Failed Images

Catalog description

What does it mean for an image to fail, and what is the efficacy of such failure? This course examines how technological, aesthetic, and archival failures can be powerful mode of critique, refusal, and survival. From glitchy videos and unfinished films to decayed photographs and illegible bodies caught on cell phone footage, we consider how “failed” images challenge dominant narratives of beauty, visibility, and truth. We will explore a wide variety of examples of artists, filmmakers, media creators across the world (with a particular focus on Asian and Asian American) and examine failure as both aesthetic and cultural practice. Topics include glitch, obsolescence, poor image, camp, bootleg, analog horror, racial opacity, and archival lacunae. Drawing on literature across film and media studies, art history, feminist and queer theory, and critical race studies, this course asks: who gets to fail and on what terms? What kinds of media are dismissed as obsolete or unworthy, and what are “so bad they’re good”? In what ways can malfunction and obscurity be reclaimed as critical strategies?