29 Oct 2010

MediaArtHistories out as educational edition (paperback)

MediaArtHistories out as educational edition (paperback)

MediaArtHistories (MIT Press) edited by Oliver GRAU now out as a paperback educational edition, ISBN 978-0-262-51498-9

Leading scholars take a wider view of new media, placing it in the context of art history and acknowledging the necessity of an interdisciplinary approach collaboration in new media art studies and practice.
www.mediaarthistory.org/pub/mediaarthistories.html

With contributions by: Rudolf ARNHEIM, Andreas BROECKMANN, Ron BURNETT, Edmond COUCHOT, Sean CUBITT, Dieter DANIELS, Felice FRANKEL, Oliver GRAU, Erkki HUHTAMO, Douglas KAHN, Ryszard W. KLUSZCYNSKI, Machiko KUSAHARA, Timothy LENOIR, Lev MANOVICH, W.J.T. MITCHELL, Gunalan NADARAJAN, Christiane PAUL, Louise POISSANT, Edward A. SHANKEN, Barbara Maria STAFFORD and Peter WEIBEL


REVIEWS     

 "A rich selection of important texts by some of the most noteworthy figures
in media art history, and together they will do much to shape the content of
this new discipline."                                                
 -- Charlie GERE - Art Book

"Hmmm. That looks pretty handy."
-- Bruce STERLING

"MediaArtHistories does a commendable job of capturing media
art and legitimising its history as a distinct field of research."
-- Charlotte FROST, MUTE    

"The essays presented in MediaArtHistories comprise a compelling addition
to the bookshelf of any academic interested in art history."
-- Paul THOMAS, realtime +onscreen

"MediaArtHistories provides a wide view on the complex, in-progress field
of media art, in which this volume intends to stand as one of the main
bibliographical reference points."                 
-- Horea AVRAM, Rhizome.org

"MediaArtHistories is a very useful and relevant anthologie (..)."
-- Eric KLUITENBERG, springerin     

"MediaArtHistories is an important--and timely--book. Scholars, teachers,
and artists all have much to gain from reading it."
-- Dene GRIGAR, Leonardo Reviews     

"Es gibt einen unbestreitbaren Bedarf für Graus Buch. Kaum irgendwo
ist das unerschöpfliche Arbeitsgebiet, das Grau umreissen will,
systematisch erforscht und beschrieben worden."
-- artnet      


CONTENT
Digital art has become a major contemporary art form, but it has yet to achieve acceptance from mainstream cultural institutions; it is rarely collected, and seldom included in the study of art history or other academic disciplines. In MediaArtHistories, leading scholars seek to change this. They take a wider view of media art, placing it against the backdrop of art history. Their essays demonstrate that today's media art cannot be understood by technological details alone; it cannot be understood without its history, and it must be understood in proximity to other disciplines - film, cultural and media studies, computer science, philosophy, and sciences dealing with images.     

Contributors trace the evolution of digital art, from thirteenth century Islamic mechanical devices and eighteenth century phantasmagoria, magic lanterns, and other multimedia illusions, to Marcel Duchamp's inventions and 1960s Kinetic  and Op Art. They reexamine and redefine key media art theory terms--machine, media, exhibition--and consider the blurred dividing lines between art products and consumer products and between art images and science images. Finally, MediaArtHistories offers an approach for an interdisciplinary, expanded image science, which needs the "trained eye" of art history.
 
More reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/MediaArtHistories-Leonardo-Books-Oliver-Grau/dp/0262514982
http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/mah-rev