Instructor:
It is commonplace, even cliché, to observe that the modern world is awash with images. “There are too many images. Too many cameras,” laments the photographer Robert Frank. “If all moments of life are recorded, then nothing is beautiful.” Is Frank right? Are we smartphone-carrying bipeds so flooded by visual images that we cannot recognize the beauty of life as we live it? Has our immersion in images dulled our moral conscience? Has it distorted our perception of reality? Or, are these worries just another instance of “moral panic” or “technophobia”? After all, images are not new. We have been living with images for millennia, and worrying about them for just as long. In this class, we attempt to gain a critical perspective on our relationship with images. Why do images enthrall us? Why do we occasionally want to reach out and touch them—even kiss them? Why do we sometimes want to smash them? Do we trust images? Should we?