Contemporary Photography and the Index

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 7
  
• Convenor: Professor Patrizia Di Bello
• Assessment: to be confirmed

The photographic image has a direct, causal relationship to the subject matter that was necessarily present in front of the camera when the picture was taken. Unlike a painting, a photograph cannot be made from memory or from the imagination. This characteristic has been described by Peirce as 'indexicality' - the way a photograph points (like an index finger) to its referent - and the term has become how many writers on photography formulate its unique quality as an image. In this module we consider this term not only in the context of semiotic theory, but also of its history. 

Recently, digital technologies, which do permit creating a 'photograph' using a computer's memory and the imagination of the software user, have caused a renewed interest in photography and the index. Images, however, have always been manipulated, whether through darkroom techniques such as the nineteenth-century 'combination print' or through the use of collage and watercolour in family albums. Do these techniques destroy the indexicality of a photograph? Is the 'indexicality' ever really the key to its meaning, or a guarantee of its truth as a document? We will consider how different writers have theorised this special relationship, in different historical contexts. You are asked to test theories against photographic practices - how photographs looked, were taken, circulated and used in everyday, personal or domestic life; or in spheres seen as more public and institutionalised, such as fine art. 

This module is taught through seminars supported by gallery visits and essay tutorials.