Due the subjective nature of Image, it is difficult to achieve a factual and objective method of visual language analysis. Whenever one intends to study images from the scientific point of view, in the various communicative and social contexts, researchers are confronted with the prehistoric state of the discipline. The conceptual basis is scarce and there is a lack of connection between the concepts that allow us to understand the Image dimension, whether it’s picthoric, iconographic, photographic, cinematographic or television. In an attempt to encourage research and understanding images, the Curricular Unit’s goal is to give students an conceptual basis to understand the various visual discourses in the context of communication and art, based on concepts of space modalization, such as visual discourses, as well as processes of representation of space and time are constructed, which elements use and how they combine within the visual plane.
The Image Theory has the purpose to give the student a conceptual basis to analise visual discourses in main contexts. Beyond the theorical elements, the Curricular Unit has a practical componente with image analysis techniques and case studies based on the Portuguese reality and, whenever justified, in an international framework.