Welcome to Sightlines, a journal featuring new writing on visual culture.
These essays provide a glimpse into the thesis projects written by recent graduates
of the MA program in Visual and Critical Studies at California College of the Arts (CCA).
They demonstrate each author’s desire to probe the complexities of today’s cultural
landscape.

The essays’ in the 2010 issue of "Sightlines":
-Dubrovnik under Siege: Artists' Interactionswith the Old City during the Yugoslav Army Aggression
-Whiteness, Billy Budd and the Erotic Submission to National Authority
-The Relational and The Aestheticin Contemporary Art
-Portraiture and Its Discontents in Contemporary Photography
-Politics, Police and the Legalistic in Art

In these and other essays, CCA's visual critics sharpen our focus on the often cluttered
assemblage that is contemporary culture. By linking vision with systems of power and
consumption, they remind us of the devouring substrata that lie beneath both the banal
and the beautiful.

Essays from each CCA Visual and Critical Studies graduating class, from 2002 to present, is
archived here. All texts may be downloaded as PDFs.

We welcome your feedback at mporges@cca.edu and encourage you to visit our
campus during your next West Coast visit—a region that has always fostered a
socially engaged cadre of writers, artists, designers and intellectuals.

Maria Porges
Chair of Graduate Studies in Visual and Critical Studies, CCA