Expertise
Visual Culture; Media History; Art History; History of Technology
Profile
Jacobson is a historian of modern visual culture and media. His research focuses on world making and the creation of artificial environments, from media architecture and visual representation to energy infrastructure, climate control, and terraforming.
Languages Spoken
English;
French;
Faculty Bio
B.S., Appalachian State University, 2002; M.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2005; Ph.D., University of Southern California, 2011. Caltech, 2020-.
Caltech Affiliations
Caltech-Huntington Program in Visual Culture
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An October symposium hosted by the Norton Simon Museum and Caltech focused on how artists have depicted and used electric light.
Queering Data, Salvaging Birds; Maya Livio Recontextualizes Conservation as Caltech's Art + Research Resident
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The Cinema of Big Oil
June 03, 2022
A conversation with Brian R. Jacobs, professor of visual culture in Caltech's humanities and social sciences division, about his research into the trove of films oil and gas companies have made about themselves.
A Conversation with Brian Jacobson
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March 02, 2021
Caltech's new professor of visual culture wants his students to learn to see—closely, critically, and contextually.