Picture based studies

Picture based practice as a study program at Funen Art Academy has its focus on encouraging the production of pictures made by the students in order to reflect and discuss its effects in relation to its appearance in the public sphere as well as in relation to contemporary art discussions. In the center of this process stands the connecting and interlacing of the different ‘genres’, of picture production instead of a separation the different methods of producing a picture. Therefore the different genres of picture production, which could be for example processes of painting or drawing, processes of making video and filmmaking, processes of making photography , performance etc. will be not discussed in a certain hirachy but in its possible contact and/ or conflict zones. The aim of our artistic studies should be  to develop an independent, complex language of the image in which the different narrations, both in format and content, are made for an experimental communication with the public.

The background, on which I want to base these ideas on teaching, is an ongoing narrative investigation of the politics of the image: its production within different surroundings, its representation via technological means, and its usage in a broader political sense. A contemporary image should thereby not be misunderstood as an illusion-triggering object – rather, it would be seen as an offering for communication and discussion, not only of its form, but also its content and ‘social sense’. The term ‘social sense’ here stands for an engagement – maybe not immediately visible, but nonetheless contained in the art work – with the communicative acts, that are included in the reception of art. The development of such a consciousness is in my eyes the basis for advancement in contemporary art production. The experience of investigating our own possibilities in different image production and means of expression stands at the center of all studies.

Judith Hopf