“By creating we think, by living we learn” Patrick Geddes
This interdisciplinary course provides you with a unique opportunity to combine art theory and art practice, and to think about the relationship between the two. You will combine studio-based practical work in a wide range of visual media with lectures and seminars that encourage you to explore the theoretical and philosophical aspects of your artistic practice. For example, you will have the opportunity to develop skills in drawing, printmaking, three-dimensional work, and time-based art; alongside this, you will draw on philosophical texts to help you explore the nature of visual experience and the ways in which art contributes to human understanding and self-awareness.
The course is jointly delivered by Philosophy in the School of Humanities and the School of Fine Art, where you will be taught by experts with national and international reputations. You will work closely with practicing artists, theorists and philosophers, all of whom are working in different ways to explore the possibilities and significance of the visual arts. They will guide you in your practical work and your theoretical reflections, and will help you to become more creative and self-aware in both your art work and your thinking.
As a student on this course, you will be able to take advantage of the excellent studio and workshop facilities at the School of Fine Art. You will have access to the digital imaging suite and the University's computing workstations. Expert tutors will help you to develop your existing skills and to expand your art practice by gaining new skills and techniques.
At the same time, you will deepen your awareness of the material, theoretical and historical aspects of visual culture. This will allow you to think more deeply about the ideas and theories that inform artistic practice. Philosophy staff will help you to reflect on why art matters, and what happens in the inter-action between artist and artwork, as well as artwork and viewer.
You will also be encouraged to develop a critical understanding of contemporary visual and mass media, and to situate your own work in this wider cultural context. The course will be delivered via active learning in the studio and the sharing of ideas in discussion. Workshops, lectures, seminars and tutorials will guide and support you in developing your own projects and in undertaking self-directed research.
On this course, you will develop a visual language and a theoretical vocabulary enabling you to express your own thoughts and ideas through both images and texts.
This course is weighted as follows in terms of teaching and assessment: 60% Fine Art / 40% Philosophy.
This will be a key aspect of your programme. You will be introduced to a range of contemporary visual media, practice-based knowledge and skills, including drawing, painting, printmaking, three-dimensional work, lens and time-based art, and sound art. Through a combination of guided exploration and self-directed work, your studio practice will allow you to develop a visual language and a range of aesthetic and artistic strategies. You will be encouraged to reflect critically on your own practice and to situate your work in relation to contemporary visual culture.
You will also study the following modules:
| Introduction to Aesthetics - PI11005 | Semester 1 | Credits 20 |
|---|---|---|
| This module will introduce you to the type of questions and issues that concern aesthetics in contemporary art and philosophy. It establishes the basic vocabulary of aesthetic discourse and will enable you to identify the sorts of questions that can be asked of art works. | ||
| Introduction to the Philosophy of Art - PI12006 | Semester 2 | Credits 20 |
| In this module, you will be introduced to the philosophy of art and the questions it raises: What is the role of art in society? What is the relationship between art and knowledge? What is the educative function of art? | ||
| Introduction to Visual Culture 1 - AP11001 | Semester 1 | Credits 20 |
| This module will include a substantial discussion of the nature of the visual image and how it can be interpreted. | ||
| Analytic Aesthetics - PI42002 | Semester 2 | Credits 20 |
|---|---|---|
| The purpose of this module is to raise issues about the nature of emotion in art, what the notion of 'likeness' in art invokes, and what is entailed in the idea of expression. | ||
| Aesthetics in Transition - PI22002 | Semester 2 | Credits 20 |
| In this module you will approach the philosophical roots of Twentieth Century European Aesthetics. The course of study will introduce you to the key ideas in the aesthetics of Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Heidegger. | ||
| Visual Culture 2 - AP12001 | Semester 2 | Credits 20 |
| An interdisciplinary module that will introduce you to the key arguments in the work of Walter Benjamin and John Berger. | ||
Study Abroad students may take level 3 modules, however, evidence of prior knowledge may be required in the form of transcripts. To find out more about this contact us.
| Film and Art - EN32020 | Semester 2 | Credits 30 |
|---|---|---|
| This module introduces a range of theoretical frameworks and analytic 'tools' to enable students to read and interpret film from different perspectives. Film is examined in its social, political, historical, cultural, aesthetic and technological dimensions, and students are encouraged to situate film in relation to other art forms as well as to contemporary and past material culture. | ||
Plus one of the following Philosophy options:
| The Question of Vision in Art and Philosophy - PI32020 | Semester 1 | Credits 30 |
|---|---|---|
| How do we articulate philosophically the nature of looking? What is involved in and implied by the act of careful attention? How is the nature of that which comes to be understood in vision to be differentiated from that which comes to be understood in analysis and explanation? What is the relationship of theory to our experience of the visual, or of the art work to reality? This module will address these topics through a critical engagement with the aesthetics of Heidegger and Gadamer. | ||
| The Aesthetics of the Sublime - PI32009 | Semester 2 | Credits 30 |
Erupting volcanoes, boundless seas, towering mountain peaks, the raging storm of battle, the terrifying shudder of the earthquake: why do such 'sublime' events fascinate and move us? Why do we find it so hard to turn away from things which horrify us? This module explores philosophical accounts of the sublime from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Literary and visual art works are used to link the sublime to issues of identity, gender, race, the ethical, and the political. |
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Study Abroad students may take level 4 modules, however, evidence of prior knowledge may be required in the form of transcripts. To find out more about this contact us.
The Dissertation will have a directional stress either towards Philosophy or towards interdisciplinary studies. It offers you the opportunity to support a programme of practice research with a body of philosophical reflection or to engage in a prolonged piece of supervised philosophical writing about central issues in contemporary art.
Plus one of the following Philosophy options:
| Deleuze - PI41001 | Semester 1 | Credits 30 |
|---|---|---|
| This module introduces one of the most important and exciting thinkers of the twentieth century: Gilles Deleuze. It will examine his powerful and revolutionary work on difference and repetition, and its implications for notions of identity. Students will apply this work through a case study in a field of their choice, for example in literature, art, politics, philosophy or history. The case study will allow students to illuminate particular problems in their field, as well as to develop criticisms of Deleuze's position. | ||
| Thinking Film - PI42012 | Semester 2 | Credits 30 |
| This module explores the many ways in which philosophy and film can form a productive relationship. We begin by looking at recent 'high-concept' cinema as a tool for teaching philosophical topics such as time, personal identity, freedom, reality and appearance, God, or good and evil. The films chosen will be mostly contemporary ones such as The Matrix, Memento, Total Recall, AI, Crimes and Misdemeanours, or Gattaca. We go on to examine recent philosophical theories of film, and conclude by asking how film-art can make us think through its narrative, visual, and auditory structure: in other words, can film philosophise? | ||
| Nietzsche and Foucault: the Bodily Self - PI41005 | Semester 1 | Credits 30 |
| Philosophers have often seen the body as a distraction, as something which needs to be mastered or even escaped for human beings to think clearly and rationally. This module examines the work of two influential recent thinkers, Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault, who make us look again at the body and its relation to, and importance for, our sense of 'self'. As we will see, Nietzsche and Foucault argue that the 'self' or 'soul' is an effect of bodily processes, and that the body itself is produced by a complex play of forces and relations. | ||
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