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Independent Critical Practice

  • Module code: FP5001
  • Year: 2018/9
  • Level: 5
  • Credits: 30
  • Pre-requisites: None
  • Co-requisites: None

Summary

You will develop portfolios of independent photography and other supporting research materials that demonstrate a growing awareness of the potential of photography across different genres and critical contexts. The development of an independent photographic practice is supported through lectures, group and peer review (not formally assessed), workshops and individual tutorials. You will be supported to challenge their working practices for photography and extend their critical abilities, research knowledge and understanding, as well as increase their visual communication and successfully resolve their photographic responses to readings of important historical and contemporary texts explored in class.

Aims

  • To encourage students to begin to diagnostically specialise within a range of photography practices and to increase their technical knowledge and production skillset
  • To enhance confidence in the creative development of ideas and to experiment within the context of their chosen areas of practice
  • To develop confidence working critically as individuals and to engage with peer and group learning, enhancing students' practical / thinking skills and photographic interests.

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of the module, students will be able to:

  • Define and refine their areas of practice in order to pursue their personal creative concerns and demonstrate increasing technical abilities and production skills
  • Demonstrate the ability to work in  different genres of photographic practice (if appropriate) and to creatively reflect and develop their ideas and concerns in response to texts, demonstrating awareness of visual and cultural context
  • Demonstrate and evidence a deep understanding of the relationship between photography, practice and research

Curriculum content

  • A continual and evolving series of weekly photographic responses exploring and expanding on the critical texts will allow students to work creatively within their chosen area(s) of specialism.
  • A series of readings and critical commentaries on seminal critical texts on and about photography, will challenge students to increase their creative potential and abilities to articulate and visually communicate their photographic concerns.
  • Weekly peer and group review feedback sessions of students' photography responses to texts encourage articulacy, critical appreciation and understanding of how images communicate meaning. This is not formally assessed.
  • Personal Development Portfolio. Students will maintain an ongoing personal reflective journal/workbook/blog in which they explore their ideas, evidence their critical thinking processes, and the development of their work and, importantly, relate research to practice.

Teaching and learning strategy

  • Student engagement and learning will be planned through the development of self-motivated projects which will address the set aims of the module.
  • Teaching will include weekly lectures and critical commentary/insights on set texts introducing appropriate related visual material and research references to enhance students' awareness of a broad range of areas of photography practice and investigations.
  • Peer review will enable greater appreciation and engagement with critical creative photography. It will increase students' confidence and awareness of how their photography may 'sit' within certain historical and contemporary contexts.
  • Individual tutorials will enable students to appreciate their progress and further resolve their photographic responses and concerns.
  • Students will continue to manage their independent engagement and learning and will maintain a personal development portfolio as a supporting strategy for learning.

The module will make use of the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) Canvas for communication and dissemination of information between students and staff as well as making online learning materials available to all. Students should check this site on a daily basis for module information, timetables, sign-ups, updates and additional information and teaching materials.

All courses based in the Kingston School of Art offer students free access to the online video tutorial platform Lynda.com. This provides a wide range of subjects to choose from, many with downloadable exercise files, including software tutorials covering photography, graphics, web design, audio and music, CAD and Microsoft Office software, as well as courses on Business and Management skills. Some of these are embedded in the curriculum and offer additional self-paced learning, others may be taken at will by students wishing to broaden their employability skills in other areas.

Breakdown of Teaching and Learning Hours

Definitive UNISTATS Category Indicative Description Hours
Scheduled learning and teaching Lectures, peer reviews, seminars, presentations, tutorials 100
Guided independent study Includes photographic production, independent exhibition visits and studio practice 200
Total (number of credits x 10) 300

Assessment strategy

Formative Assessment: Weekly group peer reviews reflecting on individual progress and each student's understanding of the use of practical work and research and the creative development of ideas. This will be by a brief verbal presentation and print review made in response to each week's critical reading. Individual weekly feed forward tutorials will also enable reflection on process and practice. Notes will be recorded and consolidated on a feedback form, to be filled in by students during feedback tutorial.

