Hi everyone, I am Dr. Ernst van der Wal and I would like to tell you more about a really
exciting course that is offered by the Department of Visual Arts at Stellenbosch University.
In our department, we specialise in training artists and designers to be leaders in the creative industry.
In addition to our practical art and design programmes,
we also offer a theory subject that is open to all BA students.
In this presentation, I will tell you more about this subject, which is called Visual Studies.
In Visual Studies, we equip our students with the skills to become leaders in their field,
either as art writers and journalists, or curators, or researchers in Visual Media.
Visual Studies is a relatively new discipline that draws on a range of critical theories,
including art history, media studies, sociology, cultural studies, and even philosophy.
Our interest and specialisation lies in the application of these theories
in the domain of the visual, meaning that we train our students to use various conceptual frameworks
to investigate and understand the seen world. The interdisciplinary nature of visual studies
also allows one to analyse objects, and images in a variety of contexts, such as fine arts,
mass media, film, corporate communication, advertising, and even architecture.
In a world that is increasingly mediated by the visual, it is crucial to have a
keen understanding of the production circulation and reading of visual media.
This is true of any career you might wish to pursue. In fact, it is vital for even negotiating our everyday lives.
We are constantly exposed to images and forms that require our attention.
And while other courses are geared towards the analysis of text-based media,
we specialise in training our students to also understand how Visual Media works.
Visual Studies will help you to interpret the world around you,
and equip you with the skills to analyse and critically engage with visual phenomena.
We will carefully train you to master the complex languages of visual culture,
which is crucial for being an active and engaged citizen in the 21st century.
Some of the questions that we will be asking in this course include
'how does rapidly changing technology impact human identity?'
How is our embodiment and idea of self-negotiated by visual media,
how do images and form influence our cultural heritage and political persuasions,
and how can images subvert dominant ideologies?
These questions are addressed, for example, in the first course of the first term.
In this course, we will start our curriculum by looking at theories surrounding the object.
The basic question we will be asking is what is an object and what does it mean within contemporary visual culture?
This question will be answered by looking at
the way in which we, as humans, relate to, use, create, and define things, or objects.
This course is interested in the way in which we speculate about or engage with objects, while we
also look at different methods that we have at our disposal for analysing and understanding material culture.
This means that at the end of the first term, you will be equipped with the practical and
theoretical skills to identify, describe, analyse, work with, contextualise and think about any given
object, a skill that is invaluable in everyday life as well as the contemporary job market.
In the second term, we will look at the cult of the romantic sublime.
Each, in all the historical examples or even in contemporary media, the idea of the sublime has
had a significant bearing on our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
In this course, we look for example towards the late eighteenth, and early nineteenth century,
to see how ideas surrounding the artist as a hero or villain came into being.
This course shows how the romantic notion and preference for sensation and escapism
fed into various communities and structures that can best be described
as cult movements. This is a riveting course filled with intrigue and scandal and it allows you
to see how a particular idea of self, and of artistry came to bear on visual culture.
One of the terms will also be dedicated to the history of film, and the moving image.
In a post-truth and a post-Trump world it is crucial that we understand our histories as
they are represented in film and visual media.
This particular course offers a whirlwind tour of film and moving images.
We begin by looking at some of the early pioneers, including Edison and the Lumière brothers,
and the wonderful films that were produced during the silent era.
We also look at significant films that came out of the Italian Neorealism and the French New Wave.
Other examples include Soviet propaganda, which is quite well known for its spectacular
representations of Utopian societies. We also look at the dark alleys and the irresistible femme
fatales of the film noir movement and we also look at those effortlessly cool method actors,
James Dean for example, and Marlon Brando, who changed the face of movies and the film industry forever.
These are but some of the fascinating examples we will be looking at in this course.
Finally, we turn our gaze towards South African and African films.
In this particular module, we will look at films that were produced on the African continent.
And we will specifically look at South African cinema, which is one of the oldest cinemas and
film industries, within the world. We’ll discuss the artificial newsreels of the Anglo Boer War
and the birth of Afrikaner nationalist propaganda. While we’ll also look at
alternative films of representation that emerged from Francophone Africa.
Even the massive Bollywood industry, or even in contemporary South African television and
streaming services, we see how new narratives are emerging that speak about a South African
and a larger African identity. This course will help you to understand how films respond to,
but also shape our understanding of self. So these are but some of the absolutely fascinating
contexts and examples, ideas, and debates that you will be exposed to in visual studies.
If you have any questions about the course, you are more than welcome to contact me,
Dr. Ernst van der Wal, at this email address, evdw@sun.ac.za.
I can tell you more about the course, different career options as well as our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
Whether you are starting as a fresh and excited first-year student or already dreaming
of one day completing your doctoral degree, we are here to assist and to guide you.
Thank you for your time, and I hope to see you soon at the Department of Visual Arts.