SPAN 3970 - Ruined Landscapes and the Visual Archive

(crosslisted) COML 3486
(SBA-AS, SCD-AS)

Spring. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Conducted in English.

P. Keller.

A visually-based study of rural and urban landscapes of decay and overgrowth, ruin and resilience through film and photography. This course begins with works from the contemporary Iberian context (Spain, Galicia and Portugal) that visualize the phenomenological affinities between place and experience, as well as the tensions between overdevelopment and underdevelopment. We’ll explore the concept of landscape as a mode of representation and as a complex multi-layered archive of traces, memories and histories. Bridging key works from the slow cinema movement emerging from the Iberian Peninsula with films and select photographic works from other geographies including Italy, UK, Latin America, China and the US, the course will offer a uniquely comparative approach to media and culture.