230233 Camera I's ― U.S. Photography from Mathew B. Brady to Bruce Gilden (S) (WiSe 2017/2018)

››The camera is a fluid way of encountering that other reality‹‹ – Jerry N. Uelsmann
››A lot of people seem to think that art or photography is about the way things look, or the surface of things. That's not what it's about for me. It's really about relationships and feelings...(…) They don't understand that it's not about a style or a look or a setup. It's about emotional obsession and empathy. ‹‹ – Nan Goldin

Be it Hollywood iconography or war critique, it is hard to think of American popular or political culture without remembering certain photographs that have entered cultural collective memory. Today, were manipulation is the standard in basic picture production, documentary aspects of photographs and its political use have drastically changed, and so has the representation of the individual and society in photography.
Searching for a current visions of photography’s meaning in our postmodern techno-culture where “taking a picture” seems like nothing special any longer, we will go back to origins of American photography and follow the traces of visual history from the Daguerrian type until our current graphic Social Media Culture searching for more than first sights…

Early-bird recommendations about material are highly welcome!