture as well as informational media formats. The course emphasises methodological approaches to media-aesthetic issues.

Knowledge
Upon completion of the course students will have:
- broad knowledge of the visual cultural history
- good knowledge of theories on perception and aesthetics as methods of interpretation when studying artistic as well as popular cultural media expressions
- good understanding of the individual specificity of different media as aesthetic forms of expression

Skills
Upon completion of the course students will be able to:
- identify, compare and analyse different media specific forms of expression, within media aesthetic perspectives
- explain a range of methodologies relevant to media aesthetic inquiry
- draw lines in the history of visual culture,
- reflect critically and independently on questions relating the course

Lectures, group activities and web-based teaching activities. The course will make extensive use of digital learning resources.

Compulsory assignment:
One individual essay must have been submitted and approved before the student may sit the final course exam.

Students are required to pay attention to the results of exercise assignments and to keep posted on relevant messages from the department or the teacher at Blackboard.

This course may be taught in Norwegian or English, pending staff availability.