Image Studies ─ Theory and Practice

Image Studies offers an engaging introduction to visual and image studies.

In order to better understand images and visual culture the book seeks to bridge between theory and practice; asking the reader to think critically about images and image practices, but also simultaneously to make images and engage with image-makers and image-making processes. Looking across a range of domains and disciplines, we find the image is never a single, static thing. Rather, the image can be a concept, an object, a picture, or medium – and all these things combined. At the heart of this book is the idea of an ‘ecology of images’, through which we can examine the full ‘life’ of an image – to understand how an image resonances within a complex set of contexts, processes and uses.

• Part 1 covers theoretical perspectives on the image, supplemented with practical entries on making, researching and writing with images.
• Part 2 explores specific image practices and cultures, with chapters on drawing and painting; photography; visual culture; scientific imaging; and informational images.

A wide range of illustrations complement the text throughout and each chapter includes creative tasks, keywords (linked to an online resource), summaries and suggested further reading. In addition, each of the main chapters include selected readings by notable authors across a range of subject areas, including: Art History, Business, Cognitive Science, Communication Studies, Infographics, Neuroscience, Photography, Physics, Science Studies, Social Semiotics, Statistics, and Visual Culture.

Sunil Manghani is Reader in Critical and Cultural Theory at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, UK. He is author of Image Critique (2008) and co-editor of Images: A Reader (2006), an anthology of writings on the image from Plato to the present.