80083 Photography and Memory

Warning: The information on this page is indicative. The subject outline for a particular session, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source of all information about the subject for that offering. Required texts, recommended texts and references in particular are likely to change. Students will be provided with a subject outline once they enrol in the subject.

Subject handbook information prior to 2021 is available in the Archives.

UTS: Design, Architecture and Building: Design
Credit points: 6 cp
Result type: Grade and marks

There are course requisites for this subject. See access conditions.

Description

This subject investigates photographic practice and theory through the discourse of memory. In a series of lectures and tutorials, students consider the various ways in which memory is linked to identity, storytelling and autobiography, collective memory and history, remembrance, time and forgetting, and trauma and embodiment. The subject focuses on the various techniques that creative practitioners use to communicate such themes in memory: from photographic montage and remixing archives to rotoscoping.

Subject learning objectives (SLOs)

1.	Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between photography and memory in current image based practice and photographic history and theory
2.	Communicate ideas effectively in a variety of ways, including visual, written and oral.
3.	Initiate and execute self-critique, critical thinking and design responses to memory related photographic work.
4.	Demonstrate a practical and conceptual strategies for working with photography in the field of memory studies.

Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)

This subject also contributes to the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes:

• Ability to constructively engage with subject learning activities (A.3)
• Ability to communicate ideas effectively in a variety of ways, including oral, written and visual (C.2)
• Ability to develop innovative approaches (I.1)
• Ability to initiate and execute meaningful self-directed iterative processes (I.3)
• Ability to produce inspirational responses that exemplify integration of learning experiences (I.4)
• Ability to position work within an extended disciplinary context (P.5)
• Ability to source, evaluate and utilise appropriate academic and professional references (R.1)
• Ability to independently select and apply appropriate research methodologies to carry out investigative study (R.2)
• Ability to demonstrate knowledge of photographic history and theory and to place creative practice within a contextual framework (R.4)

Contribution to the development of graduate attributes

This subject provides Bachelor of Design, Photography students with the development of the Faculty’s five CAPRI Graduate Attribute Categories:

C: Communication and group work

A: Attitudes and Values

P: Practical and professional

R: Research and critique

I: Innovation and creativity

Teaching and learning strategies

A weekly three-hour tutorial/workshop combining historical, theoretical and technical instruction to guide students in producing new written and photographic work that explores photography's relationship to memory. Each week students will be asked to familiarise themselves with a range of resources that relate to the topic; these are included in the program descriptions. They will then attend tutorials and workshops and must be prepared to ask questions, raise ideas and apply their understanding of the topic in a collaborative learning environment. Preparation in advance of workshops is crucial. Workshops will give students the opportunity to work with peers and tutor/mentors, to collaborate on projects directly relevant to the assessment items, and develop photographic skills in a practical context.

Studio tutorials will provide students with the opportunity to take ownership of the ideas encountered in preparatory research. Tutor/mentors will help facilitate discussion and offer expert insight and direction where needed, but students are primarily responsible for the collaborative and participatory nature of the tutorial. They are also responsible for taking notes that record feedback. Outside of class time, students are expected to extend the enquiries made in the collaborative learning session with the independent development of their assessment projects.

Students are supported in these projects by access to level 2 photo media facilities. Grades, marks and feedback on submitted tasks will be provided through ReView.

Semester-long subject, delivered through weekly tutorials, studio classes, computer laboratories, group discussion and portfolio presentations.

Content (topics)

The content of the lectures and tutorials cover the discourse of memory through photography, with the following topics and themes:

• Theoretical approaches to memory: Sigmund Freud, Henri Bergson & Pierre Nora will be considered, as well as a review of the various positions photography theorists have regarding the medium's relationship to memory.
• Writing the self: autobiography and photography are considered in relation to individual memory
• Traces and indexical memory are considered in relation to photography's material association with memory. We look at techniques of montage and collage and consider how they function as ways of rematerialising the past
• How practitioners use photography to revise history and collective memory
• What bearing photographs have on archives, museums & public/private memory
• How photography interfere with theories of trauma and witnessing
• How photographic practitioners deal with unrepresentable traumas using analogy and metaphor.
• We look at the ways practitioners use photography as a form of prosthetic memory and consider what that means for strategies of remembrance in technological cultures.

