Retrospective

Now that I have come to the end of the Course and awaiting my Tutor's comment on my last Assignment it seems an appropriate time to try and evaluate what I have gained from the Course.

It is difficult to make a definitive statement because I believe that the benefits will only be apparent as time goes on and I realise the impact it has had on my thinking. However there are some clues. Recently a photograph sold for roughly £3m. It was shown on television and first impressions were not good. It seemed to be four stripes of colour and was entitled 'Rhine'. Before the Course I would have dismissed it as being part of the sometimes crazy world of art. On this occasion I approached it differently and saw the very simple way the photographer had depicted the Rhine. The stripes were the sky, the bank, the river, and the opposite bank. All the information was there in a minimalist way. Whether it was worth £3m is not a real question because that is the value that someone placed on it and it follows that that is its worth until the picture comes on to the market again.

Other clues lie in the way that I now analyse images (my major is photography) and seek the signs within the image that provides the information about the photographer's thinking at the time he completed the image. I make the distinction here between the taking of the image and its final form because of the almost infinite number of chances there are to change the initial shot before creating the final image. It is interesting to work out what is included and what has possibly been left out. Of course there remains the problem of whether my interpretation is close to the intent of the photographer. The change is significant because my approach prior to the Course to any photograph was solely on its technical merits and the use of tonal values and composition.

It would be true to say that this was one of the most difficult Courses I have ever taken which given that I have a BA Hons and an MA degree says something about the content of the Course. Looking back I believe that many of the difficulties arose because of my previous learning and my natural inclination to use an analytical approach. The philosophy I studied earlier was primarily analytical whereas the Course offered the continental approach and the thinking of Marx, Lacan, Derrida and others. I found this approach unsatisfactory and confusing. It seemed to be a series of statements the validity of which was questionable and apart from Marx, whose work is set in the stone of his death, the views changed over time occasionally reaching the point that they made very little sense. There was a need to take things at face value and not question too deeply the underpinning thinking. It was made more difficult because in researching the background it was very easy to find scathing criticism of any particular approach/idea that was not solely the usual venom found in academic work designed to discredit a rival academic.

There was also the problem of unfulfilled expectations. When electing to take the Course I assumed, without any grounds at all, that there would be some discussion and examination of the individual and his/her interpretation of the world as each of us see it. I can see the attraction of lumping together huge groups of people under one title such as Western Culture from an academic point of view but I feel that such an approach misses the richness and diversity within that Culture. It was of interest that when visiting an exhibition with tutors and students from the OCA and taking the opportunity to listen to the conversations and group discussion the variety of opinions that were expressed by what one would have considered to be an homogeneous group. The underlying approach of the Course is collectivist based on Marxist theory and followers of such thinking. So be it and I do not doubt the validity of such an approach but perhaps an examination of the way that Marxist theory has been used in the real world would suggest that the collectivist approach may not be the most illuminating way to think about Visual Culture.

Perhaps the final word should go to my wife who when told that I had submitted my final assignment responded "You will miss it". I will because it was not only difficult but stimulating forcing me to challenge long held assumptions.