Category Archives: art
The Language of New Media
Lev Manovich (2001)
In this book Lev Manovich offers the first systematic and rigorous theory of new media. He places new media within the histories of visual and media cultures of the last few centuries. He discusses new media’s reliance on conventions of old media, such as the rectangular frame and mobile camera, and shows how new media works create the illusion of reality, address the viewer, and represent space. He also analyzes categories and forms unique to new media, such as interface and database.
Manovich uses concepts from film theory, art history, literary theory, and computer science and also develops new theoretical constructs, such as cultural interface, spatial montage, and cinegratography. The theory and history of cinema play a particularly important role in the book. Among other topics, Manovich discusses parallels between the histories of cinema and of new media, digital cinema, screen and montage in cinema and in new media, and historical ties between avant-garde film and new media.
Posted in art, cinema, media, technology, theory
Searchlight: Consciousness at the Millennium
Edited by Lawrence Rinder (1999)
This book is an unprecedented exploration of the nature of consciousness and its embodiment in many forms of contemporary art including painting, sculpture, installation, video, film, and computer media. At what is possibly the most portentous moment in recent history–the turn of the millennium–Searchlight reveals the threads of a new aesthetic, reaching from the early nineteenth century through its extraordinary fulfillment in the art of the present. Consciousness is the bedrock of all experience, the foundation of all perception and interaction, the source of meaning. As such, it may be said to have been the primary subject of art for the past 125 years, ever since the Modernist revolution of the nineteenth century shifted artists’ goals from the direct representation of the seen world to the expression of felt experience. As art increasingly focused on the perceiver rather than the perceived, the consciousness of the artist and the viewer moved to the foreground of the artistic event.
Posted in art, consciousness, exhibition, philosophy, science, theory
Enchanting Modern: Ilonka Karasz
Ashley Callahan (2003)
Ilonka Karasz’s career spanned several decades and media, including textiles, furniture, ceramics, wallpaper, and graphic design. She produced over 150 covers for The New Yorker. Enchanting Modern: Ilonka Karasz (1896-1981) is the first book dedicated to the life and work of the artist.
Posted in art, biography, design, exhibition, history