The course takes inspiration from Paul Klee’s notebook Das bildnerische Denken to retrace the relation between paradigms of vision and cognition throughout the 20th century. The course is not aiming at discussing once again ocularcentrism (the hegemony of the visual paradigm in Western culture) rather at showing how the centrality of both human vision and cognition have been displaced by the rise of computation.  This history is traced along more complex “picture planes” than those recorded by canonical Bildwissenschaft: it includes, for instance, the study of machine vision in war technologies (Farocki) and the idea of the photocamera as apparatus of artificial intelligence (Flusser) . The history of the relation between vision and cognition is a controversial one and students are invited to explore its paradoxes rather than identifying with a unique “point of view.” The syllabus covers readings from the fields of philosophy, psychology of perception (Gestalt theory), cognitive science, semiotics, and computer science.

Download a diagram of syllabus as PDF

Prof. Dr. Matteo Pasquinelli
hfg-karlsruhe.academia.edu

Start: 18 April 2017. Tuesdays/Wednesdays, fortnightly.
Course: 15:00-18:00 Uhr. Room 112.
Office hours: 08:00-10:00 Uhr. Room 114.