Forensic Visual Analysis

For this assessment, students will continue developing the knowledge and skills that they will need in order to complete the final essay. They will build on their understandings of the key concepts in order to perform their own forensic visual analysis. Students are required to respond to the following prompt:

 

Drawing on an example of kitsch or graffiti, perform an 800-word visual analysis that explores the ways in which “many everyday practices are tactical in character … victories of the ‘weak’ over the ‘strong’” (de Certeau 1988, p. xix).

In their answers, students must unpack an image of their chosen example. Drawing on the readings, they should aim to build a strong argument that exposes the ways in which their example is (or is not) ‘tactical in character.’ The image they have chosen should be cited and pasted at the beginning of their analysis.

Students must also use academic referencing and attach a reference list at the end of their essay.

Each visual analysis will be marked according to the following criteria:

Demonstrates a clear and effective grasp of relevant key concepts

Develops an argument that is supported by both theoretical concepts and forensic analysis of a well chosen example

Effectively uses writing skills to present academic research, including consistent and accurate use of in-text referencing.

This Assessment Task relates to the following Learning Outcomes:

Demonstrate critical skills, informed by cultural theories, that will enable students to re-evaluate those practices of everyday life that are often dismissed as worthless or ephemeral.

Develop analytical skills that will enable students to examine and critique the presuppositions that constitute those hierarchies of value that classify, judge and position cultural objects and practices.

Develop research skills that will enable students to present theorised, contextualised and informed accounts of key issues and problems in the context of subcultural and counter-visual practices.

Demonstrate communication skills in order effectively and creatively to present research.

Employ cultural literacy skills that will educate students on the importance of issues of cultural difference and ethical relations across diverse social and political contexts.

– analysis the content of the image, (where is it, who did it, and what is it about, etc)

– short introduction and conclusion

– apa reference style

-image and website need reference too

– 3 key arguments

– talk about strategies and tactics

– talk about Graffiti as a ‘crime of style’ against the ‘aesthetic of authority’

– external reading is unnecessary

 

Hall, Stuart 2009, ‘Notes on Deconstructing “the Popular,”’ in Storey J (ed.), Cultural Theory and Popular Culture, Pearson Education, England, pp. 508 – 518

Ferrell, Jeff 1996, ‘Crimes of Style,’ Crimes of Style: Urban Graffiti and the Politics of Criminality, Northeastern University Press: Boston, pp. 159-197

Tate, Greg 2003, ‘Introduction: Nigs R Us, or How Blackfolk Became Fetish Objects,’ Everything But the Burden: What White People are Taking From Black Culture, Random House, New York, pp. 1 – 14