Visual Media in the Past and Present

Faculty:

Jan Levchenko

Fall 2025: September 1, 2025 – December 19, 2025

Schedule: Tue, Thu 17:00 – 18:20 PM CET | 11:00 AM – 12:20 PM EDT

Subject: FILM

Level: 100

Credits: 4 US / 8 ECTS

Max Enrollment: 22

Language of Instruction: Russian

Prerequisites: No

Human beings usе more and more images, and visual experience seems increasingly natural for us and them. It is especially important to be able to summarize and comment on it, considering the products and technologies of popular culture as the key to understanding the contemporary world. Our visual experience stands on a background of arts from cave paintings to digital cinema. The visual environment that surrounds us with its entertainment spectacles, advertising, video games, and routes of travel (travelling, walking, shopping) contains everything appearing on that basis. In the present course, we will explore the ways in which contemporary visual culture is shaped by a variety of engaging optical tools such as the camera obscura, laterna magica, panorama, photography, film and television. In the second part of the course, I will explore how the contemporary visual industry works through examples of consumer objects design, as well as selfie as a key symptom of digital visuality. Starting from a distant backstory, we will return to ourselves, as the self is the most contemporary object we have.

Guidelines for the Statement of Purpose:
Craft a reflective statement of purpose explaining your interest in the Smolny Beyond Borders online course. The file should be saved with your name and course title as the filename and uploaded accordingly. Your statement’s clarity and substance will significantly influence our selection. Convey your motivations and aspirations for this course succinctly but thoroughly. Kindly write your statement in the course’s Language of Instruction.

Application Portal Instructions:
1) Use the Latin alphabet for all entries on the portal, including your name. If the Language of Instruction is Russian, you may use Cyrillic only within the Statement of Purpose file, and the title of the file should still be in English.
2) Refrain from using email addresses associated with Russian or Belarusian educational institutions.
3) While completing the “Required Information” section, ensure you fill in the “Province” field for your address.
4) Provide an address outside Russia or Belarus in both the “Required Information” and “Geographic Location Confirmation” sections of the “Online Course Application”. This ensures we can send your transcript.
5) You must press the “Sign” button twice during the application.
6) If you hold a bachelor’s degree, select “4th+” in the “Academic Year (online)” section.
7) Applicants either unaffiliated or affiliated with educational institutions in Russia and Belarus should list ‘Smolny Beyond Borders’ as their educational institution.
8) In the student ID section, enter ‘SBB’.
9) Consider drafting your motivation letter ahead of time. Save it as a separate file with this format: LastName_FirstName_CourseTitle for a smoother application process.