AHS Study Guide - 2025
Ask yourself: What about the way this video was made is significant to the history
of media art? Who was this artist? Discuss context and artist/title/date
WEEK 1
Mark Leckey “Felix the
Cat” Around 1920’s
1. “Symbolizes the way
in which technology
blends the real and
virtual world
together”.
2. Leckey is drawn to
felix historical role as
the first image to be
broadcasted on
television.
3. Felix was a symbol of
how evolving from a
cartoon character to a physical object and then an electronic
symbol.
Hito Steyerl “How Not to be Seen: A fucking
Didactic Educational MOV File” 2013
1. Five lessons: invisible for a camera,
invisible in plain sight, invisible by
becoming a picture, invisible by
disappearing, merging into a world
made of pictures.
2. Satire use in video, hiding behind
placards, she puts on green goo to
show her disappearing
, Caves at Lascaux; 17,000-
22,000 year old, roughly
6,000 paintings
1. Example of complex,
prehistoric image-
making.
2. Paints were made
from natural mineral
pigments like iron
oxide.
3. The mastery of
materials and
techniques for communication makes a strong case that image
technologies are indeed ancient.
Camera Obscura
1. Device that projects
an inverted image of
the outside world onto
a surface, essentially
a “dark room” or
“dark chamber”.
2. Thought to have used
them to observe the
solar eclipse.
3. Find it to be a unique
and immersive way to
see the world in a different perspective.
Joseph Nicephore Niepce “View
from the window at Le Gras”
1826-1827
1. First permanent
photographic image ever
created.
Ask yourself: What about the way this video was made is significant to the history
of media art? Who was this artist? Discuss context and artist/title/date
WEEK 1
Mark Leckey “Felix the
Cat” Around 1920’s
1. “Symbolizes the way
in which technology
blends the real and
virtual world
together”.
2. Leckey is drawn to
felix historical role as
the first image to be
broadcasted on
television.
3. Felix was a symbol of
how evolving from a
cartoon character to a physical object and then an electronic
symbol.
Hito Steyerl “How Not to be Seen: A fucking
Didactic Educational MOV File” 2013
1. Five lessons: invisible for a camera,
invisible in plain sight, invisible by
becoming a picture, invisible by
disappearing, merging into a world
made of pictures.
2. Satire use in video, hiding behind
placards, she puts on green goo to
show her disappearing
, Caves at Lascaux; 17,000-
22,000 year old, roughly
6,000 paintings
1. Example of complex,
prehistoric image-
making.
2. Paints were made
from natural mineral
pigments like iron
oxide.
3. The mastery of
materials and
techniques for communication makes a strong case that image
technologies are indeed ancient.
Camera Obscura
1. Device that projects
an inverted image of
the outside world onto
a surface, essentially
a “dark room” or
“dark chamber”.
2. Thought to have used
them to observe the
solar eclipse.
3. Find it to be a unique
and immersive way to
see the world in a different perspective.
Joseph Nicephore Niepce “View
from the window at Le Gras”
1826-1827
1. First permanent
photographic image ever
created.