Assessment

Assessment task 1: Tutorial presentation and research proposal

Intent:	This assessment will develop your ability to integrate theoretical contexts with studio practice.
Objective(s):	This task addresses the following subject learning objectives: 1, 2, 3 and 4 This task also addresses the following course intended learning outcomes that are linked with a code to indicate one of the five CAPRI graduate attribute categories (e.g. C.1, A.3, P.4, etc.): A.3, C.2, I.4, R.1 and R.4
Type:	Presentation
Groupwork:	Individual
Weight:	35%
Criteria linkages:	Criteria Weight (%) SLOs CILOs Ability to constructively engage with subject learning activities. 20 2 C.2 Ability to engage in and contribute to studio discussions. 20 2 A.3 Ability to demonstrate knowledge of current image-based practice. 20 1 R.4 Ability to produce inspirational responses that exemplify integration of learning experiences 20 4 I.4 Ability to source, evaluate and utilise appropriate academic and professional sources 20 3 R.1 SLOs: subject learning objectives CILOs: course intended learning outcomes

Assessment task 2: Final project and mini-essay

Intent:	This essay and studio project is designed to integrate theory and practice.
Objective(s):	This task addresses the following subject learning objectives: 1, 2, 3 and 4 This task also addresses the following course intended learning outcomes that are linked with a code to indicate one of the five CAPRI graduate attribute categories (e.g. C.1, A.3, P.4, etc.): I.1, I.3, P.5, R.1 and R.2
Type:	Project
Groupwork:	Individual
Weight:	65%
Criteria linkages:	Criteria Weight (%) SLOs CILOs Evidence of research by provision of a bibliography, with thorough use of UTS Harvard referencing. No spelling or grammatical errors 20 4 R.1 Breadth and depth of research - integration of primary and secondary texts in the essay, references to scholarly sources and inclusion of visual examples 20 1 R.2 Ability to construct, develop and maintain an argument through the essay and attempt to structure the argument 20 3 P.5 Ability to synthesise information gathered in the course, as well as a demonstrated attempt to further this knowledge by inderpendent research 20 1 I.1 Ability to visually respond to theoretical contexts 20 2 I.3 SLOs: subject learning objectives CILOs: course intended learning outcomes

Minimum requirements

The DAB attendance policy requires students to attend no less than 80% of formal teaching sessions (lectures and tutorials) for each class they are enrolled in to remain eligible for assessment.

References

Marc Auge, trans. Marjolijn de Jager, Oblivion, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004

Ulrich Baer, Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002

Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, London: Vintage, 2000

Geoffrey Batchen, Forget me not: Photography and remembrance, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004

Henri Bergson, ‘From Matter and Memory’ in M. Rossington and A. Whitehead (eds.), Theories of Memory: A reader, Perth, University of Western Australia Press, 2007

Susan Best, Reparative Aesthetics: Witnessing in Contemporary Art Photography, London: Bloomsbury, 2016

Hal Foster, ‘An Archival Impulse’, October, Vol 110, August 2004

Sigmund Freud, ‘A note upon the mystic writing pad’ in M. Rossington and A. Whitehead (eds.), Theories of Memory: A reader, Perth, University of Western Australia Press, 2007

Joan Gibbons, Contemporary art and memory, London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2009

Andreas Huyssen, Present Pasts: Urban palimpsests and the Politics of Memory, California: Stanford University Press, 2003

Margaret Iversen, Photography, Trace and Trauma, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017

Alison Landsberg, Prosthetic Memory: The transformation of American remembrance in the age of mass culture, New York: Columbia University Press, 2004

Pierre Nora, Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Memoire, Representations, No.26, Special issue: Memory and Counter Memory

Lisa Saltzman, Making memory matter: strategies of remembrance in contemporary art, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006

Frances Guerin and Roger Hallas (eds.), The image and the witness: Trauma, memory and visual culture, London and New York: Wallflower, 2007