final state examination in theory, history and technique of photography
In the state bachelor’s examination, one question/topic is drawn. The student has 30 minutes for independent preparation, during which he/she prepares a coherent presentation in the form of a ten-minute lecture on the drawn topic. Follow-up questions from the committee are taken after the presentation. The presentation does not have to exhaust the topic systematically; students should present their approach to the topic and combine technical and historiographical data with theoretical opinion. It is advisable to select a few specific examples (techniques, artists, theorists, works, texts…) on which students will convincingly demonstrate their attitude and understanding of the problem.
1. Architectural (exterior and interior) photography
2. Landscape and environmental photography
3. Documentary, reportage and investigative photography
4. Portrait and group photography
5. Still life and product photography
6. Scientific photography and visualization
7. Amateur photography and social media
8. Historical and alternative photographic techniques
9. Post-photographic techniques and new media
10. Media of photography dissemination and sharing
Recommended literature:
Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida. Reflections on Photography.New York: Hill & Wang, 1980.
Barthes, Roland. Image, Music, Text. London: Fontana Press, 1977, pp. 15 – 51.
Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. New York: Noonday Press, 1972.
Batchen, Geoffrey. Emanations: The Art of the Cameraless Photograph. DelMonico Books – Prestel, 2016.
Batchen, Geoffrey. Each Wild Idea: Writing, Photography, History. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2001.
Batchen, Geoffrey. Burning with Desire: The Conception of Photography. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1997.
Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media. Cambridge – London: Harvard University Press, 2008, pp. 19 – 165, 271 – 314.
Durden, Mark (ed.). Fifty Key Writers on Photography. London: Routledge, 2013.
Edwards, Steve. Photography: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Flusser, Vilém. Towards a Philosophy of Photography. London: Reaktion Books, 2000.
Flusser, Vilém. Into the Universe of Technical Images. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.
Foster, Hal et al., Art Since 1900. Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism.London: Thames & Hudson, 2011.
Freund, Gisèle. Photography & Society. Boston: David R. Godine, 1980.
Frizot, Michel a kol. A New History of Photography. Köln: Könemann, 1998.
Krauss, Rosalind. “A Voyage on the North Sea.” Art in the Age of the Post-Medium Condition. Thames & Hudson, 2000.
Krauss, Rosalind. The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths. Cambridge – London: The MIT Press, 1986.
Manovich, Lev. Language of New Media. Cambridge – London: The MITPress, 2001.
Mitchell, W. J. T. Picture Theory. University of Chicago Press 2016.
Rosler, Martha. Decoys and Disruptions: Selected Writings, 1975 – 2001. Cambridge – London: The MIT Press, 2004.
Sekula, Allan. Photography Against the Grain. Halifax: The Press of Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1984.
Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador, 2003.
Sontag, Susan. On Photography. London: Penguin Books, 1977.
Sturken, Marita – Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking. An Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009.
Trachtenberg, Alan. Classic Essays on Photography. New Haven, Conn.: Leete’s Island Books, 1980.
Warren, Lynne (ed.). Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography. Vol. 1+2. New York – London: Routledge, 2006.