Module Overview

This module builds on the preceding modules in both theory and criticism and history by framing the photographic in the contemporary idiom and grounding it current theoretical and critical debates. In the wake of the debates on ‘post-photography’ emerging in the early 1990s, the last decade has produced much critical commentary and scholarship across a number of different debates and concerns. From the impact of the globalisation and networks on photography - the digital condition -  and its attendant practices to a renewed interest in photography as a philosophical object in terms of ontology, epistemology and aesthetics through both continental and post-continental traditions. Another broader historical and political context that has shaped photography and the visual cultures of the early 21st century are the events of 9/11 and the so-called ‘war on terror’ which has pushed an ‘ethics of seeing’ to the forefront of contemporary debates. Part of this has been a renewed interest in human rights discourse and with it a reframing of ‘documentary’ as witness, as reporter and as document as a return of the real. This module will explore the ontological, conceptual, technical, and aesthetic premises of photography at the beginning of the twenty first century.