Summative Assessment: A selected body of work is augmented by a Research Log.

Group work will not be assessed. It is a method through which students learn, the results of which are integrated back in to individual practice. However, the student's reflection on this process may well be included in the work which is submitted for assessment.

Mapping of Learning Outcomes to Assessment Strategy (Indicative)

Learning Outcome Assessment Strategy
1. Define and refine their areas of practice in order to pursue their personal creative concerns and demonstrate increasing technical abilities and production skills Formative assessment through workshops and presentations, and feedback from project work which is assessed at peer reviews, seminar presentations and core tutorials. Summative assessment and formal feedback takes place at the end of TB2.
2. Demonstrate the ability to work in different genres of photographic practice (if appropriate) and to creatively reflect and develop their ideas and concerns in response to texts, demonstrating awareness of visual and cultural context Formative and summative assessment will take into account individual progress and each student's understanding of practice, work in progress, critical and creative application in response to texts. Assessment will take note of the creative development of ideas, which is evident in the project outcomes and accompanying reflective research journal/workbook/blog.
3. Demonstrate and evidence a deep understanding of the relationship between photography, practice and research Students develop a portfolio of work and accompanying reflective research journals/workbook/blog in which the visual context, critical processes and on-going documentation of the projects are compiled. Formative assessment is given through presentations, and feedback. Summative assessment and formal feedback takes place at the end of TB2.

Elements of Assessment

Description of Assessment Definitive UNISTATS Categories Percentage
Portfolio Coursework 80%
Research log Coursework 20%
Total (to equal 100%) 100%

Achieving a pass

It is not a requirement that any element of assessment is passed separately in order to achieve an overall pass for the module.

Bibliography core texts

Ballard, J.G. (2008) Crash. London: Harper Perennial

Ballard, J.G. (2006) The Atrocity Exhibition. London: Harper Perennial

Bate, D. (2016) Photography:the key concepts. London: Bloomsbury Academic

Baxter, J.,(ed).(2009) J.G. Ballard: Contemporary Critical Perspectives. London: Bloombury Publishing

Benjamin, W. (2008) The work of Art in the age of mechanical reproduction. London: Penguin

Benjamin, W. (2015) On Photography. London: Reaktion books

Bolton, R. (1990) The Contest of Meaning: Critical Histories of Photography. Cambridge, Mass; London: MIT Press,

Bond, H. (2009) Lacan at the Scene. Cambridge, Mass: London: MIT press

Burgin, V. (1982) Thinking Photography, London: Macmillan

Chiurato, A. (2014) The electric sheep nightmare: J.G. Ballard and the perverse use of technology. Milan: Università degli Studi di Cagliari

Delville, M. (1998) J.G.Ballard. Plymouth: British Council

Dyer, G. (2005) The Ongoing Moment. London: Little Brown

Farnell, G. (2013) The photograph and the collection: create, preserve, analyse, present. MuseumsEtc Ltd.

Ferrris, D. (2008) The Cambridge introduction to Walter Benjamin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Flusser, V. (2013) Towards a Philosophy of Photography. London: Reaktion books

Gilloch, G. (1996) Myth and Metropolis: Walter Benjamin and the city. Cambridge: Polity Press

Jennings, M.W., Eiland, H., Smith, G. (2005) Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings. Vol 2/ Part 2. 1931-1934. Cambridge, Mass: London: Belknap

Jeffrey, I. (1981) Photography: A Concise History. London: Thames & Hudson

Marx, U. (2007) Walter Benjamin's Archive; image, texts, signs. London: Verso

Missac, P. (c1995) Walter Benjamin's passages. Cambridge, Mass: MIT press

Smith, G. (1988) On Walter Benjamin: critical essays and recollections. London: MIT press

Sontag, S. (2004) Regarding the pain of others. London: Penguin

Steiner, U. (2010) Walter Benjamin: an introduction to his work and thought. Chicago: Chicago Univeristy Press

Wells, L. (2003) The Photography Reader, London: Routledge

Zizek, S. (2016) Artshock The pervert's guide to cinema. UK: Channel 4

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