IMPORTANT NOTE
Due to COVID restrictions the course starts online via video-conference.
Vision is never neutral: visual models of knowledge and epistemologies of vision inform, express and enact structures of power, domination, and violence. If “Images of the World and the Inscription of War” (Harun Farocki) cannot be separated, the realm of visuality is not only concerned with spatio-temporal images but also with historical ones embodied and interrupted by socio-political relations.
In the history of critical theory, visual techniques such as camera obscura (optics), anamorphosis (painting), panopticon (architecture), speculum (medicine), or parallax (astronomy) have been employed to explore the constitutive gap, asymmetry and contradiction in (post)modern worldviews and their socio-political relations. Conversely, feminist and postcolonial theories have challenged power structures by insisting on “partial perspectives” (Donna Haraway), undoing the epistemic violence inscribed in the reifying gaze of ruling economies of scientific vision. Recalling Jacques Lacan’s famous observation that “you never look at me from the place from which I see you,” the seminar is interested in the asymmetry, inconsistency and non-identity of vision and perspective, eye and gaze.
Although this course is announced in English, the language can still be decided (German or English), depending on the language preference of the participants.
A certificate (Schein) is possible with credit in Media Philosophy by writing a seminar paper (Hausarbeit).
Dr. Sami Khatib
khatib.sami (at) gmail.com
Thursday, bi-weekly, 3pm – 6pm / online
First class: 22 April 2020.
Consulation hours: Friday, 1pm